Hey there, Sars —

Like any clichéd advice query, it starts with a break-up. My boyfriend of
four years recently decided that our relationship was not what he wanted.
Very sad and crappy for me, but it’s his decision and I have no choice but
to live with it. We obviously want different things. We’ve gone our separate
ways, returned each other’s belongings, no harm, no foul.

Until one day, about a week after the final nail has been hammered into the
break-up coffin, I’m perusing a certain well-known online personals site (so
sue me, I can look), and up pops my recent ex’s profile. (This is not the
harm-foul part; I was half expecting to see it.) The kicker is that the
photo he’s chosen to advertise his available status to the world is one that
I took, of him sitting on my couch, laughing and cuddling with my kitten.

He’s actually using my kitten to pick up women.

So my question is this: Do I call him on it?And not in a psycho Alanis
“you rat bastard, I can’t believe you are such an absolute pigfucker” kind of
way, tempting though that is on one level. I’ve pretty much taken the high
road throughout this break-up process thus far and would like to continue
doing so, for my own dignity as well as for the sake of our many mutual
friends. I was thinking more along the lines of an
“Would you mind finding a picture for your online dating profile that doesn’t involve me or my kitten”
kind of email. My friends (no, not the mutual ones, just mine) and family
are divided as to whether I should mention something or just let it go.

Cheers,
Love Your Ex’s Pets, Just Don’t Pimp Your Ex’s Pets

Dear Pimp,

So, your ex is the kind of guy who uses companion animals to pick up chicks.Guess what?Not your problem anymore.

It’s not like he’s using a photo with you in it and trying to pass you off as his sister or whatever.The kitten isn’t any the wiser, and frankly, any email in which you so much as suggest that he find another picture is going to come off as petty and obsessive.

Leave it alone.

Hey, Sars. Love TN, love TWoP…love everything you do! Keep it up.

I’ve just created my own web journal, and I was wondering about copyrights and the like. What precautions do I need to take in order to protect the content/material of my site (the name, entries, articles that I write, et cetera). Any suggestions?

Thanks a bunch!

Voodoo

Dear Voodoo,

I don’t know a whole lot about these things; I just threw a copyright notice into my footer and assumed that would dissuade any plagiarists from lifting my work.It hasn’t always worked — about a year ago, I found an online journal trying to pass off entire passages of TN essays as original work — but a curt “take it all down, now, or my lawyer is going to make you wish you were dead” email took care of that in fairly short order.

If you plan to take it farther than that (i.e. bringing a lawsuit instead of merely threatening one), you need more concrete evidence, and you need to have registered your copyright with the Library of Congress.The government’s idea of how online copyrights work is, like the government’s idea of most things, excessively complicated and full of exceptions relating to revisions and blah blah blah, but the Franklin Pierce Law Center has an informative précis on the subject of internet copyright protection here, which includes a list of online resources at the bottom.I’d also check out the LoC’s PDF worksheet, which the FPLC piece links to somewhere in there.

Short answer: I don’t know the ins and outs, but putting that little © on each page should cover it, at least as far as discouraging amateur idea thieves.But it’s good to have the facts at your disposal in the event that you have to fire off a cease-and-desist.

Hi Sars,

I have a dilemma on my hands, and I’m driving myself crazy trying to figure
out what my guy is thinking (or not, whatever the case may be).

You see,
I’m 32 and he’s 22, and while I never thought of age as an issue, I think it
is becoming one with the way we both view things.Like, all of his girl
friends.Not girlfriends, but friends that are girls.There are MANY of
them.And I’m not a terribly jealous person, but it just seems like — well,
he’s admitted it; he treats me the same as he treats his other friends.
Like, he will make a bunch of plans, and then tell me he has two days during
the next week open and which one would I like!I tried to tell him that, as
his girlfriend, I didn’t appreciate having to schedule time in to see him.
That’s just not right.I feel, as the girlfriend, that I should be primary
when it comes to going out on dates and doing things.Is it just me, or are
girlfriends and boyfriends now equal with regular friends?

I just don’t
understand him sometimes.I’m not even supposed to be upset when his
ex-girlfriend stays over after a “date” in another town.They are friends,
and he didn’t want her to have to drive for two hours to get home so late at
night.Is it just me, or should the ex have been a mature, responsible
adult and gone home at an appropriate hour?Plus, he never told me until
after the fact that she was staying over.He just told me that she was
stopping by.He said he didn’t want to upset me, and that she just didn’t
want to meet me or have me there.

Am I missing something here?I just
seem to feel that his priorities are backwards.And the thing is, I trust
him implicitly; it’s just the girls I don’t trust.I’m a girl.I know how
we act.I’ve been there before.And to me, if the ex didn’t want me there,
it’s not because she’s shy.

Please, Sars, I really need your advice on this.
He and I have gone round and round, and he just doesn’t seem to understand
what I’m getting at.Is it me, is it that he’s younger, or is it just maybe
because he’s insensitive?

Confused and Aggravated in Pennsylvania

Dear Aggro PA,

I don’t know if you can blame his age, but the two of you do see things differently.That’s not anyone’s fault, but it sounds to me like he’s just having fun and not putting you first, and if it’s coming first you want, you should probably look for another guy.

You can either accept that he gives his friends equal time and lets his ex sleep over and doesn’t see the big deal and that’s how he does things, or you can make it clear that you expect priority handling as his girlfriend and will walk if you don’t get it.But get ready to walk, because you won’t get it.He’s 22; from what you’ve told me, he’s not prepared to make that particular tough decision in your favor.

You should also think about why “it’s just the girls [you] don’t trust,” because I don’t buy it, and even if I did, it’s kind of fucked up.Your claim that you trust the guy implicitly doesn’t jibe with your complaints about how many female friends he has.It takes two to tango; if you think he’s going to go extracurricular with one of his buds, dump him now and get it over with.

[9/5/02]

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