Dear Auntie BubboPants,
I have a question about the right way to answer well meaning people’s questions. My boyfriend (who I have been dating for 3 years) and I live and work in a small-ish town. I generally really like it because everyone looks out for one another, and this is certainly one of those cases.
You see, my boyfriend’s sister died unexpectedly in an accident a little over two months ago. They were extremely close and he was heartbroken. In the first week or two after the funeral when I would see people who would ask how he was doing, I knew what to say (“Oh he’s still quite sad. He misses her. Etc.”) But now that some time has passed, I don’t know what to say. Life has resumed its normal patterns for us both at work and in our social circles. When people ask how he’s doing, “fine” isn’t the right answer, but “He’s still quite sad” really isn’t the right answer either. So what do I say that doesn’t make him sound colder than he really is, or more of a basketcase than he really is?
I really appreciate the sentiment and am always happy to tell him that “jane” or “joe” asked how he was doing. I’m just not sure how to answer in a way that is both gracious and to the point.
Cheers,
Speechless – For Once In My Life!
Dear Speechless,
What a tough thing, I’m very sorry for all involved.
Quite often people do not know what to say after the death of a loved one. This isn’t unusual, death is something perplexing and word killing. Everything feels so inadequate in the face of death. But here the situation is turned a bit. Usually it’s the person on the outside unsure of how to proceed. You are the person on the inside unsure of where to lead people.
As a society raised on sitcoms and 90 minute blockbusters it can be easy to forget that there is an intermediate stage between situation and resolution. Those intermediate times are at best displayed as quick montages and then everything gets wrapped up nicely and off we go.
There is an intermediate stage in grief that can be so unquantifiable and intangible that we find ourselves unable to describe it. How IS your boyfriend? Is he still working through his grief? Does he find that he can mostly get back to the routine but is still struck breathless at the feeling of loss? Is he perhaps working through his grief?
I imagine he’s not ‘fine’ not by a long shot, losing someone you are close to and losing them suddenly is a very hard thing to endure. I think you should tell people the truth of the matter, that he is working through his sadness, but it is still very hard on him. People will recognize this. They will relate to that intermediate time because they have also been there and they will appreciate that you also know about it.
Grief is a very long and very personal process, and yet is so utterly universal. You are very lucky to live among people who take interest in and care so much about each other.
Dear Auntie BubboPants,
My husband has recently become obsessed with catching the mice in our house. Does he use traps? No. Does he use poison? No. He has become obsessed with trying to catch the mice with his own gloved hand! When he sees the mouse, he will set up barriers all around the room that the mouse is in to keep it trapped in that room. Then he will sit in a chair or on the edge of the bed with a glove on his hand and WAIT. If he sees or hears it, he will go racing after it. The biggest problem with this is that it doesn’t matter what time it is and what else is going on! It can be 3am and he will have lights blazing and cardboard thumping around! I know he is bored because his new employment doesn’t start for awhile, but it’s really aggravating me!
I’ve tried talking about it to him honestly and openly, but he doesn’t seem to see the problem. What else can I do?
Signed,
I Think My Husband May Have Been a Cat in Another Life
Dear ITMHMHBaCiAL,
He wants to catch the mice in his hand? He wants to put his hand down there and grab the mice? HA! I watched Chester chase a mouse around a campsite once and I know this…If a dog who has been specifically bred to find and kill small vermin cannot easily catch a mouse (he did not catch the mouse at all) then a guy who has been specially bred to drive a car and buy Mentos when they are on sale is not going to catch a mouse in his hands.
If that were the case then there would be a sudden and precipitous drop in the mouse population as we could all just reach down and pick them up.
So what can you do? As you know, I don’t like ultimatums. Ultimatums have a tendency to blow up in really unintended ways. I do think that this is the time to pull out the ‘angry from lack of sleep and absurdity and complete obliviousness to the needs of the wife’ card. You’ve tried open and calm and honest and now it is time for “NOW! Get back into bed NOW! You stop making noise now or so help me I will soak every single pair of your underpants in water and then freeze them! You stop this thumping and get back into bed and let me sleep FOR I AM YOUR WIFE!!! AND I DO NOT WANT TO BE ANGRY!!!”
If that doesn’t work, beat him with a shoe and then kick his ass out to the couch.
Or go adopt a batshit crazy, mean tomcat! You won’t even have to feed it, he’ll find his own food.
Dear Auntie BubboPants,
My need doesn’t pertain to relationships, but I’m confounded by the situation so I thought I’d ask you, oh-wise-one, for advice.
First, you’ll need some history so I’ll take you back to when my sister was 14 and 16 and my parents bought her a 1991 Bronco (which she quickly totaled) and classic 1965 Mustang respectively.
Fast-forward 4 years, and it’s my turn. I didn’t get to choose, instead I inherited my mother’s 1997 Sonata, and at the time I was happy. I loved it very much. I drove it all through high school and college until the wheels quite literally fell off (the transmission needed a 2nd replacement).
Meanwhile, they also bought my sister a 1994 Blazer because you can’t have a pretty girl in a smoking-hot muscle car in the shady neighborhood she moved into.
When the beloved Sonata got hauled off to the Junk Yard in the Sky, it was replaced by the most horrible 1989 Oldsmobile you can imagine. I admit I did throw a bratty, hissy fit when my parents bought it on the cheap. I wanted nothing to do with that car because it was nowhere near worth what they paid for it. We had several other options at the time that were A) better quality, B) newer, but C) more $$$. But, Mom pulled rank on me and said I’d better get used to it. So I slapped a KLUNKER bumper sticker on it and bit my lip.
Which brings us up to speed on the current issue, my gut reaction to the Oldsmobile proved correct. It’s a HUGE lemon. I have driven it for less than 1 year and we all know there is no way of fixing a cracked engine block of doom. So I have no car AGAIN.
All of that back story to ask this, is it ok to ask my parents to help buy / buy me a car? They’ve bought my sister 3 cars in the past. or is that just a whiny reasoning? I’m not opposed to compromise so maybe you could help out there, too.
Signed-
No Wheels and Broke
Dear No Wheels,
You wrote a lot but the answer is pretty easy. You know your parents better than I do, but from what you’ve written I can see no reason why you should not be able to ask them for some form of help (besides your bratty hissy fit, but it sounds like bygones are bygones and maybe you’ve all moved past this…I hope you moved past this or we need a different bit of advice!)
So, sure, go to your parents and ask, I think that would be okay. The thing that would not be okay is to use your sister’s cars as a bargaining chip. As kids, especially kids with siblings, we are always looking for ‘fair’, but any parent of siblings can tell you that ‘fair’ is not always what the kids think it should be. Most parents make decisions that seem really really unfair to kids but their reasoning goes well beyond sibling parity.
Come up with a plan before you go to your parents. Talk about what you can or cannot afford. Discuss insurance costs and maintenance and fuel costs. Go over why you need a car more than a bike or bus pass. Essentially, sit down at the table like an adult, show them that you’ve done your research and you understand that they are not an ATM and you are not still that hissy fit teenager. I don’t know many parents that would not be impressed by a show of responsibility and understanding of the situation.
Dear Auntie BubboPants,
Here’s a hypothetical question for you,
is it possible to be a gracious, compassionate, and graceful person without getting walked on and taken advantage of? And if not, how does one graciously, compassionately, and gracefully tell others to perhaps go take a flying fuck at the moon?
NonSigning Chicken Butt
Dear NSCB,
yes. yes it is very very possible to be gracious, compassionate and graceful while still maintaining your dignity and not getting walked on.
Set some boundaries. The first set of boundaries you set within yourself. It does you no good to have a set of boundaries for your interactions with others if you do not even know yourself well enough to maintain them.
From the sound of this hypothetical letter, it would seem you’ve found yourself pushed to the edge of something and you’re pissed. And you should be pissed! At yourself! You need to learn to understand where your limits are and then make a commitment to yourself that you will maintain those boundaries. Every time you find yourself grudgingly pulling a boundary line back a few inches at a time you also find yourself getting crabby and cranky. You think you are being gracious to the person, but if in your head you are thinking ugly thoughts then you are being gracious to no one, yourself included.
If you find yourself in a situation with a boundary that is being pushed and you are unhappy about it, then do not let it get pushed. Do not ‘give in’ and then find yourself fuming and trapped. Now, please be sure you understand. I am not say that you should be entirely inflexible. What I am saying is that flexibility should happen when you know it is the right thing to have happen. If someone needs to borrow some cash and you know that this is a situation that you understand and you know you can trust this person, it’s okay to be flexible if you are comfortable. If, on the other hand, there is someone who consistently borrows money in order to place bets on football games being shown on ESPN Classic and consistently loses and consistently cannot pay you back, then grudgingly lending him money is a violation of your boundaries.
It takes some time and practice but soon enough you will find that the need to tell people to take a flying fuck at the moon is diminishing.

Dear Auntie BubboPants,
I’m really worried i going to end up a crazy cat lady, help!
I’ know i’m only 21 but i can feel myself getting so bitter and jealous and sad and lonely. I have fantastic friends and im pretty happy most of the time but since i split from my first and only real BF nearly 2 years ago its been really tough. It took me a while to get over him, so it was 10 months later that i had a dalliance, a friends with benefits arrangement with an acquaintance, that was quite short lived due to the benefits being quite one sided. Then i got fed up of trying clubs after meeting a few guys there and tried online dating, had a few nightmare dates then met R who messed me around for 4ish months, he would leave the country without telling me, turn up 5 hrs late if at all or come round and manage to arrive, have sex and leave within the hour! I felt like the non yarny kind of hooker without the cash! I learnt alot from him about when to call it a day. And most recently there was my close friend L, who i had such a crush on years ago and i really fell for him but his feelings for me didnt really develop, but i kept on hoping they would but a couple of months in we had the “theres something missing talk” and so that was all over too. That was a while back and we are still friends.
The trouble is i cant keep picking myself up and getting over them and trying again. I know it always happens when your not looking and stuff like that but i just cant keep getting so close to having a relationship, and being loved, not just as a friend. I do remember that not every thing was perfect but when i had a real bf but i had an ally, a lover and someone to snuggle up to and i miss it so much. I’ve had “you cant hurry love” and “with a little help from my friends” as emergency comfort songs and relied on my knitting when im low and been crying on friends shoulders for nearly 2 years now. I’m getting fed up of being the single one when my housemate/best friend goes from relationship to relationship, it was 2 weeks between guys last time, both pretty serious and I’m getting really jealous. I’ve tried online dating, ive tried salsa dancing and societies and clubs but now i can salsa and i know that online dating didn’t work for me. I don’t like this bitter person im becoming, Help!!! Ive tried telling myself this time is for getting my degree, its my last year and that i shouldn’t worry about blokes at least until after that but i feel ive waited so long and it doesn’t seem fair, especially with my housemate finding it all so easy and having lots of sex the other side of our thin dividing wall.
I’m so scared its me, being the common denominator and all or that im somehow becoming unlovable, its like each guy leaves me more crazy,
Thanks for reading, any help would really be appreciated! I think getting this off my chest will have made a big difference no matter what you say! Sorry it ended up such an essay, thanks for listening,
Yours,
A Potential Bitter Spinster
Dear APBS,
Nah, you’re not going to be a crazy cat lady. I envision you with a house full of angry (ANGRY!!!) guinea fowl and a slot on the local news every once in a while!
Or not.
You said a lot! So let’s get started here.
When I first skimmed your letter this popped out, poked me in the eyes and smacked me upside the head:

This, my chicken butt, this is the essence of learning, the essence of survival, the essence of growing! We do not learn or survive or grow unless we fall down and get back up. Life is a series of falling down and getting up! and that should not be depressing in the least. We fall off the bike, we get up, we get on the bike and we fall off again. It’s frustrating and stupid and it hurts and who wants a dumb bike anyway? Right?! But every time you fall, your brain gets the message ‘oooh, okay that was not right’ calculate calculate ‘alright, let’s try THIS’! and eventually your brain gets the right mix of balances in the body needed to keep a bike upright and forward moving and you can ride your bike.
If you never fell off that bike then how would your brain have figured out what not to do when balance was needed? How would your brain have figured out the best ways to keep your falls from being super injurious? How would you have learned to trust the person teaching you this lesson?
We fall down and fail all the time and we do that because the brain can’t just learn what to do, it has to know why the other way does not work. We sometimes have to lose a game, lose a bet, lose a boyfriend to learn how to play stronger, stop betting or find healthy relationships.

This also surprised me because it is something I tell people. The common denominator in all of your failed relationships is you. It sounds really harsh (and sometimes when I say it, I mean it to be because the person I am talking to can’t understand why his girlfriends can’t just be silent robots!), mostly, it is not meant to be harsh. It is meant to make you stop. Full stop. Right now. Relationships aren’t something that just show up mail order. Relationships don’t come solid, prebuilt, plug and play, ready to wear!
Relationships are built. Each one is built starting with very little and slowly added to over time. The first part of a relationship is finding the right person. Finding the right person is not always what we think it should be. The ‘right person’ is not always the person we decide it should be. You need to come to a full stop and start contemplating yourself. Why do you consistently seem to pick potential mates that are unavailable to you? The jackass guy who treated you poorly, friend with benefits, friend without the spark?
You are absolutely seeking something in your life. You are trying to fill a gap or a need. You have an emptiness that you are trying to patch with ‘relationship’ and ‘boyfriend’ and ‘love’. I don’t want to sound corny, but relationships cannot patch you, they cannot fill what is missing in you. A relationship requires that you give more than you take.
Stop focusing on other people’s relationships and what you think you should get in a ‘fair’ world and start looking inward. What are you really missing in there? Until you find a way to make your own self whole, you will not be able to offer 100% to a relationship and that’s not fair to the other person.

Welcome back, my 12 pound pasta hounds! How are you this fine fine day? It’s been such a peculiar week for the good Auntie, but all in all she is optimistic about it all!
So let’s see if we can spread that optimism around, shall we?

Dear Auntie BubboPants,
I’m wondering if I should keep trying with my marriage or not. I remarried for the 2nd time in 2004, after being divorced for 18 yrs. My 19 yr. old daughter moved in too. Last March, 2008, I found out my husband had a My Space account, which he says he doesn’t know how he got it (it just appeared one day). In this My Space account, one of his “friends” is his ex-wife, who he declares to “hate”.
When I confronted him with my find, he said he knew I was right, and had already decided to tell her he couldn’t continue talking to her as it might hurt our marriage. I waited a couple of days, then went onto his My Space page and read his emails to and from his ex. He told her that I had found out they were talking and now he was going to have to start deleting all their emails so I wouldn’t see them. They discuss Me, my daughter, and everything about what’s going on in his and my daily life. He even typed word for word, some medical findings of mine. I’ve dropped hints, such as a “friend of mine found out her husband was talking to a women that the wife wasn’t also a friend of, and what I thought of it and how it would destroy the marriage if the husband didn’t stop, but he always says things like, “yeah, what a jerk, he shouldn’t be doing that..etc”, but he still continues to talk to his ex and discuss our life with her.
I’m fed up and have decided to put money away so my daughter and I can move out, hopefully, this Spring/Summer. Am I wrong? Should I still try? I’m just so DONE with the lying. I doubt I’ll ever be able to trust him again, especially whenever he gets on the computer.
Signed,
Distrustful

Dear Distrustful,
I’m a firm believer that all people need a certain amount of privacy. I don’t read David’s emails and he does not read mine, etc. But this privacy comes from a place of trust. I don’t read David’s emails and I don’t even have the urge to read them because I trust him and understand that maybe he wants to talk about things that he doesn’t want to share with me. That’s cool. I am the same way. Sometimes I like or need to talk about things that I don’t want to share with him. Not necessarily things that concern him or our relationship, just things that are personal or hard to explain or need advice from someone who is not beholden to me.
I completely believe that everyone deserves a bit of privacy. But that privacy is not a place to be unscrupulous or duplicitous! and that privacy exists in a place of trust. It is a sacred trust between two people. It is a privilege that comes from an integral place in the relationship. Violating that trust is violating the integrity of the relationship.
So, that’s what we have here, a violation of the integrity of your relationship. Why he has chosen to do this, I can’t answer. MySpace accounts don’t just pop up out of nowhere. There is not magical MySpace fairy that creates accounts for people and then populates them with ex spouses. So, yeah, that was a pretty lame response on his part and definitely an indicator of how he views the ideas of openness and trust and privacy.
Then he lied again by saying he would not talk to his ex anymore. He continued to talk to his ex. Not only did he violate the trust by lying to you, he also violated the more sacred idea that you do NOT TALK ABOUT YOUR CURRENT WITH YOUR EX!! (relatedly, people, please don’t share intimate details of your ex with your current partner. it’s childish and crass.)
I’m not particularly keen on the idea of reading his emails and then dropping hints, but you did it and you had a pretty solid reason for doing it. You need to come clean about that.
As for the question of should you keep trying? Each person in a relationship is 100% responsible for the success of that relationship. It would only be worth it to keep trying if your husband was truly willing to start being 100% responsible. Otherwise, you’ll only be carrying a burden that will eventually drop you to your knees.
Come clean about what you know. Be honest about how you feel. Discuss expectations and trust. You can bring up the violations of trust without being accusatory and I highly suggest you think about that before you sit down to discuss this. Accusations and ultimatums come to nothing in the end. If you have decided that you are not willing to put any more effort into the relationship, be clear about that as well. I am not saying you have to give him any ‘chances’, I’m just saying that everything needs to be put on the table so that things can be dealt with calmly and maturely.

Dear Auntie BubboPants,
I wrote to you several weeks ago about a baking question because you give such great advice and I wanted to share in the fun, even though I thought I would never have any type of relationship issue to write in about.
Well a bomb dropped in my life yesterday and I’m not sure who to turn to, so I thought I’d take another stab and writing in for advice.
Yesterday my best friend came to visit me for the day. She seemed really upset and after about 20 minutes she broke down and told me that she had heard from a very reliable source that my boyfriend had cheated on me while I was out of town (we lived on two different continents up until about six weeks ago). She said it took her so much by surprise and seemed so out or character for my boyfriend that she originally laughed, but her source said she was dead serious.
I called my boyfriend almost immediately to see what was going on and after relaying the story, he confirmed that it was true. In May he had gotten drunk with some friends and a waitress at a restaurant across the street from his condo ended up spending the night with him. Her version says they slep together, he says they made out, but at this point I don’t know who to believe.
Auntie, I have only been back in this area for about six weeks and am working hard trying to find a job and a place to live and I am staying with my boyfriend until I get settled somewhere. Last night we had a long talk about his cheating and also a lot of other things and I thought I felt better, but I ended up sleeping on the couch (I can’t even go into the bedroom) and feel just as physically sick as I did when the news was broken to me yesterday.
I normally kick a cheating boyfriend to the curb immediately, but I want to work things out with this one. I feel like this was an enormous betrayal that will take a long time to work through, but I also feel that the breach was a one-time thing that I really don’t forsee happening again. What I’m not sure of is if this willingness to work things out is based on the fact that he is providing for my room and boarding until I get on my feet. Honestly, I am in such a confused fog right now I don’t have any idea how to move forward.
Thank you for being there for all of us slightly-broken chicken butts.

Dear Slightly Broken Chicken Butt,
I put this letter after the one above intentionally. In the previous letter, the writer talks about a situation in which she has been pushed beyond the breaking point. In your letter, you have also had your trust violated, but you do not feel this is beyond the breaking point.
This is something I want to talk about. When you write an advice column you have to know that there is no single answer that works for all similar situations. There are few universal truths when it comes to humans, we are so dynamic and fluid. The minutia of every situation gets experienced and cataloged differently. What is “too much” for one person could be “workable” to another. What was “workable” 5 years ago might become “too much” now with a different partner.
You know your partner better than I do. The relationship can certainly be saved if both of you are willing to commit 100% to it. For any relationship to move forward each partner has to accept complete responsibility for their actions and their choices regardless of how much alcohol they consumed or how lonely they are! And you need to determine where you are in terms of your reasons for this relationship and your reasons for saving it. If you do truly love him and want it to work out, that’s cool. If you are just doing it because you need a place to stay, that may or may not be cool depending on how your boyfriend feels about it (since, of course, you are going to be very open and honest about it, right? RIGHT!).
Think, ponder, mull and noodle over this and then together work out what needs to be done. Just about anything can be fixed if both people want to fix it.

Dear Auntie BubboPants,
What to do when you can’t just kill her?
My husband (of 3.5 years) and I are coming out of a rough patch in our relationship. Many factors were involved and blah blah blah, but one of the biggest problems was his platonic but flirtatious crush on a former coworker.
My husband and I are both 31. This girl is 22, beautiful, and completely insane. No, really, she’s been diagnosed with a severe mental illness that my hubby didn’t know about until he’d already been sucked in. She’s a master manipulator, and she knows that the right buttons to push with my husband are a) act needy and b) make him feel guilty. She’s been appealing to both by telling him things like “I don’t have any friends other than you” (she moved here from across the country to be with her boyfriend) and “I’ll just kill myself if I don’t have anyone to talk to.”
He did ultimately recognize this for what it was, and he found a new job, changed his cell phone number, and shut down his MySpace because those were her main ways of contacting him. But the one thing he couldn’t easily do was change his email address, and she’s been emailing him almost daily ever since. Her moods change wildly and without warning…she can go from “Oh I had the best day today!” to “No one loves me I’ll just go slit my wrists now” in a matter of moments. She finally piled on enough of the latter to make him guilty enough to email her back a couple weeks ago. He swears it was just the one message, that she doesn’t have any other way of contacting him, and that in fact she thinks he left town (and me).
He has asked me repeatedly not to contact or confront her, and I haven’t. Yet. But I am getting fed up and I want her out of our lives. I feel like we simply cannot move forward if she’s still contacting him. As much as I would really like to just beat her down, I know that’s not the answer. My next best idea is to contact her boyfriend. I don’t know if that’s actually a good idea, though. Clearly the girl needs help, and presumably the bf is the one in a position to help make that happen. I just don’t know how much (if anything) he knows about her relationship with my husband, and I don’t have a clue how he’d take it. He could just as easily wash his hands of her and then she’d REALLY lay the guilt on my husband, which would make things that much worse.
So, back to my original question: What’s a girl to do when homicide isn’t an option?
Signed:
I really can’t think of anything clever to say here

Dear Irctoactsh,
What can you do? ignore. That’s it. Every email program comes with filters that allow the user to filter out certain messages when the mail is checked. I have a filter set up that takes every email that fits a specific criteria, marks them as ‘read’ and dumps them in the trash. I never see them, I almost never even know they exist. They don’t bounce back to the sender they just get trashed and are never seen.
Neither you nor your husband are are in any position to ‘help’ this girl. Any attempts on your part will only pull you deeper into the gluey mire. She’s been professionally diagnosed you say, so the people around her are aware of her issues.
For you and your husband to move forward you must live as though she does not exist. This is going to require a great amount of trust because your husband needs to block and never respond to her again and he needs to know that you trust him. You both need to work on this together and without secrets or reservations.
You cannot help her and ‘help’ may not be what she wants or needs right now. What you can do is work on your relationship. So do that instead.

Dear Auntie BubboPants,
I have a cousin my age who lives in Michigan currently. We used to be really close when we were little, even though for seven years her family lived in Singapore. We wrote letters and emails and included fun cards and presents and the sort of thing girls do with their pen-pal friends. Her mom sent lots of pictures of the family. When she moved back to the States, I got to see her on more holidays than usual and we kept in touch.
But gradually about two-three years ago, we began to lose contact. I was busy, she was busy, the letters stopped, so did the emails.
And so did the visits. I’m still not completely certain, but I think the main point was that her brother was arrested for marijuana possession, and her parents felt “ashamed”. They haven’t come down for any family holiday events in two years, I hardly know what they look like as the picture-sending has all but stopped. Now I haven’t seen my cousin in about a year and half, the last time being when I accidentally ran into them at our pool, while they were visiting their other family. They didn’t even call my grandparents to tell them they were in town.
I know the real reason behind the lost contact is between her parents and my grandparents, but I can’t help but feel guilty. I want to send her a postcard or a letter, but I’m afraid that she won’t reply. Mostly, I want my cousin as my friend again and our family feud to be put out of the way. I know the latter is very very unlikely, but is the former still possible?
~The Distant Cousin

Dear TDC,
What would you lose if you sent the postcard and she didn’t reply? You’d be out the cost of the postcard and out the cost of the stamp. You’d still be out those things if she did reply.
So send the postcard already! For whatever issues she may have going on right now, the offer of friendship is rarely unwelcome.

Dear Auntie BubboPants,
I am a sophomore in college. Now I’m going to go ahead and generalize that I am not an average college kid. I don’t drink, smoke, or do drugs. I’m in a stable longterm relationship and I do not party (in the sense of going out to bars and partying till 4am and throwing up on the floor…I prefer puzzles because I’m just a little bit of a loser) and I am perfectly happy with my chosen life.
Recently, my bestest bestest bestest friend in the whole wide world of 12+ years wrote me a facebook message telling me that she did not want to be friends. Neither of us are big on phone calls, so we never really called each other up to talk about life unless major problems happened, but we’re like two peas in a pod. She wrote to me telling me that I was boring and never wanted to have fun. I had told her a few days earlier that I didn’t want to go into the city and go clubbing with her because I really didn’t find that fun. She said my idea of fun is a tupperware party.
She ended our friendship over facebook, and even though I tried everything to talk to her, I haven’t heard from her in over 6 months. I am crushed. I really love my BFF and she just turned around an dumped me. I don’t understand why but it hurts so much. It’s obvious to me now that she really doesn’t want to be friends. How should I deal with this and get over her?
Sincerely,
Dumped

Dear Dumped,
That sucks, that truly truly sucks. Readers, look at this! If you are not happy with a friend and do not want to be friends anymore, this is a bright shining example of how not to do it!
People grow up, grow apart. It’s the rare relationship that survives from childhood through adulthood. You are not who you were in 2nd grade and neither is she. It hurts sometimes to have to realize that and accept it, but accept it we must because we cannot make people like us! We cannot make people not change.
You deal with and get over her the way you deal with and get over any broken relationship. You grieve for the loss of what you had, you acknowledge the pain and the brand new empty space. You treat the woulds tenderly and you take care of your needs. Then one day, you find it does not hurt so much. Then on another day you bundle up that last bit of pain and concern and you throw it on out to the universe, give up ownership and let it go. You can always miss her and you can always have fond memories, but do not let it eat away at you. Accept the grief, accept the pain, then accept the healing. It will make you stronger.

Dear Auntie BubboPants,
My boyfriend of three-and-a-half-years has pretty much stopped putting an effort towards looking nice for me. For the past year-and-a-half we have had a long distance relationship and when we do get the chance to see each other (anywhere from twice a month to once every two months, depending on our schedules) I get excited enough to wear nice jeans and a non-tshirt top, wear makeup, tweeze my eyebrows, etc. because seeing each other feels like a special occasion. My loving boyfriend, on the other hand, wears ripped jeans, tshirts with holes in them, AND sometimes will delay his shower until right before we’re ready to go somewhere.
The part that gets to me is that when he’s going to work or out with his buddies, he’ll shower, gel up his hair, wear a button-down, and EVEN PUT ON COLOGNE.
I’m not concerned about cheating or anything silly like that; I’m just kind of peeved that he doesn’t feel like he has to, or wants to, look/smell nice for me anymore. Am I being stupid? Does this usually happen after dating for so long? Should I stop wasting my time on how I look for him? Is there anything I can say that will make him want to make an effort (without causing a fight)?
Thanks, Auntie BubboPants,
~ Done With Stinky Boyfriends

Dear DWSB,
The other day I was sitting on the floor working on a project. I was wearing a sundress with a t-shirt under it and at some point had added a pair of jeans to the ensemble. My hair was sticking out in 16 unintended directions. Basically, I looked like a mess. David looked at me and said, “we could take you down right now and get you approved for any government assistance available! You look insane!”
It was funny and it was true. Now that I don’t go to a job and sometimes will go days without leaving the house I let some things go. This letter was a reminder to me that David is just as important, if not more important, than my friends or a job. So, yeah, I needed that little reminder.
What can you say that won’t cause a fight? Well, I find that accusations, ultimatums and anger are a surefire way to make someone defensive and argumentative…and then the fight begins. Be gentle, approach this with only kindness in your heart. Do not accuse, only share your concerns and open up a dialogue.
Now I need to go shower and put on some clean pants.

Hi Chester! We are Pearl and Pumpkin. We are cats and we’ve lived together for a long time. We also live with a lady. We both like the lady but we don’t really like each other. The lady wants us to be friends. Sometimes we think about it, but mostly we think no. What do you think?
Thanks!
P & P
PS: Our names are Pearl and Pumpkin but the lady calls us both My Baby Petunia-Head. What do you think about that!!?
HA HA HA PEEPEE!!! PP HA HA HA!!
Hi! HI HI! Hi! also HI! my name is Chester and I am the dog that knows the things that become all of the stuff!
HA HA HA!!! I get the letters from the pets that need to know the things and some of the pets are cats and all of the letters from the cats say the thing that is “do not like!!!”. So the thing that I know is that cats DO NOT LIKE anything! ha ha ha!! Do you know? YES!! you know because I just told you. Now you know.
Also, “my baby petunia head” ha ha ha!! My lady calls me all kinds of things! Muntz, Muntzon, muntzonite, puntsen, puntsen turner private eye, chest, duchenst, um-tunk, the little, fartbox, weenus, monkey, ohno monkee, little monkey, jerkus, walter, jerkwalter, and some things that I should not repeat for making the littles of the world scared and sad!!!
ha ha ha! BYE! you are cats! BYES!