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Dear Prudence,
I dated “Steven” seriously about four years ago. We broke up when my career took me elsewhere. Steven has been dating another woman, “Tish,” for several months. Steven and I have been in vague contact over social media but only really see each other at mutual friends’ events. The one time I met Tish, she was aggressively friendly to me and then apparently set about trashing me; many friends have told me she speaks of me with venom. I’ve recently moved back to my old city, and my plan was to just avoid them both. But I have been told (again by mutual friends) that Tish and Steven will not attend functions if I am there. We’re all adults in our 30s! I don’t want to have to find all new friends. I don’t have much in common with my colleagues and haven’t had any luck meeting people through volunteer work.
Steven recently sent me a private message explaining that Tish finds me “intimidating” and bad for her anxiety. He suggested that I give our friends some breathing room since I am making them choose here and Tish just needs some time. My first thought was to say that was the most pathetic and egotistical thing I have ever heard. My next thought was to ask Steven where his balls were—Tish’s purse? I have not responded at all yet. Our social group only really gets together a few times a month. There is not a lot of overlap. I have no clue how to move forward here, if I should tell people the truth or just play it by ear?
—Avoidant Ex
I’m so relieved you wrote to me before saying “Where are your balls—Tish’s purse?” to your ex. Perhaps my fondest wish for this column is to help prevent the necessity of having to apologize to someone who’s behaved rudely, as there are few things more demoralizing than realizing you’re going to have to choke back your pride and say you’re sorry to someone who’s been trying to get a rise out of you for ages.
Steven and Tish’s request that you hold yourself personally responsible for her insecurity is unreasonable, and you were right to ignore it. Continue to ignore all unreasonable requests, if any more should arise, and attend whichever get-togethers you like. You are not making anybody choose a side. If Steven and Tish decide not to go to the movies with friends simply because you’ll be there and you dated Steven four years ago, they are free to do so. If your mutual friends continue to give you secondhand messages about what Steven and Tish think of you, tell them (politely!) you’re not interested in playing a game of telephone. It is juvenile, and there’s nothing you have to do here except see your friends and enjoy the fact that you’re not in a relationship like Steven and Tish’s.
Help! I Found Out My Boyfriend Did Blackface in College.Danny M. Lavery is joined by Faran Krentcil on this week’s episode of the Dear Prudence podcast.
Dear Prudence,
I have a friend who is a heavy social media user. She sends me Snapchats of mundane things throughout the day and tags me constantly in Facebook and Instagram posts that are totally unrelated to my interests. If I weren’t constantly getting notifications from her, I’d check these apps once a day or less. It’s gotten worse because she is depressed, lonely, and working a boring job that she hates. It’s been hard to get her to see me in person or talk to me, so I make an effort to respond to them because it’s the only way she’s connecting with me right now. But it’s getting really annoying that my phone is always blowing up. I really want to turn off my social media notifications and cut back how often I’m checking these apps, but I’m afraid that will be hurtful or cause her to withdraw from me even more. How can I talk to her about the fact that she’s sending me BuzzFeed quizzes all day but won’t engage in normal conversation with me? She straight-up ignores my messages if they aren’t a response to “Pick your favorite vegetable and we’ll tell you which Disney prince is your soulmate.”
—At a Loss
You don’t need to ask your friend’s permission in order to turn off social media notifications—do it right now. Even if your friend hates her job and is going through a hard time, you have every right to develop whatever relationship to social media you think best, and it’s not unsympathetic or unsupportive to decide you don’t want to check Facebook 12 times a day. That sounds exhausting and unpleasant! But part of what’s tricky about depression is that it can make maintaining friendships and conversations beyond “take a look at this quiz” extremely difficult. That doesn’t mean that the quizzes are the only thing standing between your friend and total isolation. You can still offer her your support while also cutting back significantly on your social media time.
After you’ve adjusted your settings to your own liking, tell your friend that you’ll be less online from now on, but that you’d love to keep in touch in person or over the phone. You can be upfront about your choice while also acknowledging her struggles: “I wanted to let you know I’m trying to scale back on social media, so if you notice I don’t respond as often to Snapchat, that’s why. I think it’ll be really good for me. But I also know that’s the way we’ve often kept in touch, and I don’t want to fall out of contact with you.” You may even want to ask if she’s noticed that she’s stopped responding to your texts too (it’s possible to acknowledge that shift without judgment or recrimination), and whether there’s anything you can do to help or anything she needs to talk about. It may also mean, every once in a while, leaving her a message or sending her a text that ends with, “You don’t need to call me back if you don’t feel up to it; just know that I’m thinking of you and hope you’re taking care of yourself today.”
Dear Prudence,
My stepmother spent my childhood cutting me down to build her daughter up. Any accomplishment of mine was nothing, and anything my stepsister did was celebrated. I would get straight A’s, and I got lectured. My stepsister managed not to completely fail her honor classes, and she got a party. I dropped out of college to pursue a career in a technical field; my stepsister failed out completely. She currently works in retail but plans on pursuing a master’s degree.
I got a promotion at work and threw a small gathering to celebrate. My stepmother started to belittle me, saying any “idiot” could work at my company and that it was all busywork. I told her that at least I wasn’t stupid enough to have over $75,000 in college loans and working for minimum wage. I left school with a 3.8 GPA, and my company was offering to pay for me to finish it. I told her to leave—I wasn’t going to listen to her while she ate my cake. My father told me I couldn’t speak to his wife like that. I told him to leave too. My stepsister was in the next room. I wasn’t thinking about her; I just wanted to stand up to my stepmother. My stepsister announced to the room that what I had said was 100 percent true, and she congratulated me. Then she left. I haven’t spoken to anyone in my family. My parents can go rot for all I care, but I know I owe my stepsister an apology. We aren’t close, but she did not deserve that. Every time I try to get the right words out, they get tangled up in resentment and regret.
—Constant Comparison
It might help to put what you want to say in writing if you don’t yet feel prepared to have a conversation with your stepsister about the painful forced-competition dynamics you experienced growing up. I’m of the opinion that an apology should usually be able to stand on its own without a lot in the way of explanation, if only because that can pretty quickly start to look like a series of excuses or mitigation. Your goal shouldn’t be to try to heal your relationship or perfectly address everything your parents did wrong in the past. It should simply be to apologize for what you said at your party. And nothing could really be simpler: “I’m so sorry for how I treated you at my party. I don’t think you’re stupid, and I should never have said that. I was angry and wanted to lash out. That’s no excuse for how I spoke about your work and your life. I know you work hard and that you’re excited to get your master’s degree, and I’m sorry I spoke so rudely about your life. I want to find ways to defend my own life without trying to tear other people down, so that even if I find myself getting angry or defensive in the future, I don’t say things like this again.”
Unless your stepsister congratulated you in the most sarcastic of tones, she seems to be on some level aware that your parents have a history of forcing comparisons between the two of you and also objected to the way they spoke to you at your party. You two may not necessarily become the closest of siblings after this, but it’s possible she’ll be receptive to your apology and want to talk more about your shared history, which may help put to rest some of the old resentments your parents have tried to engender. Good luck!
Catch up on this week’s Prudie.
Danny M. Lavery’s new book, Something That May Shock and Discredit You, is out now.
More Advice From Care and FeedingMy 3-year-old was just invited to his first school friend birthday party. This will be the first party where I don’t know the parent. He has a severe peanut allergy, and I have a lot of anxiety about it. Which is the best way to handle this?
1) Go to the party but leave before cake time, inevitably resulting in a tantrum and probably both of us crying on the way home.
2) Go to the party and bring our own snack box with a cupcake. I’m nervous this will make me look like “that mom” and appear really high maintenance. I would text the mom beforehand and let her know that I’d be bringing our own.
3) Stay home. This is my preferred option but I know I can’t keep him in a bubble forever.
I like the birthday boy. He and my son hug when they see each other at school in the mornings. I know he would have fun, and I don’t want him to miss out on normal kid experiences because of his allergy and my anxiety. I’m probably overthinking this.
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