Bossy Betsy

We can work it out?

bossybetsy — Thu, 20 May 2010 17:49:11 +0000

Dear Betsy,

I’m kind of in love with a guy. We hang out all the time and we laugh and have fun and agree on everything. He’s pretty much perfect for me. Like, randomly throughout the day, he’ll call me, recite a Sue Sylvester quote, and then hang up. Isn’t that awesome?

The only problem is, he is sort of gay. I mean, he says he’s gay. He seems like he’s gay. But he’s never had a boyfriend or anything, so what if he’s not gay? If I may quote Sue, “So you like show tunes. It doesn’t mean you’re gay. It just means you’re awful.”

How do I tell him I want to be with him forever? I’m afraid he’s going to freak out. I don’t want to ruin the friendship, you know? But I have visions of us getting married and living happily ever after and watching Glee together for the rest of our lives.

Signed,
We can work it out?

Dear Work Out,

No. You can’t work it out. If a guy tells you he’s gay, that means he does not have any interest in getting married to you and living happily ever after. He won’t be living happily, because while you’re watching Glee, he’ll be wishing he was with Mr. Schue instead of you. That’s not what you want for him, or for yourself.

When I was in law school, I used to have a best friend named Jeff, who was also same-sex oriented. It was when Will and Grace was still on TV, but we didn’t call ourselves Will and Grace. He called me Oprah and I called him Gayle. Because I was bossy and he was gay.

Jeff and I used to like to have drink or three on Friday afternoons after we were done with our last class of the week, and then we’d go to the Bon Marché to look at all the stuff we were going to buy when we were out of school and had fabulous, lucrative careers. (Ha.) One day when we were in housewares looking at stand mixers, I had a brilliant idea–we could get married! And then we could register for all kinds of presents that people would buy for us, and his parents would speak to him again! And we could have a fabulous honeymoon in Ireland, where we both wanted to go. “And then,” I said, “we can do our own annulment!”

Jeff freaked out and ran away. I went through every department in the Bon looking for him. He wasn’t in Menswear. He wasn’t in Leather Furniture. He wasn’t in Baths, which was his favorite. I finally spotted him hiding in Matronly Attire, which was a place I’d never seen him go to before. Finally I pinned him against an old lady dress and demanded to know what his damage was.

“YOU SAID WE COULD DO IT ALL NIGHT!” he cried. What? “YOU SAID WE COULD DO IT ALL NIGHT. You said we could get married and do it all night! I’m GAY! I can’t do it with you!” When I stopped laughing, I explained that I said we could do our own ANNULMENT. Not IT ALL NIGHT. He started breathing normally again. The color returned to his face.

But things were never the same between Oprah and Gayle after that. I think he thought that I secretly harbored a desire to do It All Night with him, which I swear to you I did not. Plus then I quit law school and we drifted apart and blah blah et cetera.

My point, Work Out, is that people are who they are and you can’t make them be who you want them to be because it’s better for you. That’s not cool. Also not cool? Taking Sue Sylvester seriously. We’re talking about a woman who often yells at homeless people: “Hey, how is that homelessness working out for you? Try not being homeless for once.” Not cool, Work Out. Not cool.

Some day you’ll find an awesome guy who is not terrified at the prospect of It All Night with you. And who knows, he may even like Glee. (Probably not. But maybe. It could happen. Possibly.)

Hope that helps,
Bets

Got a problem or a Sue Sylvester quote? Email me at advice at bossybetsy.com.

Busy week.

bossybetsy — Thu, 06 May 2010 12:02:23 +0000

Hey, guys. I’m having a busy week at my real job. I don’t have time for a whole letter, but I did want to tell the person who found me by Bingoogling “what do you do when your boyfriend and his friends feel that you are too bossy” that boyfriends are optional. If they think you’re bossy because you’re bossy, stop bossing them. Or get a blog. If they think you’re bossy and you’re not, ditch ‘em. HTH, Bets.

Cousin Scroogey

bossybetsy — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:48:29 +0000

Dear Betsy,

Ugh. I have to go to my cousin’s wedding this weekend. There is no way I can get out of it. I don’t mind going so much, but the thing is, there are only two people in the whole world who think this marriage is going to last more than a year, tops, and I’m not even sure about the groom. It’s her second wedding (she’s 24) and his third (he’s 39). They met in rehab. My aunt and uncle are broke from the first wedding (and rehab), so my cousin and her husband-to-be are going into massive debt to pay for their big day. Then they’re going on a tour of Europe. With his teenage daughter. Do you see what I mean? No chance.

They’ve registered for cash. I guess you can do that now. Register. For cash. Here is my question: do I have to give them a present? I don’t want to be a jerk, but I can’t afford my own European vacations, let alone theirs. I would buck up if there were any hope of this thing working, but let’s be real. They’re going to split up before they even get to the Mona Lisa.

Sincerely,
Cousin Scroogey

Dear Scroogey,

Wow. Okay. I suppose I should argue with you about the potential longevity of this union, but I don’t think I can. I have a really good track record of attending weddings and predicting whether the marriages will last. I don’t think I’ve been wrong yet. In fact, I was just asking Ryan the other day whether he thought people would pay for my services. I’d go to your wedding, and then afterwards I’d issue a report detailing how long I think you’ll stay married. He contends that a) all of my prior predicting experience is with people I know, and b) nobody thinks they’re going to get divorced until they’re actually getting divorced, so no one would give me money to tell them the clock is ticking on their blessed union of souls.

Anyway. Back to you. The clock is definitely ticking on this one. But a wedding gift isn’t really a reward for picking the right person to marry. On the other hand, it seems like it’s turned into more of an in-kind payment for the party they’ve invited you to. Or a cash payment, I guess. I don’t like that. Gift should be given freely. They shouldn’t be demanded or expected. And it kind of seems like they expect their guests to bankroll their wedding.

I don’t know what Emily Manners would do in this situation, but what I would probably do is hold off on giving them a gift until after they get back from Europe. If they’re still together, get them a nice picture frame for one of their honeymoon photos. Because they’ll always have Paris. And divorce attorneys. But also Paris.

Hope that helps,
Betsy

Want to know if you’re on the pending divorce list? Email me at advice at bossybetsy.com.

A Klutz In Love

bossybetsy — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 14:40:15 +0000

Dear Betsy,

My boyfriend is a jock. Not a meatheaded nut-scratchin’ “WOOO!” jock, but an actual enthusiastic athlete. He runs in races, bikes everywhere, swims to relax, etc. He also runs with a crowd of people who have similar interests, so he and his friends are always rushing off to play volleyball and tennis and whatnot.

Now that we’re dating, he’s very excited to share all these activities with me, so he’s always inviting me along. And the “invitation” often comes in the form of unintentional pressure – “Come on, are you coming? You’ve gotta come! It’ll be so much fun! Seriously! You’ve gotta come along!” etc.

I know he’s just excited, and actually, I think it’s sweet that he wants to share this side of his life with me (and the positive influence associated with getting me in better shape doesn’t hurt either). The thing is, I’m a sedentary, bookish sort and always have been. I stay in decent shape just because I live in the city and walk everywhere, and I noodle around with some Pilates and jogging in my spare time, but these are solitary endeavors, and that’s the case for a reason. I’m an exceptionally clumsy person, uncoordinated and easily winded, and I never developed the muscle memory for playing sports that most people did when they played as kids, because I just… never did.

I’m horribly anxious about flailing around like a huge doofy goober in front of my boyfriend and (especially) his friends, and I don’t want everyone having to grit their teeth and be a good sport while I’m just clearly dragging the true athletes down. The whole thing is kind of making me want to hide, but I don’t know how to tell my boyfriend that without dampening his sweet “let me show everyone how awesome you are!” enthusiasm.

Help me, Bets – this is like eighth grade gym class all over again.

Signed,
A Klutz In Love

Dear Klutz,

Come sit over here by me and we’ll talk about it. While we’re sitting. Because that is what I am good at. I am very, very good at sitting and sitting-based activities. I am the Christa Luding-Rothenburger of sitting–if there were a sitting event in the Olympics, I’d medal in the Winter and Summer Games.

So, Klutz, I get where you’re coming from. On the one hand, there is your athletic boyfriend. On the other hand, there is your couch. They are both highly desirable. You can only enjoy them at the same time on a limited basis. You must find a way to divide your time so that neither is jealous of the other.

I would advise you to sit your boyfriend down on your couch and explain to them that you love them both. You explain to your boyfriend that some people are natural doers and some people are natural watchers of the doers, and that you fall into the second category. You can tell him that you’re not comfortable being a big goob in front of his friends, but that you do enjoy accompanying him to his various athletic pursuits, and that sometimes you’d prefer to watch him rather than your feet. And then you tell your sofa that you won’t be sitting on it quite as much anymore, but you’ll never abandon it. You’ll always come back. Always.

Hopefully that will satisfy everyone. And if you ever need anyone to sit with you while you are watching the doers, let me know. I will bring my knitting and my trail mix and my half-caf sugar-free vanilla iced latte, and we can sit there for days.

Hope that helps,
Betsy

Need advice on the best places to sit, or anything else? Ask me at advice at bossybetsy.com.

My crime is time.

bossybetsy — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 15:39:28 +0000

Dear Betsy,

My stupid friends are stupid, and so am I. A couple of weeks ago we were out and I was drinking and someone asked me who my celebrity crush was. I couldn’t think of anybody. They wouldn’t let me say I didn’t have a celebrity crush. Unfortunately, right before I left to go out I was watching Celebrity Fit Club, so the only person who popped into my head was

Yeah. Sebastian Bach. I could just as easily have said K-Fed or Harvey Whatsit the Fourth, but I didn’t. Ever since then, people have been posting Skid Row videos on my Facebook wall, or singing, “I’ll Remember You” when I walk by. But the worst thing was that it turns out that my friend’s cousin’s sister’s uncle or something is his accountant, so they got Sebastian Bach to call me on the phone. They told him I was his biggest fan and I have alopecia. He felt sorry for me. He asked me about my hair and what my favorite song of his was. I lied all over the place. I was so embarrassed.

How do I get them to stop with this? I am so tired of hair metal I could scream.

Signed,
My crime is time, and it’s 18 and life to go.

Dear Crime,

I think the solution is clear. You need to get someone in your group to admit to being a fan of someone way more embarrassing than Sebastian Bach. Maybe next time you’re out drinking, you ask one of your guy friends how where he stands on the Tiffany vs Debbie Gibson question. Or see if you can get a dude to confess to having liked the Annie movie when he was a kid–either the 80s original or the 90s TV version, it doesn’t matter. Or, I have a way better one–get anyone to tell you which Golden Girl he or she would hook up with. (Don’t let them pick Blanche. Everybody would pick Blanche.)

It looks like you’re going to have to fight like a switchblade so no one can take you down. Do you have tequila in your heartbeat? Do your veins burn gasoline? If yes, you can take them. And then they’ll forget all about you and Sebastian, and start Photoshopping your other friend getting busy with Dorothy Zbornak.

Hope that helps,
Bets

Need advice or the lyrics to a mid-80s light metal power ballad? Email me at advice at bossybetsy.com.

Antannae Waving

bossybetsy — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 12:40:11 +0000

Dear Betsy,

I used to listen to that song “Ants Marching” by Dave Matthews and think, man, I need to go do something with my life. But now I’m older, and when I hear it I think, screw you, Dave Matthews. We can’t all be hippie musicians. The world needs accountants, too.

So who is right, Dave or me?

Signed,
Antannae Waving

Dear Antannae,

I’m kind of a Thomas Jefferson fangirl. If you can overlook his ooky personal life, which I can, he was a pretty amazing person. That whole inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness thing? Brilliant. Although my recollection is that someone, maybe Adams, inserted the “pursuit of” in front of happiness. Even TJ needed to be walked back from time, I guess.

If you pursue happiness through accounting, rock on. It seems like you don’t pursue happiness through the Dave Matthews Band. Next time the song comes on the radio, change the station. Conforming via non-conformity is so ’95.

Hope that helps,
Betsy

Got a problem? You can ask me about it at advice at bossybetsy.com.

People. They’re the worst.

bossybetsy — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 12:34:07 +0000

Dear Betsy,

Why do people suck so much? I was reading about Constance McMillen this morning. She wanted to go to prom with her girlfriend. Some adults in her town organized a separate prom for her to be excluded from, so she was only one of a handful of kids at the official prom.

Why did they think this was an okay thing to do? And why is this bothering me so much? I’m not gay and I’m never going to another prom. I don’t know why I care. But I can’t stop thinking about it.

Signed,
People. They’re the worst.

Dear People,

Man. I don’t know. I have been sitting here trying to put myself in the shoes of one of the parents who arranged the private prom, and I don’t think I can do it. I can’t figure out what’s so scary about two girls dancing together. Have they never been to a high school dance before? Girls dance together.

I don’t know why they cared about whether Constance went to the prom and with whom, but I do think I know why you care and I care. Way too many current and former kids know what it’s like to be excluded from something by people who think they’re better than you are. Having seen both Mean Girls and Heathers, I think I can confidently say that even the popular kids can feel like no one likes them. But there is a big difference between feeling that way and having people prove it to you. If you know for sure that people are being mean to you to make themselves feel better, that stays with you.

Which makes it even more unbelievable to me that there were adults involved in planning the straights-only prom. They can’t all have been Regina Georges and Heather Chandlers, right? There had to have been some Cadys and Veronicas there. Where were they? What were they afraid of? I guess when there is a choice between what’s easy and what’s right, most people are going to go with easy.

So I suppose that’s the answer: some people need to put others down to feel better about themselves, and other people are willing to watch that happen because watching is easier than doing something about it. How’s that for a downer? If it makes you feel any better, I bet there is a kid or two who went to the downlow dance who is never gonna dance again, ’cause guilty feet have got no rhythm.

I hope that helps,
Betsy

How can we be sisters if we can’t be friends?

bossybetsy — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 01:10:25 +0000

How do I get over a close friend who moved away and doesn’t make the effort to stay in touch?

A couple of years ago, I made a very good friend through a social group I joined. We had a great time together, did a lot of fun stuff together, we had a lot in common, and we eventually started feeling like we were long-lost sisters. She is a lawyer and her first job here when she and her husband moved to my city didn’t work out, so she had been desperately looking for a job. She wanted to stay here but started applying for jobs around the country. Then suddenly she got offered her dream job, in another state. I was very happy for her, but of course I was sad for myself because I was going to miss her terribly, and I assumed that we would stay in touch, through email and Facebook and the occasional phone call.

She moved away about a year ago. Her husband still lives and works here and they fly back and forth to see each other when they can. I don’t expect to see her every time she comes back (I’ve seen her a grand total of once here, since she left) but I did expect her to stay in touch with me. She hasn’t.

I’ve written her maybe once every month and a half or so over the past year, mostly to ask how this and that is going with her, and to try to talk with her about current events that we’re both interested in. I like keeping in touch with people on email and in various ways online. It’s how I assume friendship is maintained over long distances; to touch base once in awhile, crack each other up, confide about things, comfort each other, give advice when requested, etc.

Well, she has not reciprocated. She never answers my emails. I have called her maybe three times since she moved away a year ago. She has never once called me. I prefer email to phone calls, actually, and my other friends can tell you that I am not terribly diligent about promptly answering emails, myownself. But to never answer them? At all? I would only do that if I disliked someone and wanted them to stop bothering me.

I hear from her occasionally on FB. At one point recently I posted about some music I liked and she wrote on my wall that she loved it too and that we were long-lost sisters after all (something we used to say to each other a lot). I thought, oh, okay, she’s apparently not mad at me or anything.

When I finally got tired of never hearing back from her on email I wrote to her and told her that I wondered if I had done something wrong, and made a joke about, “you never call, you never write . . .”. She didn’t answer that email either, but later she posted on my FB wall that she promised to write me soon and that she was terrible about maintaining long-distance friendships. Okay, that’s been about three weeks ago now. Last week I wrote to her to ask her about whether she knew a lawyer here in town to recommend for a friend of mine who is having job transition troubles. No answer. Not even a gosh, sorry, I don’t know anybody to recommend, I’ll write you when work calms down. Not any answer at all.

I feel as if I had a valuable friendship and that it’s slipping through my fingers away into acquaintance territory. And on a primal level, it sort of awakens those low self esteem feelings of, maybe I just thought she liked me and she really didn’t. Maybe I’m not important to people I thought I was important to. But no – she had talked about how hard it is to make good friends when you’re in your forties/fifties, and how glad she was that we had met.

And realistically, if I put myself in her shoes, I know that her job keeps her enormously busy. She has to travel a lot for work and works long hours, and she spends very little of her time online. So part of it is the contrast between our lives: reading and writing things online is just not something she makes time for, while it is a big part of my life. Still, you could read and respond to a stupid email from a good friend once in awhile, you know? How hard is that?

One thing I know about myself is that I’m often much too quick to assume hostile or contemptuous motivations to people in their interactions with me, when I feel like they are being [insert negative emotion] to me, while they actually think everything between us is fine. So it’s very likely that she has no idea how abandoned I feel by her lack of ongoing contact with me, and it’s very likely that her not ever writing me back has nothing to do with her fondness for me or our friendship.

So, realizing that I can’t make her do what I want her to do, how do I stop feeling sorry for myself about it and stop worrying about what it all means? I need a different perspective. Thanks for listening!

Signed,
How can we be sisters if we can’t be friends?

Dear Sisters,

She’s trying to keep her marriage and her career going in two different places. She doesn’t have time for friends. That’s my guess, anyway. It’s not that she doesn’t care about you, but if she has, say, ten energy units per day, she’s probably spending eight of them at work, one on her husband, and one on the kinds of things you need to do to stay alive. She’s out of energy units before she gets to you.

It’s not personal, as far as I can tell. I live in the same house as my husband and it takes me ten minutes to get to work on a high-traffic day, and I’m always out of my allotted energy units by the end of the day. I don’t think I could do what she’s doing. I can barely keep myself in clean underpants as it is. (I would like to blame my predicament on the underpants gnomes, but sadly it’s just that I am really bad at keeping up with my laundry.)

It may be that this friendship is slipping away. It’s happened to me, with people I thought were my long-lost sisters. It is sad when that happens. But it might not be that way for you and her. At some point things are going to slow down for her. Maybe she’ll even move back to your city, since her husband is still there.

I would dial back the communications so as not to add more pressure to her already over-filled days. Give her some space, and then later you can let her know that you’re ready to be her friend again when her life calms down. Even sisters aren’t all up in each other’s biz all the time. It’s okay to take a break once in a while. I don’t want to be all “if she loves you, she’ll come back to you”, but…if she loves you, she’ll come back to you.

Hope that helps,
Betsy

Need advice? Ask Betsy. Advice at bossybetsy.com.

It’s Past My Bedtime

bossybetsy — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 16:23:24 +0000

Dear Betsy,

I should go to bed early. Really, I should. My toddler wakes up at 6:00 am, and he wakes up at night relatively frequently. He usually falls back to sleep on his own within about a minute, so I don’t have to do much, but that wakes me up and disturbs my sleep. If I were getting six solid hours of sleep at night I might be okay, but I’m not, and I’m tired all the damn time.

Part of this will be solved by the toddler leaving toddlerhood. But until then, do you have tips to push myself into bed at 10:00 pm every night? I find it so alluring to be up at night. I’m a night owl by nature, the house is totally quiet, I can read or goof off on the computer or whatever. It’s valuable and precious time to myself. So every night, I tell myself I’m going to go to bed early, and every night I find myself reluctantly going to bed at 11:30 pm. That’s too late, but I love the quiet time.

Make me sleep, Betsy, because I’m doing a crap job at it.

Signed,

It’s Past My Bedtime

Dear Bedtime,

I am a morning person, so I don’t really understand the whole not being able to go to bed on time thing. I fall asleep in bars if I’m in one after 10:30. I only ever watch The Daily Show on the internet because it comes on at TEN O’CLOCK. And the whole Conan/Leno thing? Forget it. I never see either of them because 10:35 might as well be the middle of the night. I’m not, like, Amish or anything. I’m just tired.

I do have a couple of ideas. One would be to alternate stay-up nights with go-to-bed nights. That way you’re only tired half the time, but you still get to do whatever it is people do at 11:30 at night. Even numbered days you stay up, odd numbered days you go to bed.

Or, how about this: did you ever have sticker charts when you were a kid? I loved sticker charts. You could make yourself one right now. Do they still make scratch ‘n’ sniff stickers? Or the puffy ones? Whatever, it doesn’t matter. You can get whatever kind of stickers you like. Pick a fun thing that you really want to do or own, pick a challenging but not overwhelming number of days that you need to go to bed early, and then go earn your stickers. It doesn’t have to be stickers, if you’re not into that. You can count the days on your calendar. If you don’t like fun things that are fun. Like stickers. Or charts.

Those are my best ideas. If they don’t work, you can come stay at my house where I will promise to bore you to sleep by no later than 10:03 every night. Did I ever tell you about the time I spelled “gubernatorial” wrong? It was the fourth grade county spelling bee, and I’d never heard the word “gubernatorial” before…

Hope that helps,
Betsy

If you have questions, I have answers. I don’t know whose tagline that is, but I just stole it. Email me at advice at bossybetsy.com

Missing My Friend

bossybetsy — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:29:36 +0000

Dear Betsy,

My old friend is acting like a dirtbag. How do I preserve the relationship but get him to knock it off?

My mother’s best girlfriend from high school, Judy, is still a close family friend. She is married with 4 adult kids and we’ve all spent a good deal of time together. When I was in high school, their whole family moved in with my mom and me for a few months while waiting to close on a house. I have also worked for Judy in the past and partnered with her sons, Andrew & Chuck, on business deals. I enjoy them immensely and we all try to get together when my parents come to town.

Chuck got divorced 2 years ago after 16 + years of marriage. His wife left him for someone else. He has 2 teenaged boys who seem like great kids. I have always thought of Chuck as a stand-up guy. Good dad, good friend, stable, etc. When I heard he was “on the market” I tried to fix him up with a very good friend, but it didn’t pan out. Anyway, as time has passed, I have become more and more aware that he is off the rails. This came to a head this past Halloween, when I ran into him in a bar. We were both drinking and silly and I let on that I thought he was really cute when I was in high school, but was too shy to say anything.

Chuck has taken that interaction to mean that I am into him and he has tried to taunt me with it–telling me about the girls he dates & how much sex they have. His language and the derision for these women has been shocking. I told him he was offending me and that I felt that if the girl he was talking about could hear him, she would cry. I finally stopped talking to him and have been waiting for him to get his shit back together so we can be friends again.

Last night, out of the blue, Chuck texted (I think we can assume drunk-texted) me at 3:37 am. I emailed him this morning and told him, “3 am texts on a worknight are not appreciated. I am an old family friend, not some girl you met in a bar.” To which he responded, “OK.”

How do I make this stop and get our friendship back? I still think that stand-up guy is in there somewhere. I am worried about him but I can’t tolerate this.

–Missing My Friend

Dear Missing,

It sounds like your friend has developed a case of Acute Toolbox. There are many causes of Acute Toolbox. Sometimes people just decide that the rules of society don’t apply to them. Sometimes it happens when people take stock of where they’re at in their lives and figure everyone else sucks, so they may as well, too. Unfortunately, when left untreated, Acute Toolbox can turn into Chronic Toolbox, for which there is no known cure. See: Woods, Tiger; Edwards, John.

The most effective treatment for Acute Toolbox is confrontation. That’s when you say something like, “dude, why are you being such a toolbox? You used to be cool.” Or, if you want to take the more adult route, you could say, “I know you’re having a hard time right now. I am sorry your wife left you. I know that was a shock. It feels like you’re taking your pain out on the people around you. You didn’t used to do that. Is there some way I can help you through this? Do you need someone to talk to? I’m not going to stop being your friend, and I don’t want you to stop being mine.”

If that doesn’t work, it might be too late. He might be Chronic. If that’s the case, you don’t have to excise him from your life, but you do have to make some rules and he has to stick to them. Rule 1: you’re not interested in hearing about his dating life. Rule 2: no drunk dialing. If he is willing and able to follow those rules, there is hope that your old friend will be back someday. If he can’t, I’m afraid you’re going to have to change his name to “Chronic Toolbox” in your phone so that when he calls, you’ll remember that you’re not talking to Chuck, you’re talking to CT.

Hope that helps,

Betsy

You can find me on Facebook and Twitter. Please send letters to advice at bossybetsy.com. Have a swell day.