Unwanted Advice

http://www.arcamax.com/lifeadvice/drjoycebrothers/s-898426

Dear Dr. Brothers: I did something to my mother, and I am not sure whether an apology will really help. I knew she didn’t want me to borrow her car because I haven’t had much experience driving since I got my license. But she knew how much I wanted to go visit a certain friend, so she let me. Then I had a minor accident, and I know she was very upset, though she tried not to show it. I paid for the damages, but I somehow don’t think that is enough. Do you? — F.F.

SHUT THE FUCK UP

My mom is renting my sister room cause she moving out and she knows I really want it and she said she going to rent it out to people she doesn’t know if she has to. I think it kinda ****** up that she is doing that.the big problem is that I don’t want a stranger living in my house when my room will be 5 feet away from it . And my mom said it will be a girl it doesn’t matter we can be robed or molested and i have been molested and I dont want it to happen again and it doesn’t matter if it a girl bad things can still happen am I wrong I talked to my mom and if I can’t confence her I’m just going to make sure every person that moves in I will make them move out am I wrong for being mad? Help me please !.!

Shut the fuck up, kid. You throw around the word “my” a lot.  It’s not your anything.  Until you pay the bills and stop being a deadbeat, you get no say.  Nut up. Times are tough. You’re bitching about not getting your choice of room and living with strangers when right now, there are hundreds of starving desperate illegal immigrants in container ships SHITTING IN BUCKETS who would slit your fucking throat open to just deal with your pathetic little problems.

You know who else probably doesn’t want a stranger in your house? Your mom. She probably has to so she can keep the roof over your ungrateful head.  She obviously is sparing her little prince the stress of her financial problems, but 23% of people are underwater on their mortgages, and it looks like your mom is one of them.  So go ahead and try and “make sure every person that moves in moves out,” because you’ll be right behind them. You know what else isn’t fun?  Foster care. Thats where you’ll end up if you drive away your family’s only means of support and you lose the house.

You want help.  Here it is.  Stop making things harder for your poor mother than they already are and get a fucking job. You might actually learn something, since the fry cook next to you probably has a PhD and only took the shitty job because it was all that is available.

Oh, and stop telling people you were molested so casually.  It makes people not believe you.  I sure don’t.  You’ve already said you’re a manipulator who will do what it takes to get rid of people you don’t like. You know who gets molested?  Kids that keep their mouths shut.  Not whiny little crybabies that go bitching to anyone that will listen when they don’t get their way.

June 15, 2011 : Savage Love | The A.V. Club

I’ve been married to my amazing husband for 11 years. I’m straight and love being with two men at once, and he’s bi, so that makes for crazy-hot-fun times. We have all the kids we want, so he’s had a vasectomy. I’m still fertile, but don’t want to end up pregnant by one of our thirds, so we’re taking every conceivable precaution. (See what I did there?) My question is this—if we’re performing oral on our third and he comes in my husband’s mouth and then my husband goes down on me, could I get pregnant via oral transfer?

Baby Shop Is Closed

Look, I’m as open minded as the next person, but while reading your question, I threw up in my mouth a little.

Dear Abby : Our daughter is divorced with two children. She has been dating a man who has three

children. Recently, they decided to move in together. All the children are first grade or younger.

oh, you shouldn't have

What would be the proper way to handle birthdays?

If my daughter and her boyfriend were married, or even engaged, I wouldn’t have a problem sending gifts to his children. But since my husband and I hardly know this man (we live in another state and have met him only once or twice), we’re not sure how to handle this. Should we just continue to send birthday gifts to our daughter’s kids and nothing but cards to his? Or would that look bad? What’s the proper thing? — FAIR-MINDED IN WEST VIRGINIA

Abby ‘s response as always offers good solid advice.

DEAR FAIR-MINDED: Your daughter and grandchildren have formed a household with her boyfriend and his kids. If you’re compassionate people, you will treat all of the children equally for as long as the

relationship lasts. If they decide to marry, which is a possibility, you will wind up being grandparents to all of them. If they eventually separate, you will have done the right thing and lent some stability and happiness to those children’s lives.

You almost had me fooled, Fair-Minded, but I see exactly what you are doing.  Letters like this are common, and usually it has to do with the parents not liking the new boyfriend or being downright cheap bastards. I’ve taken the liberty to rewrite your letter so your actual question is clear.

My daughter is living in sin with her new boyfriend.  I really want to see a ring on my daughter’s finger more than she does and it is driving me batty.  I think if they had one little extra push, they would do the right

thing and make their union official.  I don’t like confrontation.  Would it be ok for me to subtly exclude his children from our family until I get the wedding I so desperately want? – Grandma Knows Best

The answer is still no. Nice try though.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: At least several times a month, I receive “warnings” from well-intentioned friends. These are usually messages that have been forwarded many, many times, containing alerts about computer viruses, credit card scams, health issues, dying children yearning for business cards and the like.

Trouble is, that when I check the accuracy of these well-meaning messages, the vast majority turn out to be false alarms, many of which have been circulating for years.

Of course I always ignore the “please forward this to all your friends,” but what do I do vis-a-vis the sender? It seems rude to return a message telling them they’ve alarmed folks unnecessarily, but my not doing so simply encourages them to continue the practice of sending on unverified information.

Miss Manners follows up with some good advice

GENTLE READER: The phrase you need, if you wish to alert your friends to their mistakes, is “You will be relieved to hear that…”

Miss Manners’ idea here is to show sympathy for their concern, thus enabling you to explain how you found out, thus possibly encouraging them to check themselves before sending out the alarm.

So, we have a reader with a relatable problem, a nice tidy answer.  All should be good.

But I have to drive home a point.  While you can ignore these warnings all you like.  ALWAYS CHECK THEM OUT before you respond.

A few weeks ago, the following warning showed up in my email from a friend of my mom.

I see these things all the time, and it has all the hallmarks of a hoax.  Bad English, confusing Windows (a program) with Microsoft (a company), surprise and alarm, and somehow the writer out-smarts the scammer and wins in the end. Pretty standard, and I wrote back to my friend saying as much.  That would seem to end things,  except for one thing.

Talent on Display

DEAR ABBY: I have been in a relationship with a great guy, “Jonah,” for four months. We get along well and enjoy a lot of the same things. At times he can be jealous when other men notice me, but we have never had arguments about it. Only one thing about me really bothers him — it’s my infatuation with actor Mark Wahlberg.

Jonah is so upset about it he refuses to see any of Mark’s films with me and gets annoyed when I mention him. It irks me because I know being with Mark isn’t a realistic option, but Jonah acts like it is. What can I say to make him see that he (Jonah) is the only one I want to be with and Mark is just a fantasy? — STAR-CROSSED LOVER

Abby, apparently suffering from the same crush, responded with

DEAR STAR-CROSSED: You may have said too much already. Stop bringing up Mark Wahlberg and see his films in the company of your girlfriends. While Jonah may be a “great guy,” he appears to be somewhat insecure, which is why he becomes jealous when another man notices you. And insecure men can become irrational and controlling, so monitor his behavior and do not make any commitments until you both have matured.

You call yourself an advice expert and actually tell someone to go see a Mark Wahlberg film anyway?

Your boyfriend doesn’t have a problem with your fidelity.  It’s your judgement he’s got issues with.  You are swooning over an actor with the range of a baked potato. Sure, he has nice abs, but don’t you find his third nipple a little disturbing?

It is making your boyfriend insecure, because if you can overlook huge obvious flaws in Marky Mark, what are you overlooking in him? Guys need reassurance just as much as women, but when you show just obvious lack of judgement, it makes him have second thoughts about him, and you.

Everyone is entitled to a secret guilty pleasure.  Mine happens to be America’s Funniest Home Videos.  You have chosen to waste yours on the star of Planet of the Apes, I won’t stop you.  Just please, for all of our sakes, keep it to yourself.

Ask Carolyn tackles a 20 year old issue

CAROLYN: I am writing to ask if you think men and women can ever be just friends. Most of my guy friends started out liking me as more than a friend, settled for friendship but then let the friendship fade away as they started dating people. My boyfriend has no problem with my having guy friends, but my guy friends drop me once they find a girl to date.

Last year, I introduced my best guy friend to a good female friend. They hit it off and started dating. She soon stopped speaking to me, and he became very closed-off and awkward around me. When I asked him why everything was so weird, he would only tell me that she was uncomfortable with our spending so much time together. I live 10 minutes from him; she lives six hours away.

Is it, in fact, possible for a man and a woman to spend time together without causing jealousy from one or both significant others?

– I really just want to be friends

This question is so old and tired, I can just copy and paste verbatim a clip from a 22 year old movie (until it gets a  DMCA notice).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFWGOKuFyjk&w=500]

I just hope someone asks about faking orgasms soon.  That scene is much better, but sadly not relevent to the question.

Oh what the hell… you guys deserve it.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3eEDDjtQxA&w=500]

Dear Amy:I’m torn. I was recently at my best friend’s birthday party. I’ve known him since childhood.

I usually never carry cash, but I had some in my purse on this particular evening.

I was mostly hanging out with his girlfriend and left my purse, closed and tucked away, in the living room.

There were only four other people at the party besides my friend, his girlfriend and me.

The next morning I noticed that $80 was missing from my purse.

I was really blown away by this. I confronted my friend about it to see if he knew who would have taken it, and he completely blew me off.

He told me that no one at his house would do that, but I know I didn’t lose or spend it because it was in my purse when I arrived.

I feel completely betrayed because I think he should replace it, and he says it’s not his problem. What should I do?

I love our friendship, but if he’s not willing to help protect people’s personal property when they’re in his house how can I really trust being in his house unless I have my purse tightly in my grip?— Hurt Friend

Amy actually buys into this nonsense:

Dear Hurt:I agree with you that this creates a problem in your friendship but disagree that your friend should replace your stolen money — unless, of course, he took it, which you don’t seem to believe he did.

Approach your friend again, and tell him that his reaction concerns you. Ask him if he has any ideas of who might have taken it, and ask for his help and advice.

For the sake of your longtime friendship, you should give him an opportunity to step up and be a compassionate friend to you now.

And yes, I agree that in the future you should watch your valuables while at his house.

This issue requires some group intervention. I’d like to come over to your house some evening and discuss this in person with you and everyone who was at the party.  I am sure that I’ll find $5000 missing from my wallet that I knew I had when I arrived, but discover is missing the next day.  Even though you never saw it, I’m sure since we were all at your house, you would agree that is your responsibility to re-imburse me for my lost money (which you never saw by the way – just trust me).

Do you see how bat-shit crazy that sounds?  Now imagine how your friend feels. I don’t know where you grew up, but here’s a lesson that us city folk learn when we are children: Always watch your shit. If you don’t, it’s your own fucking fault. Just because you invite people over to your house, doesn’t mean that you are responsible for everything they may do. If you want to hang on to your valuable stuff, use the sense that God gave a squirrel and don’t let it out of your sight or hide it where no one will find it.

"Ridiculous --- NEXT!"

The last thing I would do is bring it up again. Your friend didn’t care much the first time.  Bitching about it again won’t help either. It will sound accusatory. And let’s be honest, you obviously think he had something to do with it and was using his girlfriend to distract you. You wouldn’t think he had a responsibility to replace it if you didn’t.

Had you discovered it before you left, or had some hard evidence, I would say press the issue, but you don’t.  Any number of things could have happened in the time you left his house until the next morning.  Accusing others of theft without any real proof only deflects any responsibility from your own actions.