. . . never gave you, from Tarts who have been there, done that, and seen it all.
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Dear Jane 2006: Is it wrong that I prefer my boyfriend when he's quite inebriated (it's the only time when he's not worrying about something?) Nicola My dear Nicola, You present us here with a perfect illustration of what is technically known as "Hobson's Choice" - that is, a situation where you are required to choose which out of two unpalatable options you prefer. Dictionary.com informs us that "The origin of the term Hobson's choice is said to be in the name of one Thomas Hobson (ca. 1544-1631), in Cambridge, England, who kept a livery stable and required every customer to take either the horse nearest the stable door or none at all". (One wonders, by the way, why Dictionary.com feels the need to specify that Thomas Hobson lived in Cambridge, England, since Cambridge, Massachusetts, was only a gleam in its potential founders' eyes while Hobson was living and annoying all his customers… ah well.) Your boyfriend is, in his own way, incarnating Thomas Hobson: he is giving you the choice of himself sober, and annoyingly neurotic, or inebriated (as you so elegantly put it), and carefree. Which is not a true choice at all, as keeping him drunk the entire time would be impractical, and keeping him sober ditto will, by the sound of it, eventually make you as neurotic as he is. I have a very dear friend who is a terrible worrier. Over the course of our long friendship, I have learnt that to take his concerns seriously just exacerbates them and encourages him to talk about them incessantly, with a mad staring gleam of perverse enjoyment in his eyes. Instead, I exaggerate all his worries. If he thinks he's fat, I tell him he's so large I'm going to have to stand behind him and push when he tries to go through a doorway. If he thinks he won't pass his latest exam (this from someone who has never failed to get top marks in anything he's tried), I observe that his stupidity is legendary and ask if he has learned to spell "cat" correctly yet. This technique has two main benefits: one, it requires him to reluctantly see the humour in my comments, smile grudgingly, and thus lighten his gloomy mood; and secondly, thinking up a series of comic insults provides me with a great deal of much-needed relief and prevents me from assaulting him with a meat-axe. I recommend it to your attention. He would be even worse if he had cirrhosis to complain about. With best wishes, Jane 2006 Dear Jane 2006, I'm almost 60 (the dominoes fall in August and I join another decade-set) in the process of a long, long divorce. (He left me in 1992, but we've stayed very enmeshed through four kids, two grandkids and very entangled finances. We got married when I was 18 and he was 26.) I was sort of involved with someone inappropriate for a few years, but that has ended. However for the first time since the husband person left, I'm actually beginning to feel single and willing to try again, maybe, maybe, maybe even for a real relationship again. Even though part of me (the one that looks in mirrors and counts years) thinks this is embarrassingly silly for a granny woman to even have such things cross her mind. Fortunately the sane part of my mind says what the hell, you might as well live until you die. You know? But I'm beginning to think that - as one of my friends describes herself - that I have a "broken picker." The "sort of" involvement was with a brilliantly talented artist type with a wife in tow and a myriad of health (mental and physical) issues. A very nice man that I met through community commission on the homeless that we're both on - he runs a recovery program - has been asking me out. I've gone - my first real date since I was 18 - but the sparks aren't there. There's sparks with another man, but he's married with a child and in my mind - as I've told him - the child means no. Regretfully, but finally, no. So who's the next man that intrigues me? Handsome guy a few years younger than me, artist/musician type. Articulate, we share the same politics... met and talked for an hour without drawing breath hardly. The problem? I met him at a homeless shelter, where he's a client. And he just got out of prison. Should I try to clear my head and go back into counselling for the umpteenth time or just figure I might as well learn to knit and skip the whole man thing? "Broken Picker" My dear Broken Picker, What an extremely useful and evocative expression that is, and how aptly it expresses your case. I will briefly deal with and dismiss your first concern: of course you are not too old to find love, lust or any combination of the above. These are happy possibilities at the most advanced of ages - after all, if you were over the hill romantically, why would all these men be interested in you? So please put that aside and concentrate on the real problem here: the fact that you do indeed have a 'broken picker', and that when I referred just now to the 'men' who were interested in you, I should more correctly have called them 'immature scraps of humanity'. Here is your no-no list:
It will be hard, but there is plenty of good news: you are already well on the road to freedom from your addiction to unsuitable men, because you are perfectly aware of your own pattern, and honestly admitting it, which is half the battle. Also, I who write this have had my own struggles with men who incarnated many of the less appealing qualities listed above, and I am more than happy to assure you that an addiction to Bad Boys is as temporary a condition as you want it to be. After a few years of the kind of process I am advising you to undertake, I am now delightfully engaged to and thoroughly domestically ensconced with an adorable man who does all the washing-up, buys me delightful Christmas, birthday and Valentine's Day presents, and has been fully taken into the bosom of my complicated family. Change is more than possible, Broken Picker. I wish you the best of success. Once you learn to readjust your focus, all the useless, emotionally-immature homeless parolees will fade from your awareness, and you will begin to notice instead how many nice (not to be equated with boring) men there are out there ready to love and be loved. And then you will settle down with one of them, and spend the rest of your life organising board-games parties on Saturday nights. Or maybe that's just me… With best wishes, Jane 2006 Dear Jane 2006, A combination of being a bit actressy and totally forgetful means that long ago I slipped into the habit of calling everybody "darling". Problem is, every now and then some dreary person will think that the fact that I call them "darling" means we're friends, which can cause all sorts of stalking-style bother. Can you think of a casual mode of general address I can use for people whose names I can't remember which doesn't give people the wrong impression that we are on intimate terms? yours Thingy Dear Thingy, There is no need to change your habits. Rather, you should exaggerate them. When conversing with a dreary person who seems to be misunderstanding your casual use of the words "darling", sweetie", "dearest heart", or "love of my life", all you need to do is make a point of lavishing equally baroque endearments on everyone within earshot - waiters, taxi-drivers, other people's spouses. This should make it utterly clear to the dreary one that you are simply promiscuous in your style of address, rather than conferring any particular favour on them… With best wishes, Jane 2006 |
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