| |||||
|
Arts & Entertainment  BooksComics Health & Body Media Mothers Who Think News People Politics2000 Technology - Free Software Project Travel & Food  Columnists
- - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - Also Today For a full list of today's Salon Books stories, go to the
Books home page. - - - - - - - - - - - - Search Salon - - - - - - - - - - - - Salon Columnists - - - - - - - - - - - - Recently in Salon Books Ivory Tower Reviews Reviews - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
Can men and women truly be friends? | page 1, 2, 3
How much of an age difference is too much? I am a 45-year-old
professional woman with a 31-year-old professional man. I have three
grown children and the personal and financial freedom I have longed for
for 25 years. He is mature, brilliant, financially secure and has no
children, ex-wife, etc. We enjoy the same things and get along
beautifully. I am inclined to just enjoy his company and let our
relationship develop as it will. However, I keep doing the math (when he's
40, I'll be 55, etc.). He has recently been honored by his employer with a
professional excellence award, which includes a four-day trip for two to
Florida. He has asked me to join him. I am thrilled for him and would
love to go but am nervous about how our age difference will be viewed by
his corporate executives and counterparts. Your insights would be greatly
appreciated. Perturbed
Mr. Blue Garrison Keillor's column appears every Tuesday in Salon Books.
Feeling blue about your prose? In the doldrums over your last date? Ask Mr. Blue. Dear Perturbed, Stop doing the math and enjoy what you have. You get along beautifully, you're enjoying your life; don't borrow trouble. Go with him to Florida, enjoy the experience and stifle your fears. Of course it could all blow up tomorrow, and he could run off with an 18-year-old cocktail waitress, or you could fall in love with a 68-year-old beach boy, but today is fine and you should take hold of it. Dear Mr. Blue, Two-and-a-half years ago, I fell in love with a woman, and she and her daughter moved to live with me. We've had piles of wonderful times. There've been a few times I've slept in the computer room, but heck, people argue. She's told me that she is thinking about leaving because she is unhappy with my clutter, my crankiness with our/her daughter, my anal bill paying, etc. My concern is the damage it will do to us and her 16-year-old daughter who has adopted my kids and me as her only family. This love affair seemed to be the end of a search after two failed marriages. I fear that this has all been an illusion like all the other times. Really Sad Dear Really, Make a gesture. Clean your house. You can do it in two days. Go through and dispose of everything you don't use and don't need, and be unsparing. Put other stuff in storage. Strip the place down to the floors and walls and basic furniture. Do it as a symbolic step in her direction and also for its own sake, as a way to clarify your thinking. Dear Mr. Blue, I am a 30-year-old professional, dating the most wonderful girl for the past year. She is pretty, sweet, smart and just plain nice. There is just one problem: She is a little overweight. I have tried to not make her feel bad about it, but she has no desire to change. She complains about it, but when I tell her it is all the candy, pizza and soft drinks she consumes, she becomes hurt and defensive. I can hardly take it anymore. I don't want to spend my life with someone I don't feel completely attracted to. This morning I looked in her lunch bag and found pizza and a chocolate candy bar! I don't know what to do! I can't live like this for the rest of my life. Should I confront her, or just move on? Hungry for Help Dear Hungry, Your wonderful girl is hung up on eating, which eases her stress, including the stress of worrying about losing you. So she has one more candy bar and tells herself that after this one more she'll start eating better even though she doesn't want to. You can't change her. You can't change your feelings about her foraging. You can tell her you love her, which would be good, and in a calm moment, you might be able to get her to talk to you about her eating patterns and identify something she wants to change and that she'll accept your help with. Perhaps she'd agree to go see a dietician with you. There's only so much you can do, and then you must decide if you prefer life with a wonderful overweight girl or go shopping for something a little more anorexic. Dear Mr. Blue, My 17-year-old son has attention deficit disorder. His bad behavior (shoplifting, calling his principal at odd hours and cursing him, marijuana use, drinking) has placed extreme pressure on other members of my family, especially my husband, who is the boy's stepfather. My son is lazy, uses nasty language, is disruptive, and the stress has been terrible. My husband needs to shut down emotionally every night before he comes home. This morning my son refused to get up for school, and I told him he needs to make other living arrangements after his 18th birthday in April. I am heartbroken. We've been through therapy, but I do not feel my son can make the changes necessary to live in our home. I grieve that I brought a child into this world who is so destructive and irresponsible. I have prayed for guidance and for compassion, and I am overwhelmed by the need to ask him to leave the home. In Agony Dear Agony, ADD is about attention and is a hindrance to learning; it's not a license for antisocial behavior. At 17, your son knows the rules and evidently chooses to transgress them, and so you must allow him to experience the consequences of his behavior. A painful ordeal for a parent. You need to avoid anger, though, and show him genuine affection and interest, even as you let him know the consequences from you of his behavior. And you must separate, in your own mind, this harmful behavior from the terrific person he could become. I hope that his father, and stepfather, are playing a role; across all cultures, one role of the father is to teach socially acceptable behavior. Unfortunately, you'll have to watch this boy suffer, but perhaps with your help he can fail in ways that are painful or embarrassing but not destructive. So I worry about your cutting him loose at this point. He needs to see for himself that he is harming himself and to know that you care about him. This particular cookie isn't baked yet. Dear Mr. Blue, Two years ago, I met and fell in love with a very sweet man obsessed with staying young. A good-looking guy, he nevertheless had "procedures" to move hair from the back of his head to the front, redefine his pectorals, straighten his nose and on and on (and on). What really got to me, though, was his eating obsessions, the way he agonized for hours over what to fix for meals. When I suggested he might want to seek counseling over this, he threw me out. I still love him, but I don't know how to proceed with reconciliation. How do I handle this? Sad Dear Sad, Oh dear. This sweet man seems to be off the chart, way beyond the 99th percentile. And you can't change him. Does he want reconciliation? If so, you could apologize for not appreciating his goal of eternal youth, and agree not to mention the subject until he asks you for help with it. But it doesn't sound as if mealtime is going to be much fun for you, looking across the table at the kelp and the yak yoghurt. And this is an obsession that gets daffier and daffier as the sweet man approaches senescence.
| ||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
Next page |