On tinterhooks (is that the right phase?) (Aha: it is TENTERhooks)

Oooooooooh, I'm excited! It's Monday, which means Carolyn's column is "adapted from online discussion." Often these are less than thrilling to me because I've already READ the online discussion. However, in the column Carolyn spends more time on her response than in the chat, which requires a certain amount of instantaneous response, often introducing new ideas and resources, as well as re-phrasing and bringing in comments from others who participated in the chat and--here's hoping--wrote in afterwards!

Here's why we're hoping: today's column addresses the twin boys who don't like baseball, whom I wrote about with a a great deal of energy earlier this winter here and here. I don't know if I mentioned that when I submitted my letter to Carolyn, she responded by saying she appreciated the story and that it suited the topic well.

In today's column, Carolyn alone responded to the woman who wrote in. BUT! It is "to be continued" tomorrow....so maybe we'll get a mention! Fingers crossed.

**Update: sad day! The column is posted and I am not featured. Probably this is what I get for not being as concise and witty as those other chat participants. Oh well...maybe next time**

Mr. Clean: Man or Myth?

Amy answered a letter a couple months ago (which means I can't find it any more...sigh) from a woman who spent the weekends at her boyfriend's apartment, and bemoaned how messy it was. She was at her wits' end, reduced to spilling things on purpose so she could clean them up...and also wipe down all surrounding surfaces while she was at it. The guy seemed to want and prefer things cleaner, but never seemed to get around to doing it.

This letter led to a flood of mail from men and women with all kinds of advice--she should hire a cleaning service, she should butt out, she should say she can't come there unless he cleans it up, she has no right to make changes to his place, etc.

Today's insight is one of the more extreme ones I've seen:

Dear Amy: I'm responding to "T in D.C.," whose boyfriend was a slob. She should check into what else her boyfriend may be messy about in his life. If his house is that messy, his credit may be that messy too. I know all about this. I married one of those "messy housekeepers" and quickly had creditors calling me on his delinquent bills and loans.

If this guy's house is that messy, his checkbook probably is too. — Been There, Done That

But it's Amy's response that really interests me:

Dear Been there: The response to "T in D.C." has split completely along gender lines. Men responding feel that clubbiness might be next to godliness, while women seem to feel that an unclean house reveals deeper truths about a person's psyche.

The odd thing is....I know men who are neatniks and women who are slobs. So the ability (even....compulsion?) to have things neat and clean is not in and of itself a gender issue. But whether or not you feel like you SHOULD, or that it says something about you if you don't, definitely seems to be.

Hmm, I was going to argue that women care more about what people think when they walk into the place, and so perhaps try harder to keep it presentable, but when I honestly reflect, that's not the case either. I know men who can get messy on their own but clean up when they know company is coming. I know women who don't, because they just don't care or think it's a very important use of time.

But I do think that Amy's right in saying that women read more into cleanliness or messiness than men do--that it's more a reflection of character and personality. I could even take as an example what I just said about guys cleaning up for company....for (most) guys, the state of the house (most of the time) seems utterly disconnected from their individual selves. It can get messy if there's no one around to see it, or maybe it won't, or if it does they can just pick it up when someone else is coming over.

For women, I think there's a much more powerful link. (Ironically?) most women that I know do less cleaning up "for company" than most men I know (the obvious exception being preparing the house for a visit from mom). I think it's because--whether they're neat or messy--women maintain their surroundings in a way that they think is appropriate most of the time. Either they want it clean, so they keep it clean, so they don't need to pick up for company, or they don't care about the mess, so they leave it whether people are coming over or not. For men cleaning up or not seems to be largely circumstantial--who else is there, and what is the situation, is it worth doing right now? For women it seems to be deeply personal--doing it or not depends more on their own preferences than on outside circumstances.

This seems important to keep in mind when dealing with the opposite sex. Actual conversations from my life:

M: Don't worry, I'm a lot neater when I live with someone else.

W: I don't know, why would you be? I mean, you like to think you would be, but ultimately you live how you live and you like it how you like it. Why would it suddenly change because you're sharing the space with someone else?

M: Because. I'm sharing the space with someone else.

W: I don't see why that makes a difference.

.....etc.

Higher Education

I haven't written much (anything?) about Dan Savage since, like, July, which I think is just a scheduling issue more than it is anything else: his new columns come out on Thursdays, and Thursday is when I'm really tired and lazy, and have to be at work earlier than any other day. So I end up skipping over him. And I by skipping, I mean never-getting-around-to-writing-about. Because I still read every week.

Anyway, this week's column seems as good as any to link back to--it's a summary of his latest speaking tour around several universities "out East." This is particularly appropriate because I knew nothing about Dan Savage until he came to speak at MY university several years ago, which led to my reading his entire online archive, and following the weekly updates on The Stranger's website.

At these events, students submit anonymous questions on 3x5 cards, and Dan selects the most entertaining/useful/horrifying/enlightening ones, and reads them and answers them aloud. The column features questions that he didn't get to in his speaking engagement, such as:

When did you first realize you were LGBTQ, and how did people react to that? Did you struggle to find support?

I didn't realize I was L, B, T, and Q until I arrived in Albany. And I'm not sure how friends and family are going to react to my recently discovered lesbianism, bisexuality, impending transition, and questioning status—question: now that I'm LGB and T, what outstanding Qs could there be?—but I expect they will be supportive. Just as confused as I am, but nevertheless supportive.

When I was at IWU, I didn't really have any basis of comparison for what other schools were like. Now that I go to a school 20 times its size, when I see entertainers on TV or in print that I heard speak there, I wonder what they thought of our tiny little stage in the Hansen Student Center, and if we were completely ridiculous. Ah well, how much better can a columnist or comedian do than wind up with an intelligent-yet-ridiculous audience? Seems ideal to me.

Happy "Out-of-line's" Day! (courtesy of Carolyn)

Valentine's Day is here which, along with Christmas and wedding season, seems to be for advice columnists what tax season is to accountants. (Hm...I thought it was a clever analogy but I didn't express it very efficiently. Alas.) Today's post will feature a selection of Valentine's Day questions and concerns published in the last couple of days. The issues vary...it's a real hodgepodge.

Before we begin, I'd like to lay out my Valentine's Day perspective (even though most people reading this blog have already heard it 100 times...). I really like that Valentine's Day exists, and choose to celebrate it mostly like second grader: giving out lots of cards and consuming lots of candy. My favorite part of Valentine's Day each year is when I get a Valentine from my grandma with $1 in it. It's completely inexplicable, the amount has never been adjusted for age or inflation, and I love love love it every year. This year my $1 will support the purchase of a pitcher of beer at "Bad Decision Thursday" happy hour. The picture is me celebrating uber-classy Valentine's Day 2007 at the Pub II in Bloomington Illinois. With my friend's husband, Adam. Which isn't as sketchy as it sounds.

I've spent Valentine's Days with SOs and without and like the platonic, widespread cards'n'candy part the best no matter my status (more on this later from an Abby contributor). That being said, I have nothing against people who choose to do hearts and flowers and jewelry (although I admit escalating it to a day of "hard" gifts--metal and jewels--is a bit excessive). If that's what you like, do it.

What drives me NUTS around V-Day are the aggressive, bitter folk who 1) "don't know how they're supposed to get through ANOTHER Valentine's Day in this state of lonely singleness" and 2) Bitch and moan that they hate Valentine's Day and think it's a stupid overcommercialized holiday in which they're pressured to spend too much money and express their love in artificial ways. Because really? You're not. If you want to do it, do it. If not--don't, and enjoy the half-off candy the next day (more on this attitude later from Carolyn's live chat).

So that's the view from where I'm standing...on to the remaining perspectives! Hm, this post got a little long, so maybe I'll post the contributors separately. Yes, I will.

More thoughts: Quitters never Win?

I realize that my last post was from the perspective of a decided non-athlete, and I wanted to look at it more from the angle of people who DO like and ARE good at sports. (Of course, it's still filtered through my attitudes, but I can't help that....)

For example, SWK played soccer his whole life, and left the team before his senior year of high school. He was never getting played, and he wanted to spend his senior year not putting in all those hours for practice and workouts, and then sitting on the bench every game. It wasn't a self-righteous tantrum about not getting to play--the payoff was just no longer worth what he was putting into it, so he stopped and focused on other things (he was also first chair in his section in band, for example). He still loves soccer and plays with his friends and family every chance he gets.

For some--especially raised in team sport mentality--that would definitely seem like a bad-quit. He couldn't "stick it out" one more year to say that he finished? But what if he had--what would he have achieved? The right to say "I played soccer for four years in high school" instead of three years? A felt letter that would sit in a drawer, because he didn't have a jacket it sew it to? Wooo!

His brother, PWK, stayed with soccer through high school, and selected his college based on his plan to play on their soccer team. He ended up leaving the team his freshman year, but staying at that school. Turns out they don't offer the field he wants to study--now, he's about to graduate, and is considering starting over with another bachelor's at a new school to get into the field he wants.

Tunnel vision about any activity, and not placing into the larger context of your life, can sap your time (years of it) and energy, and paint you into a corner. This is absolutely not exclusive to sports, but it does seem to happen more often there than elsewhere.

I'm not suggesting you should only play sports if you know you're going to want to stick with it all the way and have a shot at going pro. On the contrary...I think you should play sports, as well as participate in any hobby or activity, as long as you're getting out of it at least as much as you're putting in, and it's enhancing, not hindering, the rest of your life. It's important to maintain the distance and objectivity to be able to step away from it when you cross that line.

O Brother, What Art Thou?

I started my Saturday by reading the transcript of Carolyn's live chat from yesterday. (Is there any other way to start the weekend than with a cup of coffee and an advice columnist chat transcript?)

The situation of a woman who wrote in really struck a chord with me. She had 10-year-old twin sons and it's time to decide whether or not to sign them up for baseball. They don't really like to play, she says, and show no interest in getting better. They'd rather not sign up, but their dad (who she admitted was not available to take an active role in getting them to practices, games, etc.) was insistent. The mom had mixed feelings...her biggest concern seemed to be that they'd be missing a lesson about "sticking with" things. She also said they like biking, swimming, kung fu, basketball...just not baseball.

This makes me nuts! If we had to "stick with" everything we ever tried indefinitely, I would be a dancer, baseball/softball player, gymnast, potter/artist, horseback rider, pianist, floor hockey player, black belt in karate, actress, choir member, badminton player, clarinetist AND saxophonist....etc.

Wait, scratch that. I would only be a dancer and a softball player, because those were the first two organized activities I ever tried, and there wouldn't have been room for anything else. A DANCER and a SOFTBALL PLAYER. Me. I would be miserable and not good at the activities that consumed my life--which is why I stopped doing them in the first place. Childhood and adolescence should be a time to try out a number of different skills, seeing what you're good at and what you like, and shaping yourself from there. You have to stick with it, sure...but it also has to stick a bit on its own. My brother and I always, always finished the season/session, but were never required to sign up again the next year.

(P.S., looking back at that list, it seems that I was quite a spaz. But it's not that I was signing up at random for particularly exclusive/expensive training in any of these things--horseback riding was probably the only one, and I'm grateful I had a shot to try it. Mostly they were park district things or school-sponsored activities I just wanted to find out more about, and enjoyed--but had no reason to commit to)

I did stick with band, writing, and major involvement in my church youth group and choir, and had a part-time job practically from the day I turned 16 (and stuck with the same one until I went to college, even working while home on break until the store where I worked closed). But enough about me--this issue resonated with me so much that I wanted to write in to Carolyn about it. I think my parents' flexibility in letting my brother and I choose our activities, experiment, and move in new directions was incredibly valuable. We learned self-discipline--we also learned to value our time and prioritize our passions, interests, obligations and choices because our schedules were not predetermined. So I wrote to Carolyn, in what ended up being an Ode to my Cool Brother. I think he and I did a lot of the same kind of things in terms of trying (and yes, quitting) different activities. But since the original chatter was asking about boys and about baseball, his life seemed to fit the situation better. So here's what I wrote to Carolyn:

Hi Carolyn and team,

The baseball twins from yesterday's chat remind me of my brother. When he was little he was in park district soccer and baseball and played on a church basketball team. He didn't really take to any of these things--never wanted go to practice, didn't show or develop much skill, and worst, just didn't enjoy the atmosphere of being on the team and playing the game. He was an anomaly among his friends because of this. [Forgot to include this to Carolyn, but he was also often frustrated and embarrassed. I have this really painful memory of his end-of-the-year soccer dinner where the coach played "we are the champions" on a boombox and each kid had to stand on a chair to be gazed upon, talked about by the coach, and receive a trophy. BJW either pouted through it, or hammed it up inappropriately, and got a "talking to" afterwards. Really he was just incredibly uncomfortable with the whole thing]. He got through the sports for a few years, and when he said he wanted to quit, my parents, despite possible reservations, let him make the call.

He, like the twins in the chat, took up karate and excelled at it for a number of years. He got involved in drama in junior high, and was basically the head of the tech department by his senior year of high school. He was still an anomaly, in that his individuality and creativity made him the rock star of his high school. He performed a killer Jimi Hendrix-style national anthem at the homecoming pep rally his senior year, and was voted prom king, despite (because of?) attending prom dressed as a pirate. He took up guitar lessons in third grade, with much discussion from my parents about the need to practice and stick with it. [another addendum: in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade, he performed Beatles songs with three other kids in the elementary school talent show. They were always one of the few groups to actually play and sing, not just choreograph a kickline to the pop music of their choice]. Now at 22 he's a music composition major, teaches guitar to kids and adults (works 20+ hours a week while in school full time), and runs an amateur recording studio out of his living room.

If the issue is getting exercise, he doesn't "work out" or play sports, but he does walk several miles a day from the train station to his university (he commutes). If the issue is learning to work with a team, he did that with the tech crew, and still does with his job, where they all contribute to running a small, family-owned music shop (not our family, though he's become basically part of theirs). By nature he's more of an individual worker--so am I--but he's not incapable of working with others. There are many ways to achieve the ends of physical fitness and teamwork mindset.

It drives me nuts when parents define abandoning any sport or activity as "quitting." I think making it through the season and then opting not to do it again the next year is perfectly legitimate. Of course getting to the end of the season is important for all kinds of reasons--not letting down the team and coach by disappearing, not wasting money, and simply practicing self-discipline. But if signing up for something and giving it a fair shot isn't enough for us to make a decision about whether or not to continue, how will we ever find the time to try new things?

I think the worst possible consequence would be to teach your children to hang back from trying new sports, activities, clubs, etc. because they fear they won't be able to get out of it if they don't like it or don't have the skill.

Best,
Becky in Ann Arbor

Taking it personally?

I was recently informed by a former reader that he'd ditched this blog when he was offended by something I'd written earlier this fall.

Of course, pissing people off is a major sign that you've "made it" as a writer (and for such glory, I'm willing to accept a readership of 3 people rather than 4! Maybe).

Nevertheless, I wanted to address the issue, since this is the first time I've been boycotted, and that seems worth marking in some way.

On December 16, I posted a response to a letter from Annie's Mailbox, written by Ann Landers' former editors. The letter was from a young woman in college who was unhappy in her relationship with her back-home boyfriend, who sounded like less than a treat. He had a history of emotionally and verbally abusing her, she said, as well as a history of mental illness in his family that seemed to be manifesting itself in his behavior. He was, at the very least, unstable and easily angered. And yet her question was whether she should break up with him, or if instead she should "throw her life away with the wrong guy."

My main beef with her letter was the way she phrased her question. Not "I'm afraid of my boyfriend and don't know how to end the relationship" but "Should I throw my life away on the wrong guy?"

Seriously, those were her words. And I commended Marcie and Kathy for looking past what she said, and getting to the heart of what she seemed to mean: that the bf was scary and unstable, and she wasn't sure how to end it.

However, I also felt that their advice might not be so helpful. The writer (not me, but the writer) described the boyfriend as abusive, unstable, and potentially mentally ill. As a result, I didn't think that Kathy and Marcie's advice, to become so obsessed with her studies that he wants to break up with her out of boredom, would be very effective. If he is all the things that the writer (again, not me) says he is, than I think he'll be more focused on controlling her and the state of their relationship than rationally considering whether or not they still have anything in common.

My former reader was put off by the fact that I described the boyfriend as potentially schizofrenic--but that came from the writer herself, not from me. More personally offensive to him, though, was my parenthetical sidenote wondering whether there was a "creepy age discrepancy" between the two.

"As the product of a 'creepy age difference,'" he said, "I was offended."

However, this post was hardly about age difference in relationships on the whole. I caught a whiff of what sounded like it might be an age gap, and pointed it out. When a relationship is already abusive and unbalanced, a discrepancy in age that gives the abuser an even more unbalanced amount of power and authority over the other person becomes creepy, whether it's a difference of 3, 9, or 20 years.

In contrast, I truly believe that relationships between people of compatible and balanced emotional, social, and intellectual levels can and often do thrive, no matter the numbers involved.

To sum up--my problem wasn't with the age difference, which I inferred (it was never confirmed in the letter). I simply felt that if there was such a difference, it would only compound the unfortunate situation in which this young woman found herself, and make it more difficult for her to get out of the relationship.

I stand by my original answer, though this episode was a good reminder to me that the odd phrase can put people off so much that they totally stop reading.

"That's what you would do if a columnist did something like that, right?" the former reader asked me.

Nope. I'd write in to them and voice my opinion. That's what I've done for years, and I'd encourage readers here to do the same! Conversation is what keeps this interesting. I don't have all the answers, and whether or not we agree, I'd like to hear what others think.