Keep the faith. As long as your son knows you love him, no matter what, it seems to me you are doing your job as a parent. You decided to have a child rather than a dog and now you must live with the consequences.
Dear Graham,
I have been invited to a friend’s birthday party at a karaoke bar and I know that a girl I really fancy will be there, so it is the perfect chance for us to get to know each other better. The only problem is that everyone in the party has to sing a song and I am possibly the world’s worst singer. If I refuse to sing, I will be seen as a bad sport. But if I do pick up the mike, I might just empty the bar. How can I win this girl’s heart without making an utter fool of myself?
Tim W, Edinburgh
Dear Tim,
You poor thing – stop worrying. Everyone is terrible at karaoke, that’s the whole point of it. If people wanted to hear good singing, they would have hired a band or popped on a nice bit of Norah Jones.
Choose something nice and easy that everyone will join in on, so that your voice will be drowned out. ‘Waterloo’ by Abba springs to mind. Just remember that the people who are very good at karaoke are the sad, slightly annoying ones.
Surely the best way to win a girl’s heart is by being brave enough to make an utter fool of yourself? Sing out, Tim, and perhaps your heart will sing as well.
Dear Graham,
I’m in my late twenties and go out a lot with a childhood friend who behaves like a single girl because her boyfriend is often away on work trips. She’s always up for going out on the razzle and we usually have a brilliant time together. She’s a bit more confident than me so she makes me braver than I would normally be.
She’s always giving me words of encouragement and telling me I look ‘gorgeous’ and saying that guys fancy me. The problem is that whenever I start to get keen on anyone they always seem to prefer her, even though she’s not available. I do understand that she’s probably more attractive than I am but I can’t help blaming her a bit. It’s almost as if she’s using me to prove that she’s still desirable, or perhaps even to prove that men will always prefer her over me. It’s weird though, because she’s really loved up. I just don’t get it.
I’ve been trying to be a bit more independent generally and see other friends, but she calls constantly, wanting to make plans.
What would you do in my place?
Tilly S, Essex
Dear Tilly,
I feel for you. This is a very tricky problem. If you say or do anything, you’ll seem like a petty, insecure child. Your friend isn’t doing anything so wrong that it makes her a monster and yet she is blighting your life.
However you manage it, you have to see less of her. This is sad, given how long you’ve been friends, but what for her is just competitive fun is costing you dearly.
One approach could be to work on the trusting out-of-town boyfriend. Does he know how she behaves when you go out? Why not bring a disposable camera one night ‘for a bit of fun’? Take lots of shots of her with all these men who are attracted to her like babies to Angelina Jolie, and he may give his girlfriend a few more ground rules. Start planning nights out when you know she’s busy and don’t plan them all around the pubs and clubs. Try activities or groups where you can shine on your own.
The trouble is, once you find the man for you, your friend won’t be able to leave it alone. The problem is clearly hers, but you can’t solve it for her.
This friendship is from childhood. Perhaps, like wetting the bed and pink jewellery, it’s time to put it behind you.
Dear Graham,
To my dismay, I’m spending Christmas with my boyfriend’s family. They’re a pretty dysfunctional lot – they don’t talk to one another and have the telly on full-pelt at all times. The heating is always sauna-like, no one goes for walks and no one comes to visit. The men of the family tend to sit around being slobby and telling unfunny jokes, while the women do all the cleaning and cooking in a furious, martyred way. There are no children to cheer things up.
I guess these are normal relationship compromises (we’re spending New Year with my family), but the problem is that, when he’s at home, my boyfriend morphs into adolescent mode and becomes moody and monosyllabic. Any advice?
Rowena G, London
Dear Rowena,
I think many readers will be surprised to learn that the family you describe is dysfunctional. A quick life-on-planet-Earth update for you: they are perfectly normal. The mulled wine, Labrador-walking, ‘let’s have a goose this year’ crowd are the freaks. I understand you aren’t going to enjoy it much, but you have a choice: don’t go, or go and make the most of it.
Since Christmas is all about family, why not just give into it? Standing around like Princess Margaret at a farting competition will only make things worse. Imagine how much your boyfriend’s poor family must be dreading your arrival and try to appreciate the effort they are putting into it all.
Do yourself and everyone else a favour, and have a drink. Have several drinks. Shove wine down your neck as if your stomach was a flaming Malibu mansion. Everyone can tolerate a drunk at Christmas – no one can ever bear a snob.
Dear Graham,
I am dating a vegetarian called Melissa who happens, unfortunately, to be a truly dreadful cook. When I go round to her place, there are all these depressing beans – chickpeas and the like – soaking in little glass bowls or bubbling furiously on the stove. I don’t know whether it’s her cooking or my delicate digestive system, but her food is barely edible. Things get a little windy – and I’m not talking about the weather.
I wonder if a carnivorous, red-blooded male can have any sort of future with a strict vegetarian?
Nick C, Ealing
“Breaking bread with another human being is such a basic pleasure but if it’s pitta bread with beans, then the only things that will be broken are teeth and wind.”
Dear Nick,
Vegetarian food is one thing, badly cooked vegetarian food is another. I’m afraid this can never be anything more than a fling. Breaking bread with another human being is such a basic pleasure but if it’s pitta bread with beans, then the only things that will be broken are teeth and wind.
Relationships can survive all sorts of compromise but, maybe because I’m a greedy pig, food seems like an insurmountable problem. Consider the future – sitting in lay-bys hurriedly shoving cheeseburgers into your mouth and forgetting to clear the wrappers out of the car, a wedding reception comprising a meal that smells like wet dog. Just call her right now, finish it and get a pan of sausages on to the stove to celebrate.
Welcome back to the world of blood and fat!
Dear Graham,
I have too many friends and it’s stressing me out. I wasn’t popular at school – I was overweight, painfully shy and generally a bit lumpen – but before going to university I signed up with Weight Watchers, lost three stone and pulled myself out of the mire. Since then (I’m now 32), I’ve been frantically collecting friends. There are so many people in my life now, I feel overwhelmed. Every time anyone is friendly towards me, I’m so pathetically grateful I never stop to think about whether I like them or not. Ludicrous as it sounds, it’s making me depressed. Sometimes I want to turn off the phone and go into hiding. I can’t remember the last time I had a call, or invitation, from someone I was actually excited to hear from. And I can’t remember the last time anyone attractive asked me out.
My life seems hectic, cluttered and pointless. Do I need therapy?
Lily A, Shropshire
Dear Lily,
It is one of the great truths of modern life that the people who call and email us the most are the ones we never want to hear from again.
The answer is simple – you must make the calls and send the emails. Contact the people you truly like and make plans to see them. Then, when the less-loved get in touch, you won’t be free and slowly they will fall by the wayside. Obviously, some will be more tenacious and you may end up having the odd night out with t
hem, but the situation will at least be better.
To stop the hectic clutter of your life, why not have a couple of nights each week when you don’t go out? There’s no need to tell lies or make excuses. I think most people will find it perfectly acceptable that sometimes you just don’t want to go out.
As for therapy, I think the last thing you need in your life right now is someone who pretends to be your friend in exchange for cash.
Dear Graham,
Like most people who write to you, I’m single, but my problem isn’t boyfriend-related. Maybe this is an un-PC thing to say, but I’m fed up with picking up the pieces for my female colleagues. They leave work for months on end to have babies and then, when they do come back with their shrunken, baby-addled brains and la-di-dah attitude, they might as well not have bothered.
I’ve lost count of the number of times female colleagues have left the office – in the midst of a major crisis or deadline – at five, with the excuse that little Freddie has to be picked up from nursery. And it’s not even just the women – the men think they can bunk off because the wife’s having a meltdown and they have to take the baby to Tumble Tots. They even seem to think I should find that appealing and new-mannish. Because I’m childless I’m expected to drop all my plans but my married colleagues can just go home and make wriggly snakes out of Play-Doh.
Worst of all, it seems I’m now supposed to arrange my holidays around theirs. I’m not meant to be off between Christmas and New Year because they all need to be. I daren’t complain, but it’s really getting to me. And the biggest irony of all? I’m a newly qualified employment lawyer.
Charlotte S, Exeter
Dear Charlotte,
As I read your letter – and this is probably wrong of me – I was expecting to find that it was written by a man. I presumed that, as a woman, you might understand that when children enter someone’s life their priorities change. Getting to hear sausage-fingered Bruno’s piano recital is suddenly far more important than the Harrogate figures on Nigel’s desk.
For a lawyer, you seem to have missed out on a very simple fact in this case – it isn’t about you. People aren’t trying to be mean to you. They don’t care about you. Their main focus is now outside work.
You have a couple of options. Move to a company with a younger, older or gayer workforce where this will be less of an issue, or have a baby. Failing that, take up smoking: then you can take lots of breaks while those health-conscious parents are chained to their desks.
Dear Graham,
My girlfriend and I have been together for five years now. This year, as usual, we’re going to my parents in Lincolnshire for Christmas. They know I’m gay, but we don’t talk about it. When my girlfriend and I visit we’re given separate rooms, but only for appearance’s sake.
The problem is that my parents are wildly sociable. For them, Christmas is a hectic round of drinks parties and get-togethers with the vicar, the neighbours and just about every Tom, Dick and Harry within a 50-mile radius. Every year I get grief from their friends along the lines of ‘Have you met a nice young man yet?’ or ‘What’s a lovely girl like you doing on her own?’ It’s utterly maddening. I am 35, gay and in a serious longterm relationship.
Do I really have to put up with this kind of thing year after year? I don’t blame my parents for keeping schtum, but would it really be so awful to let the cat out of the bag?
Jessica C, north London
Dear Jessica,
I completely understand how this situation came about, but enough is enough. Nobody wants to talk about sex – whether hetero or homo – with their parents but, this once, briefly, I think you have to. The fact that you spend time at home suggests that you don’t want to lose contact with your family altogether, but I fear that unless some difficult nettles are grasped that may be what will happen.
The discussion doesn’t have to be long. Simply inform them that you aren’t comfortable about being unable to acknowledge your sexuality or your girlfriend when you are out socially.
Accept that they want you to sleep in separate rooms because, after all, it is their house. If even this seems impossible, then just make a unilateral decision to come out.
When someone asks about you being single or not finding a man, just point out your girlfriend and tell them who she is. There may be a few sausage rolls spat on to the carpet, but the world won’t end. As soon as your parents see that their friends don’t really care, it will be a burden lifted from all of you. Then everyone can get back to not talking about anything even vaguely personal ever again.
Dear Graham,
My career is on the skids and I’m not even a proper mother. Technically, I’m back at work (as a barrister), but I’ve got hardly any work at the moment. I feel guilty all the time that (a) I’m not at home looking after my one-year-old and (b) I’m employing a full-time nanny I can’t afford.
My husband’s salary isn’t enough to cover our monthly outgoings and already I’ve had to dip into my savings to hide how little I’m earning. My average working day is spent sitting in Starbucks around the corner from my chambers, staring out of the window.
The guilt is dreadful. When I’m away from my child, I feel I should be doing virtuous things such as earning money, rather than reading Vogue and drinking skinny cappuccinos. But I’m ambitious and know I just couldn’t cope with being a full-time mother.
Please don’t tell me to talk to my husband – he’s desperate for me to give up work.
Eleanor B, London
Dear Eleanor,
What is going on in your head? You are too ambitious to contemplate being a full-time mother but you are content to drink coffee and flick through magazines all day? There are receptionists at funeral homes with more get up and go than you.
Think about what you are doing. You’re not spending time with your child when you could be, you are lying to your husband and you are wasting time and money.
I hope your family can bounce back from this weird lie you are living.
The bottom line is you need a new job. Start looking. Although you don’t want to, you must confess to your husband the reality of your daily schedule. Once he knows what’s going on, you can work together to sort things out. Keeping it all bottled up will only make matters worse. He can’t force you out of the job market, especially since you say you can’t afford not to work.
You have been an idiot, but it’s not too late to wise up. At this point, it’s no longer about having a career but simply putting a value on your time. Not being paid much is better than earning nothing, and when you get home you can enjoy your baby and husband without feeling guilty.
Just a thought, but if your kid is cute maybe it could do some modelling so that at least someone will be bringing home the bacon.
Dear Graham,
I’m fast sliding towards 50 but feel youthful, both in outlook and looks. I’m using an internet dating site, have oodles of contacts via email and have met several men. While the ones I’ve met are pleasant enough at the first meeting, I’ve yet to meet anyone who lights that special spark in me.
My quandary is this: should I continue to meet up with these pleasant men and widen my social life, or should I say ‘no thanks’ after the first date and only go on a second date with the man who induces that melting feeling in me?
Faye W, Gloucestershire
Dear Faye,
My gut instinct has always been not to go on a second date unless I felt that special melting feeling. What was the point? If I was looking for ‘the one’, why would I want to spend time with someone who was just another one? However, as I get older, I find that experience has taught me to be more cautious. I don’t simply give my heart to someone who is likely to leave it in the back of a taxi. I need to get to know people first and maybe reduce my chances of being hurt or disappointed.
Don’t underestimate the quiet pleasure of simply socialising with pleasant company over a nice meal. What is the alternative – nights in front of the
television learning how to train a dog you don’t own? I don’t want to get brutal here, but you’re 50, and most women in your situation if asked on a first date – never mind a second one – would be thrilled.
The young are brave and foolish: they don’t fall in love, they jump. We, on the other hand, have learned to be scared. We step in carefully, and that takes time. That melting feeling might still arrive – it just takes a bit longer to turn up the heat.
Dear Graham,
I’ve fallen in love with a guy who comes from an incredibly musical family. My problem is, I’m practically tone-deaf. I absolutely dread the family get-togethers – lots of singing around the family Steinway and impromptu string quartets – as I can’t join in. Instead, I sit there like a lemon, knowing that his parents are not impressed.
Although I am quite successful in my own sphere, I have no artistic talent. My fiancé’s Jewish family are the kind who play the French horn before breakfast. The atmosphere in their house is always incredibly competitive. If it’s not cellos whining miserably at all hours, it’s debates about the US presidential race over the kitchen table. I feel like a fish out of water when I visit them, and I know that my future mother-in-law (retired surgeon, resolutely undyed grey hair, zero interest in clothes) disapproves of me (I am blonde, work as a fashion buyer and grew up in a non-musical, non-Jewish household).
So grim are these evenings that I often wonder why I bother going. Last time I went to his parents’ house for one of their Friday suppers, I was spectacularly ignored by everyone, except my boyfriend’s seven-year-old niece, who admired my butterfly hairclip, and the family Pekinese, which clambered on to my lap. My boyfriend is usually too busy fussing over his mother, or tuning his flute, to notice how left out I am.
Ask Graham Page 12
