Life's Too Short...

Following is an exchange I had with a Spinsterlicious fan today.  I'm curious to know what y'all think:

Dear Spinsterlicious,

I have to visit my hometown this weekend and I’m only in town for a brief time.   I usually try to cram in catching up with as many of my family and friends as possible,  particularly since I do not go home very often.   I asked one of my best friends if he had time for me Friday evening.   I’m already somewhat annoyed that we can’t hook up until 9:15pm because he has caipoeira class that evening which, by the way, I think he should skip since I’m only in town twice a year, but on top of that, he wants to bring his girlfriend.   She probably won’t last until the end of the year and now I have to make small talk with this chick.  I really do not want to spend my precious little time with my friend trying to keep the conversation PG because his girl is there.  

Am I wrong for not wanting to hang out with her and seriously thinking about bumping him off the schedule for another friend?

Here's my response: 

I totally feel you.  I would like to say that you should just suck it up and get together with him and his girlfriend, especially since he's such a good friend.  However,  that's the grown-up me talking.  The real me says "blow them off"...but you can't tell him why.  Life's too short to be spending an evening with somebody you don't feel like being bothered with who is not going to be a significant person in your life.  Catch him next time.

Part of me wishes that I'd said something like "oh, you should be bigger than that.  Get together with them both and try to make a fun evening of it"...but I would have been insincere because it's probably not what I would have done.  What would you have done?

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Cyrano and Me

My friend, K, really wants to be married.  She's a lovely woman, a lot more conservative than I am, and she always believed marriage and kids should be part of her life.   Since she wants that, I want that for her.   And that's how this story began.  K went to a Speed Dating event hoping to meet the man who might become her husband.   She met a guy.  Actually she met two guys and that's how her troubles started.   By the way, this is one way that she and I are different.  If I met two guys, I'd think "Absolutely! Always have a spare".   K meets two guys and thinks she has to pick one. 

But first she has to decide which one, so she goes on a date with each one so she can learn enough to inform her decision regarding which one should be The One.  I'm thinking, "just date them both", but she won't listen to me.   Long story short, she picked the wrong one.   She also didn't handle passing on the other one so well, so he stopped speaking to her.

A year goes by and she's still talking about The One That Got Away.   But she's just talking about it.  She won't call him or write him or Tweet him...nuthin.   She's talking about it and I'm sick of hearing about it.   So the next time she brings it up, I tell her it's time to put-up-or-shut-the-eff-up!  My thinking is, reach out to the guy, apologize for whatever happened, tell him you've thought about him from time to time, and would like a second chance.  But K is too shy to do that.  

I really thought she should call him. Their reconciliation would make a great story and I could tell it in the toast I'd give at their wedding.  She was too embarrassed to call, so I "convinced" her to email him.   Except she wouldn't.  We spent the whole dang afternoon talking about the email she wouldn't write.  And that's when I took matters into my own hands.   If Cyrano de Bergerac can do it, why can't I?

So I drafted what I'm sure was a lighthearted, charming and heartfelt note and sent it to him from K's email address.   She was both mortified and kind of excited.  I was very pleased with myself.   I told her she could treat me to dinner after their date.   Except there was no date.  She never heard from him.  He didn't respond to my her note.  And she felt embarrassed all over again, cringing from the rejection.  But we don't really know; maybe he's dead.

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Corporate Hoochie?

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about how glad I am that the mini-skirt is back.  I love them…but I’m now wondering if I should give the wearing of them a little more thought.   Yesterday I was in a “cute skirt” mood, so chose one that would be fitting for the assumed fun mood of the dinner I’d be having with a friend that night.  The skirt was indeed cute and I liked the way I looked in it, and the fact that it was short-ish but not exactly mini was perfect because I also had a meeting that day.  I checked myself out in my bedroom mirror from a few different angles, changed shoes a couple of times until I found the right ones and proceeded to sail off to my meeting.  My skirt was stylishly and summery short, not too much, just enough.  It was a lovely spring day and I was in a great mood.

The doors in the building elevator where my meeting was being held were shiny enough that they doubled as mirrors.  Uh-oh.  Something wasn’t quite right.  The skirt that was just a bit above my knees in my bedroom suddenly appeared to be mid-thigh…and I’m on my way to a business meeting.

How did that happen??  I went from feeling like a well-prepared, smartly dressed businesswoman to feeling like I looked like that chick who sued Citibank because they said she dressed  too sexy for the office. A corporate hoochie.  Her…and now me.  Geez.

Not that I look anything like her, but we should both re-think our outfits.  Anyway, though I was a little self-conscious, my meeting went fine. I did make it a point to make sure my legs were always demurely crossed at the knees.  No need to exacerbate the situation by flashing them, too! 


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My Virtual Family

Have you guys met my new family?  That's them in the drawing.  My husband, my daughter, and my son.  I think I'll call him Jeff; I haven't decided, yet, what to call the kids, but I imagine I'll get around to it at some point. 

It's funny, while I've spent all my years believing that I didn't need these additional people in my life, I may have been
wrong. Time and time again, I am presented with situations where everything would be better --at least temporarily--
if I had a husband and/or a kid or two. So, after resisting it for all these years, I've given in.  I went and got myself a
family.  Here's why:

• On a regular basis, I am expected to do something or be somewhere that I don't want to do or be.  I usually just say "I can't", but sometimes it's not that easy.  What I've noticed is that my friends regularly use their spouse and/or kids as an excuse to get them out of undesirable situations.  "I'm sorry, my kid has a fever/a soccer game/an important test that day."   "Gee, I can't because my husband will be away/has a commitment/is a grouch"...whatever.  It doesn't really even matter what the reason is; the point is that a spouse or kid is a perfectly acceptable reason to get you out of anything you want to be nicely gotten out of.  Nobody questions it.  On the other hand, when I say "no", I have to wrack my brain to come up with a creative and airtight story because people have no qualms whatsoever about trying to poke holes in my excuse until they get me to "yes".  A family-related excuse is untouchable. Any other "no" is open for debate.

• From time to time, I find myself in a somewhat uncomfortable situation where I'm struggling to establish a relationship with another woman and I'm not having a lot of success.  When it's a social situation, it's too bad but it's less of a big deal, but sometimes it's business, which makes it a little different.  As you know, much of what happens in a business situation is based on relationships and if I'm not getting any traction, then that can be a problem that matters.  I spoke about this with my good friend, Charlene, who is also a colleague. We are often in the same setting, both social and business, but I'm usually the only one getting tripped up trying to connect with a new woman.  Charlene and I are, obviously, not clones, but we are a lot alike in many ways so I've often been confounded that she is able to connect with many of these same women who are giving me blank looks.  She's noticed it, too.  She says that whenever things get off to a slow start with a new acquaintance, she just brings up the husband and/or kids.  It's kind of like guys and sports.  Something to connect over that's universal.  Except it isn't.  Not for me. 

So these are just two reasons why I've decided to create a virtual family for myself.   My husband and kids will get me out of some things and in to others. Nobody has to know they're not real.  Shhhh.



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The Cheating Husband. Do You Tell?

 I was talking to a good friend the other day and asked her why her friend Layla was a little chilly toward me. She's cordial—not rude, not cold—but not as friendly as she could be.  I don't know Layla that well, but I've been in her company a few times and I like her.  The feeling didn't seem to be mutual and I didn't know why.  After all, I'm delightful; how could she not want to be friends with me?

My friend's answer surprised me.  She thinks that Layla (obviously not her real name) suspects I may know some things about her husband that she'd prefer I not know.  It's possible that her husband may be a bit of a womanizer and, since I’m friendly with a guy who works (and plays) with him, the assumption is that I may know something about his alleged extracurricular activities.

That made me really uncomfortable, primarily because she’s kinda right.  I do know that the scuttlebutt is that her husband “plays around,” but that’s all I know; I don’t know any details.   And then I started to think, “Well, what if I did know some details?   What then?”   I don’t know the answer to that, but my guess is that if I knew her secret, it would change our relationship.

It’s funny.  As a commited spinster, a cheating husband of my own is something I’ll never have to grapple with.  However, somebody else’s cheating husband is a topic of conversation with friends from time to time.  Fortunately, it almost always involves people I know but who are not part of my inner circle.  And that’s as it should be.  That way, it’s salacious but not actionable.  It’s none of my business, except in a gossipy kind of way.
It would be very different, though, if the people involved were close friends of mine.  I’m pretty certain that I’d tell if I ever knew (or even heard the slightest word) that the husband of a dear friend was cheating on her.  (I’m assuming lots of gasps here).  Except for one person: I have one friend who has made it clear for many years (even before she was married) that she never wants anyone to tell her anything about her man.  Perhaps not surprisingly, her husband has had more than a few dalliances throughout their marriage. She has chosen not to know, and I respect honor that wish.

But  I’d tell anybody else who was near and dear because: 1) I’d feel like a terrible friend keeping a secret like that from a good friend; and 2) I think people should have all the information they can to make the decisions they need to make.  What they do with the information is up to them.

I take a pretty hard line against cheating husbands—a luxury I can afford because it’s all in the abstract for me.  I’m always confused by and disappointed in women who stay with these guys—again, a luxury I can have, viewing it from afar.  And I would tell because I would want to be told.  Many years ago, a woman I considered a good friend knew that the guy I was dating was also dating someone else.  She didn’t tell me until after the relationship ended, and I was pretty angry with her.  I felt betrayed by her, and I hated the fact that she knew things about my relationship that I didn’t.  It changed our friendship a bit.  So I understand Layla’s response to me.

So, should you tell your good friend about her cheating husband?  I think most people say “no.”  But I wonder if, by keeping quiet, we’re making it easy for him. Why are we protecting him?


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