When to Crash a Kennedy Wedding, How to Date a Murderer, and Other Questionable Advice
Welcome to Thatz Not Okay, a regular column in which I school inquiring readers on what is and is not okay. Please send your questions to caity.weaver@gawker.com with the subject "Thatz Not Okay."
My boyfriend was invited to his cousin's wedding but never RSVP'd. He comes from a large family and I was excited to meet them, so I asked him to see if they could squeeze in a couple spots for us at the last minute. He texted his aunt, the mother of the bride, an hour before the ceremony and asked if we could come. She said no, but we showed up to the reception anyway. Is that okay?
Not RSVPing at all is the same as RSVPing in the negative, only more inconsiderate. Thatz not okay.
I usually look forward to going back to school after holidays, but this time I am very nervous. A friend of mine had entrusted me with few of his belongings (medicines, clocks, etc) so that I could store them for the summer while he went abroad for vacation. The thing is, I lost them. It was unintentional and I feel very guilty. I didn't ask him to let me store his stuff, so I kind of feel that I am not the only one responsible. I told him what happened and I think he is slightly pissed. I also think he is expecting me to compensate for the things I lost. Is that okay?
Thatz okay.
First off, we have to get this out of the way: Whose worldly possessions are characterized as "medicines, clocks, etc."?
Many people reading your question might initially see your friend—the guy whose belongings are now lost because his buddy couldn't keep track of them—as the victim in this story. However, this is a shallow interpretation of the text. The true victim here is you. The guy whose zest for the back-to-school season has been totally dampened by this little episode. The guy whose friend is mad at him for losing the possessions he promised to keep track of.
While you may not have begged your friend to let you store his stuff (his neat clocks, his groovy medicines), you did agree to do it. If you didn't feel comfortable storing a few of his belongings, you should have advised him to make other arrangements. He may have been a little annoyed ("Seriously, dude? Can't you just take a box?"), but probably much less annoyed than he is now that his stuff is gone. In any case, you were well within your rights to decline to guard his stuff. Once you agreed to help him out, though, the onus was on you to, like, help him out.
You note that you feel are "not the only one responsible" here. Who else is responsible? Society? Your friend for trusting you not to lose a box of his stuff, even though you never made yourself out to be some kind of not-losing-stuff expert? The stuff, for existing in the first place, thereby allowing you to lose it?
The only scenario in which your friend would be out of line for being annoyed at you is if you had stored his belongings in a safe place but they had been stolen by a skilled cat burglar or incinerated by an errant meteor or spontaneously combusted in "just one of those things." Then you and your friend could be annoyed at the cruel, random universe, instead of just at you. But if you just lost a box of stuff… how do you even lose a box of stuff?
You're right that you technically don't have to reimburse him. "You pays your dime and you takes your chance," you could say to him, shrugging. But, if you choose this route, your friend is also well within his rights to write you off as a callous asshole who talks in old man phrases.
Apologize—without making excuses—for losing his stuff and reimburse him. As an extra "Sorry for causing you this headache," you might continue taking him out to dinner.
Also, never ask this guy to watch your stuff. He might "accidentally" lose it to give you a taste of your own medicine. (He will never taste his own medicines, though. You lost those.)
The man I've been dating for the past several months is "on call" for his very demanding job a lot, meaning almost all the time. I go weeks without seeing him. I know he's not lying about his time away because his "on call" job is very public and I can see the notices of what he does all the time, or at the cemetery. I respect what he does, I like him a lot, and he's also way too good in bed to let go by the wayside, but I'd also like to bring him around to things and in general be more active with him. I want to tell him I need more time with him, for the relationship to work. Is that okay?
Back up, girl. You are being oddly cagey about your man's profession.
Based on the scant details you have provided ("on call" all the time, high profile job, you go weeks without seeing him, you can find evidence of his work at the cemetery, you have crazy sex), I have deduced that your boyfriend is either a coroner or a murderer.
If you want to spend more time with your man and your man is a murderer: Thatz not okay.
Obviously, dating a murderer has the potential to devolve into a very dangerous situation. Flirting with danger is one thing, but you are taking danger out to that new Thai place and playfully grabbing an egg roll off danger's plate and when danger says "You need to ask before you touch my things," you are laughing and bopping danger on the nose with a half-eaten egg roll and danger is quietly plotting to kill you.
Aside from the increased risk of murder that comes with dating a murderer, if you really liked this guy, why would you want to keep him from doing what he loves? For your boyfriend, murdering isn't just a paycheck – it's a way of life. Every time he sees a fresh grave in the cemetery, that's a sign of a job well done. He derives as much pleasure from seeing the light leave a victim's eyes as he does from making your eyes light up. Who are you to rob him of that?
If you want to spend more time with your man and your man is a coroner: Thatz okay.
It's perfectly reasonable that you should want to spend more time with your coroner boyfriend. If you've been dating for several months but still haven't been able to bring him around to your friends, it may feel more like you've only been dating for a couple weeks. You shouldn't be self-conscious about saying you'd like to spend more time with him; it's natural at this stage.
To get the ball rolling, you might consider organizing a small dinner (your home or a restaurant work equally well for this). Involve him in the planning so he knows his participation is valued and expected, but be sure not to make him the focus of the evening—in other words, don't bill it as My Boyfriend's Formal Introduction Into Society. If he gets called away by work at the last minute, he won't have to feel like he's skipping out on a party in his honor. If he's able to come, well done; you've progressed to phase two of the relationship and you got to have a fun, casual dinner with your boyfriend and buddies.
You must also prepare yourself for the fact that this inconvenient scheduling may just be a factor of his job. If he's already dedicating as much time to you as he feels he can (note: this is not to say he's dedicating all his free time to you, because he certainly is entitled to a life that exists both outside of the office and away from the morgue of your love), there's really nothing that can be done. Burying our dead takes precedence over sating your wild libido. We can't have your boyfriend telling a grieving family the funeral will have to wait because his special lady wants to go to a B&B this weekend. If he tells you he can't possibly work any more time with you into his schedule, you'll have to decide if you like him enough to make due with a relationship that it sounds like you find a little stunted.
For the record, from an outsider perspective, it does seem odd that you would go weeks without seeing your boyfriend. Even though coroners are technically on call 24/7, they are not actively working 24/7. He's determining the cause of death, right? How long could that possibly take? "He died of death, NEXT."
Your boyfriend is probably a murderer-coroner. The perfect crime. (But you should break up with him.)