Sunday, December 18, 2011
Tagalong Tandem Blues
Dear Abbner,
I have been seeing a girl for a few months now. Or, to put it more accurately, I've been seeing TWO girls.
It's not what you might think. The girl I've been seeing insists that her friend go with us wherever we go...to the movies, dinner, the beach, or just hanging out. She says that they are best friends, do everything together, and has even hinted that for our relationship to go to the next level, the friend has to sign off on me. In other words, I have to get the friend's approval.
This friend doesn't have a boyfriend or even any prospects. She's introverted, doesn't contribute much to the conversations, and is really more of an anchor dragging down what could be a fun relationship.
Is there a way I can change this dynamic and get some alone time with the girl I am actually interested in seeing?
-Doubled Up In Deerfield
Dear Doubled,
This is actually an easy one.
Usually a situation like this is caused because the girl you like either isn't sure about you, or isn't sure about herself around you. It will ordinarily go away with time as the relationship matures.
Occasionally it's just a test to see how far you can be pushed.
And every once in a while it's an arrangement to wheedle some extra meals out of a guy.
Since this doesn't seem to be going away, you'll need to be more proactive and change your focus.
The first easy answer is to enlist a wingman to run interference with the mouse. And not just on double dates. Your guy has to cull the herd with plans to take quiet girl to a different dating venue on the same night you plan to take your date to a special place. This isn't just manipulation. If you've watched a steady diet of chick flicks, you know the normal RomCom ending is your buddy winds up in a hookup with the wallflower. (For a reference, see "When Harry Met Sally.")
Your other option, especially if you don't have any buddies available, is to become your own wingman.
Start paying attention to the quiet friend. A LOT of attention. More attention than you're paying to the girl you actually want to be with. Start talking about this other person in every text and phone conversation.
If possible, get the other girl's phone number and start calling and texting her as well. Get to really know her.
When the three of you are together, be sure to remark on how attractive the girl is that day, or pay some other compliment. Make sure they're legitimate praises, otherwise this will blow up in your face.
When it's time to take the girls home from the date, drop your girlfriend off first, then take the other girl home. Walk her to the door if possible. Don't make a real move or try to poach a kiss, because that will make you a cad and will likely result in you having no future dates with either one.
If you play this right, your girlfriend's natural tendencies toward jealousy will appear, and SHE will make the decision to put the kibosh on this dating tandem, leaving you unblemished.
The third option is to go ahead and date them both. Of course, only the Great Clooney (blessed be his bachelorous name) can actually pull this off successfully. But if you're destined to crash and burn anyway, you might as well make it a glorious explosion.
^Abbner
If you have a question or need advice with a "male perspective" on relationship issues, behavioral issues, dude etiquette, or the best penmanship techniques for writing your name in the snow with yellow ink, e-mail your questions to dearabbner@yahoo.com.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Frustrated Husband Losing Wife To Church
Dear Abbner,
I've been living with my wife for nearly 10 years. Our relationship has had its ups and downs, but we were always able to overcome them. Until now.
About a year ago, she was "born again" and joined a local church. Since then, she's gone completely fanatical about it, attending services twice a week, including Sunday services that run all day and into the night.
As you would expect, our sex life has gone to almost zero, and the relationship is in trouble. Now, she seems to have plenty of time for Jesus, but little for me. Also, everything I do these days is a sin against God, including my Sundays watching football, the beer I drink during the game, and the nacho farts I let loose every time she says "amen."
I feel like I've been cuckolded by Christ. What can I do to get my wife away from the church and back into our marriage?
-Heathen In Hartford
Dear Heathen,
There is nothing you can do to get your wife away from the church.
In essence, she is having an affair. And it's pretty unlikely that you're going to be able to compete with our Lord and Savior.
You have few options here.
First, you could throw away the beer, turn your back on your NFL brethren, and join her church. You will probably be completely miserable, and you may need a 12-step program for your Tom Brady withdrawals, but you'll save the marriage. Who knows, you may even come to enjoy revival meetings and pot luck suppers. That reading thing may become a bit of a bore, especially since about the only book most churches approve of is a 400-year-old tome written in weird, hard-to-decipher English called the Holy Bible. However, you'll find some of the stories to be exciting and interesting, with folks smoting, slewing and begatting each other all over the place. (Check out the Old Testament...you'll swear parts of it were written by Quentin Tarantino.) Also, you'll find more than a few passages that will make handy ammunition for the inevitable next argument with your wife.
Option two is to expand your horizons, including a few new habits of your own. I would recommend a lot of drinking and carousing on Saturday nights, including the occasional address amnesia where you forget to come home. While you're out sowing your wild oats, your wife will be home praying for crop failure. Sounds bizarre, but it will actually bring you closer together because you'll have something in common - your ruination and eternal damnation. The only thing religious zealots love more than an all-day prayer meeting is a mission to save someone's soul.
Your third option is prayer. Hit your knees every night and pray that tomorrow will be the day that the church shows its true colors, which in most organized religions is a nice, shiny shade of hypocrite. Far more churches have been destroyed by internal strife in the last 50 years than any external invasion or crusade by Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Mormons, or Amway salesmen. If you hold out long enough, the church leadership will eventually mess up and piss off the congregation, and your wife will be back by your side by the time Peyton Manning returns to the field (following a stubborn neck injury that hasn't responded well to surgery OR prayers from Indianans), with your spouse claiming loudly at the TV that Manning's mother was a canine, that his parents were never married, and that the Colt quarterback should go begat himself.
Whatever option you choose, know that I'll be praying for you. Or drinking a cold beer in your honor this Sunday.
^Abbner
If you have a question or need advice with a "male perspective" on relationship issues, behavioral issues, dude etiquette, or the best penmanship techniques for writing your name in the snow with yellow ink, e-mail your questions to dearabbner@yahoo.com.
I've been living with my wife for nearly 10 years. Our relationship has had its ups and downs, but we were always able to overcome them. Until now.
About a year ago, she was "born again" and joined a local church. Since then, she's gone completely fanatical about it, attending services twice a week, including Sunday services that run all day and into the night.
As you would expect, our sex life has gone to almost zero, and the relationship is in trouble. Now, she seems to have plenty of time for Jesus, but little for me. Also, everything I do these days is a sin against God, including my Sundays watching football, the beer I drink during the game, and the nacho farts I let loose every time she says "amen."
I feel like I've been cuckolded by Christ. What can I do to get my wife away from the church and back into our marriage?
-Heathen In Hartford
Dear Heathen,
There is nothing you can do to get your wife away from the church.
In essence, she is having an affair. And it's pretty unlikely that you're going to be able to compete with our Lord and Savior.
You have few options here.
First, you could throw away the beer, turn your back on your NFL brethren, and join her church. You will probably be completely miserable, and you may need a 12-step program for your Tom Brady withdrawals, but you'll save the marriage. Who knows, you may even come to enjoy revival meetings and pot luck suppers. That reading thing may become a bit of a bore, especially since about the only book most churches approve of is a 400-year-old tome written in weird, hard-to-decipher English called the Holy Bible. However, you'll find some of the stories to be exciting and interesting, with folks smoting, slewing and begatting each other all over the place. (Check out the Old Testament...you'll swear parts of it were written by Quentin Tarantino.) Also, you'll find more than a few passages that will make handy ammunition for the inevitable next argument with your wife.
Option two is to expand your horizons, including a few new habits of your own. I would recommend a lot of drinking and carousing on Saturday nights, including the occasional address amnesia where you forget to come home. While you're out sowing your wild oats, your wife will be home praying for crop failure. Sounds bizarre, but it will actually bring you closer together because you'll have something in common - your ruination and eternal damnation. The only thing religious zealots love more than an all-day prayer meeting is a mission to save someone's soul.
Your third option is prayer. Hit your knees every night and pray that tomorrow will be the day that the church shows its true colors, which in most organized religions is a nice, shiny shade of hypocrite. Far more churches have been destroyed by internal strife in the last 50 years than any external invasion or crusade by Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Mormons, or Amway salesmen. If you hold out long enough, the church leadership will eventually mess up and piss off the congregation, and your wife will be back by your side by the time Peyton Manning returns to the field (following a stubborn neck injury that hasn't responded well to surgery OR prayers from Indianans), with your spouse claiming loudly at the TV that Manning's mother was a canine, that his parents were never married, and that the Colt quarterback should go begat himself.
Whatever option you choose, know that I'll be praying for you. Or drinking a cold beer in your honor this Sunday.
^Abbner
If you have a question or need advice with a "male perspective" on relationship issues, behavioral issues, dude etiquette, or the best penmanship techniques for writing your name in the snow with yellow ink, e-mail your questions to dearabbner@yahoo.com.
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