Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here. (It’s anonymous!)
Dear Prudence,
What is your opinion on cooking a slightly spicy dish for a neighbor you know but are not very close to? She’s been going through some tough times lately and may be experiencing a loss in the family soon. We occasionally text about what’s going on with our pets and whether one of us needs the other to pet sit in an emergency, but we aren’t close enough to know each other’s taste in food.
I’m not that good of a cook, but there’s this one recipe that I’m surprisingly good at (think curry or laziji), so I had the idea of trying to cook something nice for her. Except I don’t really know my neighbor’s spice tolerance, or if she can stomach Asian food much. Should I make something and just tell her she doesn’t need to eat it if it’s not to her taste? I definitely won’t season it too strongly, but due to its nature (spicy, Asian), I don’t know if it’ll suit her palate. She’s also going through some stuff right now, so I feel weird to just text her out of the blue.
—Not Chili But Something With Lots of Chilis
Dear Chilis,
This is really kind of you. I’m guessing you want to do two things with the meal: 1) You hope to make a nice gesture—to show her that she’s not alone during this tough time, and that someone in her community is thinking of her. You’ll accomplish that even if the first bite of the meal you drop off burns her mouth off completely. And 2) you want to also do her a practical favor by saving her the trouble of cooking one night when she has a lot on her mind. To make sure you accomplish this goal, too, you should ask what she’d actually be able to eat. I disagree that it would be weird to text her out of the blue.
Try something like this: “Hi Neighbor. I’ve been thinking of you and all you’re dealing with right now. I’d love to drop off a meal for you on Wednesday. Let me know if you’d like laziji, which is my specialty but can be pretty spicy, or if you’d prefer that I grab a rotisserie chicken and make a salad. If some other day or week would be better, that’s fine too. Get back to me whenever you can—no rush and no pressure. Hang in there.”
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Dear Prudence,
Two years ago, I (mid-30s female) was on the receiving end of an abrupt and bewildering friend breakup by “Melissa,” who had been my closest friend since middle school. You’ll have to take my word for it that I didn’t do anything egregious to deserve this; to keep this short, it was one of those therapy-speak “this relationship no longer meets my needs” things, after which she cut off contact and blocked my email address, phone number, and social media accounts.
Well, I just found out through the grapevine that Melissa is now going through a contentious divorce. I’m experiencing a tiny bit of schadenfreude, wondering if she pulled a similar therapy-speak ultimatum on her husband and it blew up in her face, but mostly I feel for her and hope she’s OK. I know where she works and could theoretically contact her via her work email, and I’m considering reaching out and offering to be there for her if she could use a friend at this time. Is this a good idea? Or would it seem stalker-ish and just add to the stress she must be experiencing?
—Ready to Reconcile
Dear Ready to Reconcile,
Hmm, I really don’t think “She cut me out of her life” and “While I feel for her I’m a little bit happy that she’s going through this” combine to make a great foundation for a supportive relationship. You and Melissa don’t see eye to eye on why your relationship ended, so even if you were to reconnect, that lingering disagreement would make things feel awkward and unsettled. More importantly: You seem to suspect she’s a little bit ridiculous. She could definitely use a friend at this time, but not someone who dismisses her account of her divorce as “therapy-speak.” Your judgment (even if it reflects a totally correct assessment of her behavior) will come through. And it will hurt. She was already sensitive to something about your personality that didn’t “meet her needs.” She’ll be even more so at this vulnerable moment when her emotions are raw.
If you do want to reconnect at some point in the future, the right moment will be when you 1) feel some combination of peace, understanding, and forgiveness about the initial breakup, 2) sincerely miss Melissa and what she brought to your life as a friend, and 3) can express those things to her.
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Submit your questions anonymously here. (Questions may be edited for publication.)
Dear Prudence,
I am thinking of ending my engagement. We have been together for three years and he has an 11-year-old daughter. I understand his daughter comes first, but I am wondering if I will ever be a priority for him. We were visiting his family over Christmas and went skiing. I fell badly and hurt my back. That night I asked him to rub my back and legs to help me fall asleep, but his daughter came in complaining she didn’t want to sleep over with her cousins. She wanted daddy. My fiancé didn’t even hesitate. He got up and took his daughter to the other room to sleep in. He didn’t even move the water closer to me on the nightstand. I told him how hurt and worthless he made me feel at that moment. He told me to get over it and I was making something out of nothing. I have gotten conflicting advice from friends. Some are telling me to cut and run while others say things will settle down when his daughter gets older. I need an outside opinion here, please.
—Rose Colored or Red Flag
Dear Rose,
I can imagine another version of this story in which your fiancé’s daughter comes in and he jumps up to comfort her and you think, “What a great dad” and text him, “Hey when she’s settled can you scoot my water closer to me?” Then he says, “Sure, be right there!” and pops back in and adds, “Need anything else? How do you feel? Let me get you an extra pillow” and “Thanks for understanding” and you say, “Of course.”
Or one in which his daughter shows up and he says, “I’m so sorry! I’ll be back as soon as I talk to her. I want to get to the bottom of what happened with her cousins. I’m going to have my mom bring you a heating pad in the meantime.”
Or maybe, even, one in which you express, “That made me feel hurt and worthless!” and he replies, “I really apologize. I didn’t think about how it would feel. I’m always going to be there for my daughter when she’s upset but I can see I need to think about how to balance both of your needs better. Can we talk more about it?”
There are so many ways this could have gone. And what separates them from what actually happened is that they involve the two of you being considerate and generous toward each other. I’m worried that those qualities are missing in your relationship. Certainly, people will disagree about whether it’s reasonable for a tween to need her dad to put her to bed, and also whether being rubbed to sleep is a fair request for an injured adult to make. All parent-child and romantic partnerships are different. But I have to admit it struck me that your request was kind of… a lot. (After all, typically ice, heat, rest, and anti-inflammatories will do it when it comes to back pain!) And I wondered if your desire for him to massage—giving you his full physical and emotional attention—until the moment you drifted off represented an unmet need for more intimacy, more time, more affection, and just more in general from him. Similarly, the way you went straight to feeling worthless (instead of just annoyed or disappointed or frustrated) when you didn’t get the treatment you wanted gave me pause. It was all just very heavy. Why were these painful emotions so close to the surface?
Your partner’s unkind, dismissive response just confirmed my feeling that something is going on that has nothing to do with ski trips and back pain. And maybe even nothing to do with his daughter! I suspect you’re feeling dismissed, underappreciated, and deprioritized most of the time. If you call off the engagement (which you might need to do if you can’t make some really meaningful progress in five or six sessions of couple’s therapy) it will be because of that, not because of how he handles unexpected obligations as a father.
Dear Prudence,
Whose responsibility is it to mediate grandparent-adult grandchild relationships? My mother (80 years old, still very mentally sharp) complains to me at least a few times per month that none of my adult children (ages 21, 24, 26) call her. When I inquire further, it seems that she will sometimes call them out of the blue, they’ll pick up, speak for a few minutes, then say they have to go and the call is over. My mother is hurt that she’s always the one initiating and that my children don’t talk for a longer period of time. On one hand, I understand her perspective. She is often lonely throughout the day and I do imagine it would be hurtful to get excited for a conversation with a grandchild only for it to be called off after five minutes.
On the other hand, looking at this from my children’s perspective—they have very little in common with their grandma (politically, religiously, etc.) but still pick up the phone when she calls, even if she has not given them a heads-up that she’ll call. They politely have a short conversation and then continue with their day. I have always taught them that even though they don’t have much in common with their grandma, she’s family and they should be polite/kind. And in my eyes, they’re following through on this! I don’t think I can fault them. What do you say?
—Should Granda Be Grateful Her Grandchildren Call at All?
Dear Grateful,
Although they’re at different ends of the adult spectrum, all the people involved here are grown-ups. So you don’t have a responsibility to advocate for your mother or to force your kids to do anything. But I do think you would do them a favor by reminding them of how rewarding it might be to give her a little more time and attention. I’m sure they have busy lives, but if you could get them to pause and think about what they might like to know about her life, how much a longer conversation could make her day, or even how they might like to be treated when they’re older, it might inspire them to stay on the phone a little longer. Not because they should or because their mom made them, but because they want to be the kind of people who can spare 30 minutes for someone who’s been around for 80 years and loves them.
Classic Prudie
My father-in-law has always been difficult to deal with and certainly was abusive to my poor husband growing up. My husband’s response was to move across the country and keep his father at arm’s length, so we thankfully only see him three or four times a year. Each time, my father-in-law drives across the country to visit us for a weekend (he stays in a hotel).
