Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here. (It’s anonymous!)
Dear Prudence,
My sister was born when I was 14. With my brother and me, our parents were strict with high expectations. We were expected to bring home good grades, keep a part time job, do extracurriculars, and all our chores, or there would be hell to pay. With my sister, my parents just gave up. She coasts by with straight Cs, just sits around and plays on her phone, and is straight up rude in ways that would have gotten me grounded for a week at her age.
My older brother gave me the old car he bought when I turned 16. My parents and sister expect me to do the same when she turns 16 this year. Only I laid down the limit that my sister needed to get a part time job and save X amount of money to prove to me that she would be responsible enough for it. My sister has quit 10 different jobs since the beginning of summer with an excuse each time. She still expects the car despite going back on her promise. My parents just shrug and say what can they do? She is a teenager. She is someone who is going to find a very rude awakening in the real world.
My car is quite old but very well maintained. I would honestly rather sell it outright or donate it than give it to my sister right now. The last time I spoke with her, she “joked” she was doing me a favor by accepting my old car rather than making me buy her a new one. If I don’t give her the car, there will be hell to pay, but I honestly feel it would be better for my sister if she got a taste of the consequences now rather than later. My brother agrees with me but warned me that I will never hear the end of it if I don’t give the “princess” her due. What do you think?
—Car Trouble
Dear Car Trouble,
You’re obviously under no obligation to give your car to your sister, despite what she and your parents “expect.” Especially since you made your expectation that she would contribute clear and she hasn’t been able to meet it.
But the intensity of your feelings about this teenager’s not-that-unusual-for-a-teenager flakiness comes through in your letter. You seem to be taking her behavior really personally. And I wonder if that’s because you’re angry not just because your parents have been more lenient with her, but because they made your childhood harder than it had to be. In your letter, the two phrases “there would be hell to pay” (with respect to what would happen if you didn’t meet their expectations) and “I will never hear the end of it” (with respect to the consequence you fear if you don’t hand the car over) make me think you feared their over-the-top emotional reactions when you were a child and still do today. That’s not healthy or normal! I just point that out because I want you to make sure you know that while you’re well within your rights to sell your car and keep the money, you should make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons. It’s not your job to keep your sister from being a “princess” or to make sure she suffers consequences for her actions—and ensuring that her upbringing as harsh as yours was isn’t going to make anyone feel better.
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Dear Prudence,
The short version of this question, I guess, is “how do you keep in contact with friends?” Here’s the long version. I’m a grad student with developmental disabilities, including autism. A lot of people take this as me being “bad at making friends.” But that’s not true! I’m great at making friends. When I see someone a lot, in class, at a work shift, at school events, I always find someone to hang out with and talk to. The thing I can’t seem to figure out is how to stay friends when we are no longer in close proximity. What always happens is this: Classes end, or work shifts change, or people move. I exchanged phone numbers with someone I thought I was pretty close to. I text them a couple times a week, nothing major, books I think they’ll like, a meme about one of their favorite bands, etc. Almost every time I get a response about two weeks later saying “sorry I’m bad at texting!!” or someone reacts to the message with a thumbs up or a “haha” in the chat.
I do get that people are busy. I don’t expect immediate response or constant communication. But I really value these relationships and they always fizzle out once we don’t see each other every week because they’re “bad at texting.” I went through extensive special ed social skills training as a teenager. I was always taught that if people don’t respond to you, or minimally respond to you, you’re being annoying and you should pull back. But I find myself always pulling back because people never respond! I guess what I’m asking is: When the primary form of communicating with friends is texting, and everyone is “bad at texting,” how do I keep in contact with friends? Most of these people also hate phone calls (not that I would ever call someone without asking first), so that’s out. Everyone else has friends they don’t see a lot. What am I not understanding?
—Too Good at Texting
Dear Too Good,
I really do think many aspects of friendship—making friends, keeping friends, getting past conflict with friends—are tough for many people these days. My unscientific theory about where to place the blame: Social media. We can all sit at home and get the feeling of connecting with people without actually having a conversation or doing an activity with someone the way we’d have to if we were bored and didn’t have a smartphone. Whether or not I’m right about that, I want you to know that I don’t think what you’re experiencing represents a failure on your part. I’m not even sure it’s connected to your developmental disabilities. If my inbox is any indication, you’re in good company.
I also think it’s pretty normal for friendships to fade with distance if they weren’t particularly close in the first place. If you’ve simply chatted with someone, had banter at the office, or hung out a few times after class, it makes sense to me that that wouldn’t be enough to sustain a connection when hanging out together starts to take more effort. So my suggestion is to worry less about things fizzling when schedules change or classes end. Instead, concentrate more on paying attention to who you really feel connected to when you still have those regular opportunities for in-person contact and work to deepen those relationships. I know that’s easier said than done, but you might try things like making it a point to ask people questions about themselves that go beyond the superficial, sharing things that will allow them to know you better, and trying to identify shared interests and planning activities around them.
Most important: Follow-up. If they are feeling sick one day after class, check in over the weekend and ask if they need anything. If they mention a test for another course, inquire about how it went. If they tell you they have a job interview, reach out to say good luck. Then, when you do reach out to someone who’s no longer in close proximity, skip the memes once in a while and suggest a time to hang out or catch up on the phone.
This won’t work all the time. People are busy/weird/going through their own stuff/anxious/depressed/shy (take your pick), and it’s normal that not everyone will become or remain a close friend. But if you’re able to form solid connections with a few people, you won’t have to worry as much about those who are “bad at texting.”
Get Even More Advice From the Dear Prudence Podcast
Dear Prudence,
I’m getting married at the end of the year. One of my bridesmaids got married four years ago and her maid of honor went through personal struggles causing my friend to feel a bit cheated of the bridal experience. For this and other reasons, I am not having a maid of honor and asking each of my bridesmaids to do a typical responsibility of one (e.g. stand up at the altar as this friend is going to do). Recently, this friend reached out asking to coordinate another bridesmaid’s dress appointment after the first store I chose wasn’t great. I was happy to accept the help. She then asked if she could coordinate meet-ups like we did for her wedding, saying they were fun for her as the bride. For me and other bridesmaids, they felt more like a chore rather than fun. I told her “honestly maybe as we get closer to the wedding, but right now I cannot as my job is entering a really busy time.” She understood, but now I feel like I should have been more honest. My wedding is also not at the forefront of my life right now given that my job is pretty new and the ceremony is still months away. Am I being a mean friend for not openly telling her why I don’t want these things? Or am I not being a good bride in wanting this?
—Bad Bride
Dear Bad Bride,
Limiting yourself to the events that sound like fun to you does not make you mean or a bad bride. Definitely stop short of telling your friend that her pre-wedding events felt like a chore to you, though. “I’m busy with work” is a perfect excuse and “Thank you so much but I think I’ll pass on that one” works too.
Catch up on this week’s Prudie.
More Advice From Slate
I’m a single mother of a wonderfully smart, engaged, thoughtful 11-year-old boy. His father sees him about once every six weeks and for all school breaks but lives 4½ hours away. I’m a nurse at a busy hospital and work 12-hour overnight shifts, and my parents watch my son while I’m at work. This has been the arrangement since I finished nursing school when he was 7 (his dad and I split when he was 1), but over the past year he has become very clingy. If I need to leave him at my parents’ place unexpectedly, he gets super upset with me, and when I pick him up he cries and tells me how much he’d missed me. When he returns from a visit with his dad and I ask him how it went, he’ll say, “Fine, but I missed you a lot.” This is true even if I’ve called and FaceTimed with him while he was there.
