Posted at 12:56 PM Dec 30, 2008
By Andrea Grimes
The tears are running hard and fast in this edition of Sad Bastard of the Week, wherein I soak up all the advice column sad bastardry the Internet has to offer and repackage it to you, dear readers, in easily digestible form. But those tears--the ones that were running hard and fast--aren't doing so because they're sad. No, those tears are freaking terrified, and they can't get away fast enough.
In Dear Abby, an oft-abused wife has finally had enough of a husband who prides himself on being called "Mr. Rude":
My husband flirts openly with cashiers right in front of me, and
asks complete strangers walking by if they would "like to buy a wife
cheap." Yesterday we went out to lunch and the bill was $18.42.
He made a big fuss about it with the cashier, then loudly informed me
it was my "fat a--" meal that cost so much. Abby, my meal was $6. I
died a million deaths that day.
We all do silly things for love, but I'd like to think we can draw the line well before the stage of being called a fat-ass in public. Alas. You can't teach an old dog not to be an asshole. Speaking of old dogs, the
world's creepiest grandfather wrote into Dear Margo this week, wondering why everyone had a problem with his behavior toward his 9-year-old granddaughter:
About a year ago, when she kissed me, I licked her lips. Apparently she
liked that enough to do the same with my son when he kissed her good
night that night. My son and his wife were quite upset with me, and his
wife ordered me out of the house. I have not seen any of them since. I
personally do not think I did anything wrong ...
Run, tears, run! And don't stop! It's like, we know there are crazy people in this world, but do they have to just lay it all out there? Meep. And for an excellent sad bastard round up, finish out your day (hopefully you've got off tomorrow, yes?) with the
Dear Prudence 2008 advice retrospective on
Slate.
Posted at 10:06 AM Dec 23, 2008
By Andrea Grimes
The bastardry in this world knows no bounds, and I'm not just saying that because a week of Christmas shopping has me feeling decidedly Un-Jesusy today. No, there's all kinds of heinous behavior littered throughout the advice columns this week, from a girlfriend who can't control her bodily emissions in Savage Love to a green card scammer in Dear Margo. But no one acts more atrociously than the letter writer in the most recent Dear Prudence animated vid on Slate:
How dare that sick woman get between her adulterous husband and deceptive sister? It sounds like this poor woman has plenty to be depressed about if this is the kind of behavior her family is capable of. Props to Prudie for taking this selfish LW to task.
Posted at 1:04 PM Dec 16, 2008
By Andrea Grimes
Most times when I'm crafting the delicate journalistic perfection that is "Sad Bastard of the Week," I cull through days and days of letters to advice columnists trying to find the very saddest bastard of them all. Oftentimes I have to make difficult decisions about whose problems are the most sad, the most bastardy. This is not one of those times.
I love Since You Asked for the variety of the problems presented, the general thoughtfulness of the letter writers and the massive archives. But today's letter contains some of the most appalling behavior I've heard of yet. And to top it off, Cary's response is so incredibly inappropriate as to make me wonder if the guy should have his advice credentials revoked.
Here's the deal: a girl slept with her brother's roommate after she promised her brother she wouldn't.
"The next day, the first thing he said to me was, I asked you for one thing and you couldn't do it. I didn't know yet that this was going to turn into such drama. I thought he would be OK with it in a few days. But I have never seen him this upset.
... I don't think there is anything I can say or do for him to forgive me. We tried talking so many times, but it's like we're speaking two different languages; we just cannot come to terms with this situation. He keeps saying that I "promised" him to stay away from this guy and that I broke this promise and that he feels betrayed. It makes me so sad. He really had never been this upset about anything."
So many words to describe this brother come to mind. Controlling tool? Overreacting wuss? Consummate douchebag? How in the world is it any of his business who his sister sleeps with, even if it is his roommate? I don't think anyone should break promises, but I also don't think anyone should be expected to make promises about the future of their love lives. How can a person predict who they will and won't fall for? This thing was flawed from the beginning. And please consider the side discussion we could have here about whether or not this would even be an issue if the genders were reversed.
Does Cary see all this? Amazingly, no. He tells the letter writer to apologize! He advises her to "decouple your own feelings about whether your brother's feelings are justified or not." I can't even believe this:
"What you have to do is completely and utterly apologize to him, without expectation, without condition, without straying into other areas where you think he has been unreasonable or has hurt you. You have to be willing, in other words, to just give him something. Can you do that? It may help to think of it as just giving him a gift."
No, Cary, no gifts. No gifts for jerks. And no apologizing for having sex that doesn't hurt anyone else (unless they're into that.)
Posted at 12:58 PM Dec 09, 2008
By Andrea Grimes
Ah, that wonderful fine line between comedy and tragedy. It's evident in the great comic films of our time, and also in Eddie Murphy movies. But there's not a lot that compares to the greatness that is
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, an American classic that combines the horrors of extended family with more horrors of extended family. And that's why I've chosen
"Looking For Option Three" in
Annie's Mailbox as the saddest bastard of the week. Sounds like she could use some tips from the Griswolds:
"We have family members with small children who invite themselves to our home every year around the holidays. We have a small house with no extra room.
Each year they pile in on us for at least a week. Although money is not an issue for them, my husband refuses to suggest they get a hotel room. Instead, we have complete chaos. We barely make ends meet, yet we are expected to provide expensive entertainment, meals and laundry service. It takes days to get our home back in shape when the herd finally departs and even longer to replenish our bank accounts."
There are so many sad things about this poor family's situation. Not only are they forced to put up with the "herd" for a week, entertain the "herd" and feed the "herd," but the "herd" has no idea what jerks they're being. Somebody missed the manners train. The Annie's gals told her to cut back on the entertainment and send the "herd" to the grocery store with a list in hopes that they get the message. Big, big hopes.
Any readers want to contribute family tragedy Christmas stories a la Christmas Vacation? Comment!
Posted at 11:22 AM Dec 02, 2008
By Andrea Grimes
The holidays must really be getting the advice-seeking world down, because this last week was a real doozy when it comes to sad bastardry. The world's problems are manifold and varied, no coherent thread with which to tie them together other than, perhaps, a be-lotioned box of Kleenex.
In Dear Abby, a man in an eight-year marriage pines for his ex, while Dear Margo deals with a 26-year-old freeloader daughter who's keeping the sex out of a middle-aged marriage. The New York Times Social Q's has sofa angst, and unabashed favoritism causes grandchild woes in Annie's Mailbox. But this week's saddest bastard of all is in, no surprise, Savage Love.
Dan Savage no doubt hears it all, but this letter is shocking to the point of being vom-worthy. This is a letter with a twist. As in "twisted." "Needs Her Boundaries" is a rape survivor, and her boyfriend knows it. And yet somehow:
"Lately, though, he has expressed a desire to explore rape scenarios. His ideal setup would be to obtain my consent in advance, then, sometime when the mood struck him, he would "attack" and take me, and I couldn't say no or use a safe word. Once the "rape" started, he could do whatever he wanted, and I would not be able to stop it."
Dan's on it: DTMFA. Honestly, isn't sex without a safe word, uh, rape?
Posted at 7:04 AM Nov 25, 2008
By Andrea Grimes
I imagine that holiday seasons are high-traffic times for advice columns, what with badly behaved relatives being on their baddest of bad behavior for weeks at a go. There's so much that can go wrong: gift reciprocation issues, poor table manners, house guests that behave like animals ... oh, the list goes on. And I was fully prepared to cull one of these holiday nightmares from the pages of advice columnland for this installment of Sad Bastard of the Week.
And then I saw that Cary Tennis has completely lost his touch over in Since You Asked, and it simply cannot go unaddressed. The issue: an out-of-control niece and a marriage tumbling downhill fast. "Caught In A Bad Situation" is an understatement. She writes, and I've tried to edit this a bit, but honestly:
"My husband lost two of his brothers within six years. One of them had a 13-year-old daughter from a one-night stand ... She is now staying with us because her life at home is so unbearable ...
She lies constantly. She hates me because I'm married to her uncle. She wants him to herself. My husband and I've had no life together since she's been here. He's not allowed to kiss me when she's here, which is constantly. She won't leave his side. That's partly his fault. The two of them are together constantly. If I go to watch TV with them, I'm accused of either going there to start trouble, or she tells me to go to my room. My husband denies hearing her say anything unpleasant to me ...
And she has reported to the police that she's been molested over the years by many different people at her home. It started out with once; now it's many times with at least nine people. I don't know what to think of that ...
They act like a couple. Everything is "we" instead of me and her or me and him. Do you have any advice?"
I think we can all agree that this is one of the shittiest situations ever to appear in SBotW, but Cary's advice makes it by far the saddest of sad bastards. Does he acknowledge the husband's supremely creepy douchebaggery? No! He simply says that the guy should be "warned" that the kid's atrocious behavior could go seriously awry for him.
I usually appreciate Cary's idealism, but he goes way, way too far, telling the letter-writer:
"You can help this kid. You are what she needs in the world. She may never tell you this. She may have been too brutally shaken to know what is happening to her. But if she survives she will owe her life to you. Even if she never tells you, you will know."
I know it's the holiday season, but this Scrooge believes that there is a point at which charity stops. That point includes everything in and around the moment when your own life begins to be a living hell, which includes your marriage falling apart. Seriously, Cary, WTF? No reprimand for the creep husband? No tips on how to make this about teamwork, not one woman's unbearable burden?
Posted at 10:28 AM Nov 18, 2008
By Andrea Grimes
"What's your problem?"
That's the overriding theme in this installment of Sad Bastard of the Week. It's not me, it's you! While introspection and navel-gazing is always championed when it comes to the whiny weaklings of SBotW, this week is all about calling someone else out on their crappy behavior.
First up, Dear Prudence over in Slate answers one of the most horrifying advice letters I've ever read. I hope "Not a 'Wittle Durl' Anymore" is prone to hyperbole:
"My parents' lives began when they had babies and ended when those babies reached about 6. From then on, they've lived in this semi-delusional world, refusing to acknowledge that their "wittle durl" has grown up. I'm now 40 years old, and they still "tawk to me wike dis," making it pretty much impossible to have a real conversation with them. When they do slip and speak to me adult-to-adult, they actually correct themselves to baby talk. For example, "You looked nice" is quickly repeated as, "Her wookied sooo PURRRRTY."
Horror! HORROR. This is offensive on the level of having to listen to your friends baby-talk with their significant others, except 70-year-old adult behavior has a lot, lot less potential to change. Prudie suggests the 'Wittle Durl' go all-out and piss her pants. Best. Advice. Ever.
Far less amusing is yesterday's
Dear Abby, wherein a husband takes his wife's hair personally. "Short and Trendy" writes:
"Because I am always on the go, I need a hairdo that is easy to manage and cute, so I ended up getting my hair cut short. I love it. It makes me feel younger, cuter and trendy ... When my husband and I started dating, I used to have long, thick hair ... He feels I cut my hair purposely to go against what he wants. That sounds selfish to me. Isn't it MY hair?"
If one ever finds oneself asking whether or not a body part that belongs to oneself is actually the property
of oneself, one needs to seriously reevaluate oneself's sanity. Yes, it is
your hair. And
your controlling husband needs to accept it. Lordamercy.
Posted at 9:35 AM Nov 11, 2008
By Andrea Grimes
Dear Sad Bastards,
It's not that I don't appreciate your herpetic boyfriend, your hellbitch coworker, your granny-panty flashers or your dead-drunk bridegrooms. Believe me, I do. But every once in a while, a sad bastard comes along with a problem of such magnitude that it makes me celebrate every emotionally unavailable, sex-challenged boy I've ever dated. You got it: this week's Sad Bastard winner is from Savage Love. "Dog Day Shafternoon" (do you see what's coming?) writes:
"I'm a 32-year-old female engaged to a 34-year-old man. Some months ago, when we were both drunk, he "got up the nerve" to show me some bestiality porn and tell me how much the thought of me with a dog turns him on."
Dan's response? It's one of those rare moments when "GGG" means "get going, girl." He gags:
"Yes, DDS, I disapprove of bestiality—because, well, ick. And that, as anonymous dog-fuckers have pointed out to me repeatedly over the years, is the same logic homophobes use to justify their bigotry. But when I go on the record about bestiality—and it's always con—I do go out of my way to throw the animal lovers a bone: If I were a sheep, I'd certainly rather be screwed than stewed. But still. Ick."
Dan turns it over to a zoologist who says that technically, getting screwed by a dog isn't exactly animal abuse. But that doesn't mean bad things can't happen, sayeth Dan: "... he will live in hope that, if you talk about this long enough, if he gets drunk and begs you often enough and can manage to get you drunk enough, you will, one day, go there."
Is this a kink too far? Am I terrified that I am even asking this question? Yes.
Totally platonic, non-dog love,
Andrea
Posted at 11:50 AM Nov 04, 2008
By Andrea Grimes
Today's Sad Bastard of the Week isn't so much a case of sad bastardry as an example of full-on, Grade-A, pure-distilled bastardry, and it ain't for the weak of stomach, neither. I'm a pretty avid listener of Dan Savage's Savage Love podcast and fan of Savage Love in general, so I always kind of think that once you've heard about scat play, you've heard it all. But my heart goes out to "Pretty Insulted Seeks Solution," a.k.a. "PISS," who just moved in with her boyfriend. 'Cause at least those scat play people are making agent choices about bodily fluids. PISS, on the other hand ...
"... I found an empty liter-sized Sprite bottle among half-unpacked boxes ... a couple of days later when I noticed that the liter bottle was not only still in our room, it was full ... I opened the bottle and caught a whiff not of Sprite, but of piss ... I've already mentioned not leaving dirty dishes around, making sure to use coasters, etc., and I'm beginning to feel like a nag."
Since when is asking someone not to piss in a plastic bottle and leave it in your bedroom
nagging!? There's way, way more at play in this relationship than bottle pissing if PISS thinks she's got no right to live in a urine-free bedroom just because she likes to use coasters, too.
Dan is more amused than disgusted, and suggests something even more sinister: a bottle-pisser is probably also a shower-pisser. I'm really having a hard time getting my mind around the concept of bottle pissing in the first place. Ladies, has anyone ever encountered this? Guys, anyone able to offer a bottle-piss rationale that doesn't involve a 10-hour non-stop road trip?
Posted at 10:24 AM Oct 28, 2008
By Andrea Grimes
It's so hard to find a great, brilliant guy, isn't it? But what happens when Mr. Smarts turns out to be an awful, controlling prick?
Welcome to Sad Bastard of the Week, where other peoples' problems are aired out for your entertainment thanks to my addiction to advice columns. Tragedy strikes when some guy gets dicked around by some girl he met on the train in the NYT's "Social Q's," and friendship goes awry in Since You Asked after a disasterous trip abroad. But the saddest bastard of all is in Dear Prudence. A smart girl in her early 20s just can't win an argument with her boyfriend. Why?
"My boyfriend is a genius.... I consider myself a very intelligent person also—nowhere near his level, but I've always felt confident academically. This sometimes takes a hit when I am around him. I rarely win arguments because I simply can't keep up with him.... sometimes his argumentative style and calculating rationale are applied to our relationship. In many situations, I feel as though I am the one who has to compromise because he always wins the argument. I know my positions are reasonable, but I just can't articulate them as well as he does."
WAH WAH WAH. Silly girl, what are you doing trying to keep up with Stephen Hawking?
Prudie rocks this one: "Did you conclude on your own that your boyfriend is a genius, or is this one of the things he had to articulate to poor, dumb you?"
DTMFA, I say. Prudie's more generous, recommending a nice book for Boy Wonder to read. Oh, Prudie. If kindness could be learned in books ...
Posted at 11:34 AM Oct 21, 2008
By Andrea Grimes
Deception! Lies! Trickery! It's definitely, definitely getting close to Halloween here at Sad Bastard Of The Week, if my perusal of the last few days' advice column letters are any indication. You lot are a bunch of sneaky bastards, and I love you for it.
First, it's a sneaky match made in hell over at Since You Asked, where Cary advises a boyfriend with a snooping tendency and a cheating girlfriend. "Too Curious" writes about reading his gf's journal after she'd been on a long trip:
"In it, I found a never-to-be-sent letter to her first boyfriend, my old best friend from years ago, written in drunken handwriting. She lamented that she still loved him and how 'I went and found the closest thing to you and I settled, like everything in life, I settled.' I assume this is referring to me."
Aggghhhharshness! But does this sad bastard read the fact that his girlfriend "settled" for him as a sign that he should DTMFA? Well, he wouldn't be a sad bastard if he had, would he?
"She's moving away soon to take a professional-track job in Mexico and I am considering following her, but this whole thing bothers me. I try to ask her about him to see how she responds, but she never lets on anything."
Run, don't walk, to Canada, friend! Of course, Cary doesn't say it quite so bluntly, giving "Too Curious" a lesson in trust first, but the end result is the same. And now on to yesterday's Dear Abby, where the bastardry is not so much sad as full-on shameless.
"I left the lawnmower and a 5-gallon can of gas in the bed of my truck and went into the house for a drink of water. When I returned, the gas can was missing. I bought another can, filled it with gas and added 2 pounds of sugar. Again, I parked my truck in the same spot with the gas can visible. An hour later, it too had disappeared. A short while later, I noticed a neighbor's son and his friends pushing his car up the street. They said they had 'engine problems'."
Abby is reluctant to speculate that karma may have been in play here, but I'll go ahead and express how I feel: haaaaaah! Sure, maybe the kids just had engine problems. What a koinky-dink. And maybe they're thieving jerks. Most likely of all, this story's a totally fabricated lie, but my little karmic heart doesn't want to believe it.
Posted at 1:24 PM Oct 14, 2008
by Andrea Grimes
The economy's gone to hell and we're all broke and stocks are crashing and holycrap we're bailing out the jerks who got us into this mess. We are a nation full of sad bastards indeed. So it's no surprise to me that the advice columns over the past week have been decidedly mild; can we take any more? Must we? I don't know the answer to that, but I do know I've dedicated myself to finding the saddest bastards seeking help in any given week, and I'll be damned if this stock is going to tank.
But over in Savage Love, a 17-year-old girl makes a pretty great decision after her boyfriend pulls a fast, condomless one on her, and the New York Times' "Social Q's" opens with a guy who actually realizes how obnoxious he is. And so we turn to Annie's Mailbox for "Colorblind" and her adoption dilemma:
"We are open to adopt a child of any race. Everyone is supportive of our decision, with the exception of my husband's stepfather. "Bruce" has been married to my mother-in-law for four years. He told her that he if we adopt an African-American child, he will not allow the boy into his home. He says he can't help the way he feels. He also went on to tell her that if we do adopt a child of another race, it will be the last stake driven into their marriage."
I know! Who the hell does this guy think he is? And what person in their right mind would let such a kook dictate their lives in such a way? Oh, family dynamics. The
Annie's Mailbox response to how "Colorblind" should handle "Bruce's" attitude is straight-up straight-talkin': "You ignore it."
I've always thought mothers-in-law got an unnecessarily bad rap; here's a father-in-law to take the cake.
Posted at 1:36 PM Oct 07, 2008
by Andrea Grimes
Let's cut the grown-up bullshit and get down to some good, old fashioned teenage angst. Cary Tennis has the scoop over at Since You Asked from 17-year-old "John." I'm not even going to try and paraphrase this:
"My friend was playing his 360 and I was just watching him play, being quiet as usual when I'm not at my house, and my other friend said, "John, what you doin'?" and my reply was, "Chillin', chillin'." And there were a couple other people there that I didn't know, and when I answered my friend's question I heard another person say something like "but he only" and then she stopped what she was saying, and I didn't think nothin' of it. So we all went upstairs and one girl I know told me that I was quiet when I'm not at my house and I told her, 'Cause I'm a quiet person, and then she said something I didn't hear, so I said, Huh? and then she said, See, he doesn't ever know what's goin' on, and I told her, I do know what's goin' on, and she said, I'm not making fun of you, and I didn't know what she meant but then it hit me. I really didn't know what was goin' on and I realized that I just assumed she was making fun of me and I realized she said, I'm not making fun of you."
Cary appears to understand this, telling John that "I fixed up your spelling, but your letter made sense to me." Of course, Cary's solution is simply to tell the kid to talk to a teacher, but he does claim to understand it. I already know Cary Tennis is smarter than me, but he must also be psychic.
Ten points to the first reader who can translate this kid's letter into English.
Posted at 11:08 AM Sep 30, 2008
by Andrea Grimes
I have been reading Dear Abby since I was in elementary school, and I have never, ever felt like I was being lied to ... until today. You see, all this week I've been planning on naming the poor girl with the death metal-obsessed boyfriend in last Thursday's Dear Prudence as Sad Bastard of the Week. But today's Dear Abby is by far the weirdest, saddest thing I think I have ever read. It deals with unexpected, nay, unknown pregnancies. Says Abby, "I have a stack of mail on my desk verifying the fact that it's not unheard of for a woman to carry a baby well into pregnancy -- and even to term -- without knowing she's pregnant."
I'll have to let some letter writers explain. An R.N. in Texas says:
"Most interesting was a middle-aged mother of two teenagers. Because both had been delivered by scheduled C-section, she had never experienced labor pains. She had always been "chubby" and had been premenopausal with irregular periods for some time. She thought she had finally entered menopause and that the strange sensations she had been experiencing for the past few months were just "gas.""
And another:
"I have seen many young ladies in their early 20s come into the ER with abdominal pain. When asked if there is a "possibility" that they could be pregnant, they say no. Even after a pelvic exam, when they are being taken up to labor and delivery, they deny they are having a baby.
Okay, fine, the phenomenon is real per Dear Abby. But Abby fails to explain how and why. Excluding the scarily real possibility that there are women in 2008 U.S. and A. who don't know how babies get made, I need an answer and I need it now: Ladies, how does this happen?
Posted at 11:39 AM Sep 23, 2008
By Andrea Grimes
In this installment of Sad Bastard of the Week, where I bring you the very finest in other people's problems, we have a very touchy situation, very literally. Yes, it's very sad that a New York Times Social Q's questioner has a hard time at the movie theater, and how heartbreaking indeed that a young lady in Savage Love missed out on a great opportunity to get balled by balls due to a very non-GGG sexual faux pas. But the saddest bastard of them all is, unsurprisingly, in Since You Asked, and it has to do with a little unwanted wanting:
"When I first met my boyfriend more than a year ago, one of his friends groped me. Then he did it again. And again. I told him about it immediately after the first incident and he dismissed it and said it didn't happen. Since we weren't in a proper relationship at the time, I felt like I didn't have any "rights," ... I brought up the issue again. My boyfriend's response was: "He hasn't had any in a while, he's just a deviant."
Honestly, girl! You didn't have any "rights" not to be groped because you weren't in a relationship with the groper's BFF? One wonders how far one should go with this logic--one has no rights not to be raped because one doesn't know the rapist's mom that well? Oh, hyperbole. Regardless, the boyfriend sounds like a mouse of the highest (lowest) order:
"he thinks that they are just behaving like boys, and wants me to just get over the groping incidents. None of my own male friends behave like this, nor does my boyfriend. Help, Cary. What should I do?"
In typical Cary form, his response is meaningful and thoughtful: "So ditch them. Change your life. Change your direction. Meditate on those moments of betrayal in which he showed you where his loyalties do not lie. Meditate on what you felt there. Write it down. Explore it. Make it real."
My response is slightly more practical: DTMFA.
