Dear Queenie,
My girlfriend knows a lot of people and when we go out somewhere she is constantly looking around for someone she knows and leaving me to go over to greet them and chat for a bit. This makes for constant interruptions in whatever we are doing and it’s gotten so I just don’t want to go out anywhere with her anymore.
Queenie, shouldn’t I get more respect?—Fed up
Dear Fed up,
Have you told your girlfriend how you feel about this? If not, sit down with her and do so as soon as possible.
It might help if she would introduce you to the folks you do not already know and include you in these conversations.
Also, I have to wonder why some of these people do not come over to her to say “hello.” And, could it be that they consider her greetings an intrusion in whatever they are doing and are just too polite to let her know how they feel?
Dear Queenie,
All my friends have children or are about to and they keep asking me and my husband when we are going to become parents too. Maybe we will someday, but I have never wanted to get pregnant and go through childbirth and my husband isn’t interested in adopting, so maybe we never will have children.
It’s bad enough when our parents get after us about giving them grandchildren, but our friends too?
Queenie, what do we say to people when they get on our case?—Happily childless
Dear Childless,
If you have medical reasons for not conceiving and bearing children and are comfortable sharing them with family and/or friends, explain your reasons for not having children.
Otherwise, just tell them, “Maybe someday,” and change the subject.
Dear Queenie,
My wife and I worked hard for many years and limited our spending so we could save up for retirement. Now we are out of debt, our house is paid for and we can afford some luxuries that we couldn’t up to now, but some of our friends are accusing us of showing off and bragging when we talk about what we have been doing.
Queenie, are they right or are they just jealous of us?—Living it up
Dear Living,
Maybe a little of both. Try not talking about your new extravagances unless your friends bring up the subject.
Several of you have pointed out to me that in my answer to Frustrated (Thursday, May 18) I suggested that her boyfriend might be refusing to have sex with her because he is gay or sexually dysfunctional, but failed to point out to her that one possible reason might be that he does not believe in having sex with anyone outside of marriage, or at least a committed relationship.
Please note that I did not mean any of the reasons I did give in any derogatory sense, but merely mentioned them as statements of possible fact. However, I do apologise to her boyfriend for omitting the possibility of his having moral objections to submitting to her propositions.
And I have a question for the person who described my column as “sh**ty”: If that is what you think of my column, why do you read it?
Dear Queenie,
A guy I work with is having an affair with a married woman we both work with. This makes things very uncomfortable around the workplace because of the way they behave with each other.
Queenie, should I say something to one of them, or to our boss, or should I tell his wife or her husband?—Disgusted colleague
Dear Disgusted,
If everyone else in the workplace knows, your boss probably does too and if it is affecting everyone’s work performance it is up to him to speak to the two adulterers about that aspect of their behaviour.
As for the wife and husband, one or both of them may already know. MYOB!
