I was going to write about the difference between me-in-college and my-kids-in-college, politically-speaking, but I got two paragraphs into it and I was starting to wonder if I could have another cup of coffee. They are MORE politically engaged and active, that’s the entire upshot.
My sunburn is peeling and I am trying not to pick at it.
William is in his third week as a new teacher, and the despair has hit. He is saying things like “We’re teaching NOTHING, to PEOPLE WHO DON’T WANT TO LEARN IT, and we’re not even doing it IN A WAY THAT MAKES SENSE!” This is not causing me to panic: it is my understanding that most new teachers hit this point, and that the first year of teaching tends to be rough no matter what. Or maybe this won’t end up being his thing, and he will find something else. But in any case, we have at least temporarily stopped the résumé gap, and he has a salary and benefits, and there is a lot to be glad about there, even if it comes with the cost of disillusionment with the educational system.
Rob, who lost his job awhile back, is now losing his roommate. I am not worrying about it. This is not my problem to solve. This is not my problem to solve. This is not my problem to solve. He can always come back and live in his room, so he will not starve on the streets; and other than that, this is not my problem to solve. I can go la la la la la and keep my eyes on my own life.
Paul’s wrist is healing. He had a post-surgical follow-up at two weeks, and for some reason he thought that was going to be the end of it? I did one volley of argument and then dropped it (one symptom of perimenopause is that I am both MORE and LESS inclined to argue with a man who doesn’t know what he’s talking about and isn’t listening to me), and sure enough: at the two-week mark he got the cast removed, but now he’s in a splint for four weeks, and still is not allowed to drive. At the end of this stage, he will be evaluated and x-rayed again to see if he needs more time in the splint or if he can start physical therapy.
Edward saw his doctors for the first time since the surgery a month ago, and I was so excited to hear what they had to say—but they were mostly asking HIM questions, and said it was too soon for them to be able to say anything about how things had gone. They do bloodwork each time, so everyone is interested to see how THIS batch compares to the NEXT batch in 5-6 more weeks. We are also hoping to see weight gain, but it is too soon to expect it.
You may remember me freaking out because the surgery was only two weeks before the beginning of the new semester; but it turned out we followed the one ever-narrowing branching path that led to Everything Being Fine: he went back to school, and it has not been a problem (other than the part where Elizabeth and I had to move all of his stuff because he wasn’t allowed to lift anything). The school year is going well, and he says he’s feeling good. He’s having some mild GI symptoms that the doctors think are most likely because of the surgical disruption and the healing process, as opposed to being symptoms of ongoing Crohn’s issues.
OH. I remember the follow-up I was going to be sure to give. Do you remember when my friend Linnea unexpectedly brought her HUSBAND (who is NOT a friend of mine) to our coffee date?? I may be misremembering / making this up, but I feel like among the many, many fun and interesting comments, a sort of consensus started to build that a lot would hinge on the NEXT coffee date: like, was this a weird one-time thing and I may never find out why she brought him? or is this THE NEW NORMAL AND I SHOULD HAVE SET A BOUNDARY IMMEDIATELY.
Linnea and I were both busy for quite a few weeks in a row, so it took awhile to get to test this. Finally we made a coffee date for last week. We texted back and forth several times about logistics. Only when we got to the “Okay, I’m leaving my house in two minutes” stage did she say “Oh, and Kent might stop by if that’s okay.” First of all: WHAT!!!! Second: that is not a REAL “if that’s okay,” because there is no way to say it isn’t. A REAL “if that’s okay” would happen earlier in the plans and would be something like “I was thinking of seeing if Kent would like to join us, if that’s something you’d like too?” Third: What does “stop by” mean?
It turned out that “stop by” meant he was there from beginning to end. Again, it was not UNPLEASANT, per se. He’s a fine guy. I’m not looking to be friends with him (I’ve got chatty know-it-all guy at home), but it’s not like I actively dislike him. He’s a charming guy and he knows it, which is not my cup of tea. BUT WHY WAS HE THERE AT ALL.
Also, OMG ALSO: HE WAS TRYING TO GET ME TO GO OUT FOR BEERS WITH HIM AND HIS FRIENDS. Like, WITHOUT LINNEA. SOCIALIZING WITH HIM SEPARATELY. WHY. WHY. WHY. WHY. WHY. WHY. NO.
Fortunately, though I can be POOR at speaking up when I don’t like something, I managed early on to choose the correct social mode for dealing with this guy, which is to be frank and opinionated and not particularly careful of his feelings. Like, he invited me to come over and play board/card games at a game night he hosts, and I said “Oh! No. I do not like games.” And when he said oh come on, I have some you WILL like, I said “Nope! Absolutely not. Thanks tho!” And when he said if I didn’t like group games he had some good two-player games, I said “Even worse!” However: I think this might be one of the reasons he’s being so persistent. I suspect he is not accustomed to hearing No. I suspect it is about 99% of the appeal I seem to inexplicably hold for him. Meanwhile Linnea is just sitting there, sort of chuckling, occasionally saying “Honey. She said she doesn’t like games.” WHAT IS GOING ON HERE.
I had a long interesting discussion with Edward in the car, driving him back to school after the recent doctor appointment. He’s of the mind that it IS okay to respond to a fake “if that’s okay” with a real “It’s not!” And I do agree it’s okay, or should be okay, but it’s not within my social abilities so it’s irrelevant. What IS within my abilities is to HEAD IT OFF AT THE PASS. I can, for example, invite Linnea for coffee, and add “Just us this time, so we can talk about menopause *laughing emoji*.” And at that coffee date, it is within my abilities to say cheerfully, “I have never had a friend bring her husband along to a coffee date before. What’s up with that?” Because I know I shouldn’t need to know the Why in order to put a stop to the behavior, but I feel as if the Why is important for my decision-making process and for the way in which I would put a stop to the behavior.
Another question is whether I would continue the friendship if this is a buy-one-get-one-free situation. The friendship is not serious enough that it would cause drama or heartbreak to let it fade away. On the other hand, I can’t say I had a bad time hanging out with both of them. The MAIN reason I wouldn’t want to continue it is that he’s PUSHY and I don’t want to have to keep saying no to all the social opportunities he’s offering me—though, well, I also don’t hate it as a sort of running joke, as long as it continues to be a running joke and not Actual Pressure. But I don’t like to have to carefully strategize a friendship. It makes me think of Frances the storybook badger: “Do you want to be careful, or do you want to be friends?”
I can’t tell you dislike hanging out with both of them solely on principle or if the actual hanging out is less fun with Kent there. The principle part goes without saying! But do you actually dislike hanging out with them? I can imagine feeling conflicted myself about this so am curious.
It IS less fun with Kent there, but I don’t dislike hanging out with both. I guess if I could have things exactly my way, I’d want to hang out with just Linnea 9 out of 10 times, and have Kent there 1 out of 10 times.
I had the opposite at a date with one of my ex-colleagues (we’re both retired, and I moved away). She & her husband were passing through my town, and we arranged a date. I EXPECTED her husband to be there, but did not know that they EXPECTED my husband to come, too! They were quite put out & seemed disappointed that he had things to do in our own home town, other than have a date with two people he did not know AT ALL.
People are exceeding strange!
i wonder if perhaps linnea doesn’t really have a choice about whether to bring kent. some men don’t like their partners having an independent social life.
YES, like this is why the WHY of it all MATTERS to me. If this is not something Linnea wants, but she can’t say no, I want to either (1) be the one who says no FOR her, OR, if that means not seeing Linnea, (2) accept that those are the terms of being friends with Linnea.
Swingers, Swistle. They’re swingers. Or he is.
Idk actually. But it popped in my head and now everyone has to read it.
I am sorry Rob lost his job.
Teaching is a whole thing and I am certain, especially since William did not set out on this path that he is 100% normal. I have a masters in Education though no one has paid me to do so. That’s a whole story. While I was student teaching I was like “OMFG. This is so stupid” since the theory and education I was being taught in my MASTERS OF EDUCATION PROGRAM did not line up AT ALL with the reality in a classroom. It can be done. People do it all the time. But having legislators and MBAs make the rules for education is stupid and I will DIE on this hill. In some cases the way we were taught to teach and how pupils learn and the way teaching was expected to be managed in an actual public school classroom were total opposite ends of the spectrum. Diametrically opposed, if you will.
This is so funny—and I think the funniest part is realizing that some people LITERALLY ARE swingers, and that…this type of situation MUST HAPPEN in cases where the couple ARE IN FACT SWINGERS, and the third person (in this case, me) must START by thinking “What is the DEAL here??”…and then gradually Realize.
I think William would find your whole last paragraph EXTREMELY GRATIFYING, and I might show it to him.
I think you summed it up perfectly: he’s intrigued by you because his charms are not working as intended. My experience with chatty, charming know-it-alls is they make great salespeople because they don’t accept the word No, they need to turn it into a Yes. It’s like a compulsion. They’re wielding their charm like a weapon in a duel you didn’t know you were having.
As to why he’s there at all, I dunno. Is he unemployed or recently retired? Or are they like one of those couples that have one email address for the both of them? Package deal?
I AM SO CURIOUS TO KNOW. He has TWO jobs (one full-time, one part-time), and according to Linnea it’s because when he cut down to only one job he was going crazy with boredom. BUT THEN HOW DOES HE HAVE SO MUCH TIME TO HAVE COFFEE WITH HIS WIFE’S FRIENDS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY.
Also, he TRAVELS for his jobs, A LOT, sometimes he’s gone for WEEKS or MONTHS at a time, and I wonder if when he’s home they…want to be together all the time? (I’ve also wondered if there’s a discreet way I can find out his schedule, and only invite Linnea for coffee while he’s away.)
I wonder if you could casually throw out that Paul has to travel for work (whether he does or not) in the near future, and see if she commiserates or what exactly her reaction is. Either she’ll give you a hint to his schedule, OR she’ll give you a hint whether she enjoys him being gone or not!
Either way I’m gratified and intrigued by this update and at the edge of my seat for further developments.
This detail (about the travel) makes me further think they are swingers or in an open marriage. Have you ever made lowkey grumbles about your marriage to Linnea in the past? She may have put you in the category of “possibly open to swinging” based on that.
Yes, so interesting! My first thought was that he’s driving the invite for himself and maybe his wife doesn’t feel like she can turn him down?
I didn’t know that William is a teacher now! I had the same complaints about my first year of teaching. I am hesitant to tell you that that turned out to be my *only* year of teaching. But! It was overall a good experience and I’m glad I tried it, and I ended up getting a job in a different field, so it all worked out. Plus now I don’t have to wonder if I’d enjoy a teaching career.
I don’t always mind when my friends bring their partners to things…as long as they tell me from the start that that’s the plan. If they say “do you want to get lunch with me and Partner on Friday?”, then I can either agree to that plan or tell them I’m busy. It’s much harder to back out if I’ve already agreed to one-on-one plans with that friend: I can’t think of a tactful way to say, “Well, I want to see YOU, but I’m not particularly interested in hanging out with your partner.”
(Whoops, that comment kinda reads like I was fired from my teaching job. I wasn’t! I left to go to grad school and decided not to go back to teaching after that.)
As a teacher for three decades I can say that the first day is the worst( I have anxiety dreams each August) and I’m exhausted for the first month. Like, I can’t imagine how I do this for nine months in a row! My mom assured me that I complain about this every year. Teaching may not be William’s life calling, but it is super common to hate the first month. It makes me feel way better (I teach third grade) to realize that I am so happy not to be teaching kindergarten.
He has some good two-player games?!? I’m sure he does. He’ll have Rihanna playing in the background about her whips and chains at “game night.” I’d bet good money they are swingers and that he will disappear from coffee dates as soon as you make it clear you are not into that. You did a great job being super clear that games are not your thing. I’d be prepared to be just as nonjudgmental and direct if/when swinging comes up. I agree with Edward that it is totally acceptable to respond to “if that’s okay” with “It’s not!”
I also immediately thought swingers when he started mentioning two player games. Like, that is incredibly awkward to imagine in any other capacity. “Want to come to board game night?” I don’t like games. “Want to come to board game night where ONLY YOU AND I CAN PLAY TOGETHER?”
And just so we don’t gloss over Paul thinking the cast would be the end of it: Paul. Really? But it does sound like if you need someone to entertain you while Paul heals you have some options. WINK WINK NUDGE
WHAT IS HAPPENING. WHAT. WHY. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?
I just cannot fathom WHY this is happening. This is SO abnormal. Who DOES this. I am sure I said this the first time but this is COMPLETELY weird, no one has a husband just show up on a coffee date. My thought is that a) he is a weird control freak who won’t allow his wife to socialize without him, b) he is a weird excessively social person who just wants to add more people to his life, or c) they are swingers. This is SO strange. I cannot even imagine a scenario in which my husband comes with me to a coffee with a girlfriend, let alone have him invite said girlfriend to go out with him and his buddies. SPEAKING OF WHICH I would never go out with my husband and his buddies either. THERE HAVE TO BE LINES HERE. I just. What. Sure, as a running joke it might be funny to just keep saying no to a guy who clearly never heard the word before, but omg, how tiresome. How tiresome to want to visit with your friend and have her weirdo husband show up and continually invite you to games night. WHICH YOU DON’T LIKE. OMG. THESE PEOPLE ARE BONKERS. His wife is either a dead-inside, beaten-down woman, or a weirdo who wants her husband with her at all times. THERE IS NO OTHER EXPLANATION.
I have so many feelings about this that it is going to be the subject of my Monday blog post because I CANNOT.
I AM EXCITED FOR THIS
Is this outrage because we are Canadian, because I TOO cannot IMAGINE this scenario happening. It is SO RUDE. V excited for your blog post on the matter.
“One symptom of perimenopause is that I am both MORE and LESS inclined to argue with a man who doesn’t know what he’s talking about and isn’t listening to me” Yesssss or more accurately nooooo. I may not quite be in the perimenopause YET (I’m almost 42) but I have gotten better about, er, picking my battles with my husband, an engineer and firstborn male who is never incorrect. We moved to another country over the summer and though it is going well now, there have been MANY opportunities recently to work this muscle.
I have no insight into what is happening with the friend and husband. Swingers is the most entertaining suggestion (multiple) people have made. You’re going to have to investigate in some indirect way.
I deeply appreciate your relief about a job with benefits for William. Noah’s almost the same age, 26 in the spring, and then he will fall off our insurance and he’s never had a job with benefits in his 3 years and change out of college. His current job (temporary, full time, no benefits) lasts another month and half. I do not know whether he’s looking for another one, but I suspect not.
Ewww! I also got the vibe that they are swingers / into polygamy and they are trying to get you into their relationship. Run! Even creepier that he is asking you to hang out and play games with him. Nope! If you want to hang out with your friend again, I would definitely do what you described and be like “Hey let’s get coffee just us girls so we can chat menopause.” It’s super weird that she mentioned him coming at the very last second. If you had Paul coming with you it would make sense to have her husband come, but otherwise it is super weird and uncomfortable sounding.
Also creepy to think he might be a super controlling husband and doesn’t like his wife to have friends that he doesn’t know, in case they are a “bad influence” on her or something.
SHE BROUGHT HIM A SECOND TIME OMG NO
This is the thing that gets me: I’m sure there is some explanation (not “some good reason,” mind you, because … no) for why he is coming / she is bringing him. But I cannot fathom why she is not sharing that explanation with you! Perhaps on the private text thread the two of you share! What!
Okay, but some people are just really odd.
I did a job interview once—I was doing the interviewing—and the woman brought her HUSBAND to the job interview. At first he kind of sat in a different part of the room towards the back, as if just there observing, but then she was like, “You can come sit with us!” in a teasing, exasperated tone, like he was being really silly for not joining us. So then her husband came and sat at the table with us, as if he, too, were being interviewed, and he even added a little input from time to time. It was SO, SO weird. It didn’t seem like HE necessarily wanted to be there, more like she wanted him there for moral support, but also this was a professional position and she was employed at a professional place of work and surely—SURELY—she knew this was strange behavior, yet offered no explanation or comment on the whole situation. Of course I should have said something, but I was so taken aback and also so curious to see what was going on and why this was happening. The guy interviewing with me also didn’t say anything—we just had a lot of WTF conversations afterwards.
This is so weird!!!!
This is so boggling, and RIVETINGLY interesting.
They’re swingers. I can’t think of any other way to interpret their otherwise beyond-odd behavior.
If not swinger then why swinger shaped?
Not helpful, but made me giggle
They are swingers. Unfortunately, I have been around a somewhat similar setup and pattern of behavior, and they were swingers. There might even be a playbook for this somewhere, and this confusing social setup is in it.
Separately, a formerly good friend of mine got into polyamory and even though she never directly propositioned me or my husband, the vibe shift was so drastic and unpleasant (kind of sneaky and strange and sleazy, and why-is-she-alluding-to-this) that it killed our friendship. It completely destabilized the shared safe terrain of our prior friendship.
I have never encountered a polyamorous couple that didn’t sow chaos and social confusion (lowkey or intense) everywhere they tried to socially exist. Apologies to any no-drama, non-weird swingers reading this…you are definitely the rare exception.
Ultimately I don’t think it’s really possible to be friends with swingers, sadly. It’s just too disorienting and often icky. And it seems to turn into a waste of time.
The friend also invited a teen to your previous coffee date, right? This makes me think NOT swingers, friend just has weird ideas about socializing. Has it been the same coffee shop both times? Maybe she views it as a sort of extension of her family’s living room, Friends-style. Or maybe her family is on a quest to try every coffee shop in the city?
On the other hand, she did say “Kent might SWING by.” Is that a swinger dog whistle?
I have worked in education in one way or another for the last 12 years and I am here to tell you that the first year is TERRIBLE! Never have I been so tired or so sick, it seems like I caught everything. It was especially galling to me because I had been a stay at home mother for 10 years before I went into teaching and I really thought my immune system was tough but it wasn’t! It’s a very very very eye opening experience, especially in this current hellscape and it can be such a tough entry. I hope that he loves it!, I want to say, which seems BONKERS but I do. If you can work around all the nonsense (and there is so much of it), it can really be extremely gratifying.
I don’t even know what to say about the friend. I’m mean but I’d just drop her it’s too weird.
I just have to say I have no idea what’s going on with the husband, except that he seems like the type who has maybe worn a lot of people out but is still looking for new friends.
I loved the Frances reference. One of my all-time favorite kids’ book characters. Did you ever see the very short-lived Frances cartoon? During a very bad sleeping time for my oldest we somehow found it on an ancient streaming service and would watch at 2 a.m. (she’s 21 now and also very political as a college student). I need to look for it again. A favorite childhood memory is how much my Dad used to love the friend’s lunch in “Bread and Jam for Frances.” Makes me want a mini salt shaker with my hard-boiled egg.
YES. Albert’s lunch is aspirational. I think of the little salt-shaker VERY OFTEN.
All I know is that we will NEED a further instalment in this series to update us on what is going on with this couple. So many questions and, I think, a full range of possible explanations from the mundane to the truly bizarre.
I hope you can do this:
“And at that coffee date, it is within my abilities to say cheerfully, “I have never had a friend bring her husband along to a coffee date before. What’s up with that?” Because I know I shouldn’t need to know the Why in order to put a stop to the behavior, but I feel as if the Why is important for my decision-making process and for the way in which I would put a stop to the behavior” …and then hurry home and right a post :)
Like everyone else I’m AGOG to hear what on earth is going on. And I also loved hearing about you being frank and opinionated and just saying you didn’t like games. God, the joy of saying what you really feel. And weirdly, he seems to love it. And meanwhile, you didn’t rope yourself in for onerous social commitments, and the story just gets better and better. It’s a lesson for us all.
Like everyone, I just want to know MORE about your friend and her husband. (Two player games?!?!?!?!) There seem to be so many possibilities, from the boring to the salacious to the mundane, and I just want to KNOW. Swistle, I hope you get to the bottom of this!
All the other updates were fascinating, too, to be clear. I am just so intrigued/disturbed by your friend’s husband bringing!
Honestly, maybe it could work when making plans for next time to say up front, “I am only making plans for a coffee hangout IF YOU PROMISE your husband will not come.” You could probably play it off as a little jokey while still saying “no really- cut it out with this.”
I am concerned about your friend. Is she okay? He seems controlling. The Dateline guys are always charming by the way.