LW#1:
Okay, this I can dig. I myself would not be comfortable visiting the site of the murder of a close friend, respected colleague or esteemed teacher. It's not about ghosts, nor the Sixth Sense. It's about a horrible thing happening to someone you care about, and now life is going on like normal, right there.
I have a backwards perspective on this because when I was a teen, I learned that my neighbor, who had lived in my house years before my family, had been raped there by some stranger. No wonder my mom was so paranoid about us kids locking the doors when we were alone! So I had some weirdness, but ultimately, the fact was that my house was, to me, where we played Scrabble on the floor, sang around the piano and ate breakfast at the kitchen table. I was imbued with its normalcy and the rape was kind of an afterthought, an anomaly. I suspect it will be kind of the opposite for you and your boyfriend, with normal life being anomalous.
I believe some states have a law that if some awful thing happened in a house the sellers have to disclose it. Your friend may know why she got a bargain on the house. She may tell you this. I can't see how it would be ethical to bring it up to her now, though if she shares it with you you can sigh heavily and say, "Well, here's the kicker ..."
Anyway, I said I came into the "rapehouse" knowledge backward, but you are going in forward. I do believe a home, even where something terrible happened, can be a home again, can bounce back. If your bf's teacher loved her house, she couldn't possibly have wanted it marked by her tragedy. If she loved her community, she would probably want it to have her house be a place of healing, not a weeping sore. If your friend knows of her house's history, it's possible that she had, or might hold, some sort of ritual that acknowledges the pain but holds out hope and blessings for the future. Most communities have ecumenical groups that do these sort of things, and even for a non-ritual person like myself, these can be soothing. If not, maybe your boyfriend needs to do his own private ritual.
This doesn't help you with your boyfriend's boycott. Make excuses for him until your friend lets on that she knows the story. He needs to come to terms with his grief, obviously, but he also needs to not let it get in the way of his connections to the living. If this becomes a serious stumbling block for him, if he's seriously not able to be in the house at all, ever, it does start to get suspiciously superstitious on his end. If everyone carried around these memorialistic feelings the whole world would be plastered with "RIP" monuments (like those roadside memorials). I mean seriously, more people than you would suspect have died at your workplace, at schools, at bus stations, etc. It's a fact of life. Getting back to normal is the norm.
LW#2:
Jiminy Christmas, what I wouldn't give to say I have face blindness. I am just cursed with the memory of a spazzy gnat. If you have actually confused a senior partner with a summer intern, you go to that partner and say, "Yeah, about the other day, I'm so sorry about that. The thing is, I have a legitimate reason for what happened. Oh, you're not Mr. Pickapeppa (nice baby name, if any celebrities are reading! Ms. Stefani?)? Whoops! Just my prosopagnosia flaring up!" You explain your face blindness. People will think it is cool. I think it is cool. I believe the Fray will back me up on this: There are no neurological conditions that are not, at some level, cool, no matter how much havoc they wreak on the person with them (see "The Echo Maker" or any of that Oliver Sacks guy's work).
Oh yeah, and look for less "floaty" job since the requirements could, in that one regard, "sink" you. Bah-dum-dum.
LW#3:
Caity. Copycat competitor Caity. Well, I'm rolling around in my mind what to do about this because really, the way she wants to live her life is her business. But I can't imagine that she doesn't have a small compulsion to continue acting in the way she always has. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. You may start to tease her about copying you and that could shake her into a slight bit of self-awareness.
But other than getting into an unpleasant discussion with your sister that blames her and your mom for your misery, you have to get a grip on yourself. You love her but you feel great envy of her looks and intelligence. Well, hell, you're a doctor, you're supposed to have an ego by now, so start looking in the mirror and saying, "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darnit, people like me" and move on. Get a makeover if you feel yoo-gly. Stand up straight. Get your pride in order. In your mind, tell your mom to eff off. Pretty comes from good genes and braces, but serious attractiveness comes from the inside. Refuse to play the game your mom set up.
If you're really close to your sister, then she knows how inadequate you feel because you've talked to her about it. If she doesn't, well, you're not as close as you claim, even if you hash out the past with her regularly. Heck, you may find she has some issues with you that you had no idea existed. But if you think she's going to be publishing in JAMA with new treatments in your specialty, why not tell her, "Dude, if you're going to go into MY specialty and start beating me down with your luminescent competence, why don't you shoot for something a little harder, like brain surgery. Maybe you can cure prosogpagnosia or something. Seriously, quit single white femaling me. Get a damn identity." Ultimately, without your honesty, she may think this game y'all have been set up in is fun. Of course, she has never lost, though methinks she has never won fairly either.
LW#4
Speaking of getting some pride ... Jesus, Mary and Joseph, have you read your own letter? You "love him completely" so you let him date other people, he doesn't call you for two months and then says he has no money and you "understand?" Aren't you the softest, most crap-absorbing doormat in the world! Your masochism shines all the way up to my space station, like a beacon of retardation!
This guy is a douchebag of the highest order, and from your "understand(ing) his financial position" it makes it sound like he's been a slacker and leech for a while.
Your letter distresses me, "Confused with Love," because it is a certain type of letter that unleashes a kind of ugly reaction at the Fray (see mine, above). Do girls like you ENJOY the board beatdown you must be aware you'll get? Do you like putting out easy bait for the woman-hating trolls of this world?
That's my advice to all my sisters: If your relationship would become troll bait (easy troll bait, I qualify because there are some serious haters who hate all people's relationships and can never feel love in their icy, granite hearts) on the Fray, you should break up with your SO. Just reread what you write before you email it to Prudie, it will give you more clues than you need.
