A common thread running through all four of these letters is a breakdown of communication...

Far Away: Your Dad's move to the other side of the country, his failure to invite you to his wedding and the fact that he stopped flying in for visits tend to make me suspect that you have thoroughly communicated how "hurt and dissapointed" you are... not to mention your intense dislike of his new wife and disapproval of his choices. Would you have actually gone to his wedding if you were invited? Would your invitation to visit include his new wife? I'm thinking probably not... If you really want your father to be a part of your life - and your children's lives - I suspect he would be open to that, but not if it means spending the time playing target for you while you rehash your anger and disapproval of him and his life. Even if that anger and disapproval is justifiable, continuing to harp on it is never going to result in a closer relationship between the two of you. Take him as he is or leave him be. Decide whether you want a close relationship with him or want to use him for target practice. You can't have both.

Talk or Deal: Tell him what's on your mind... and listen when he replies. Leaving something you feel so strongly about unspoken is far more likely to destroy your marriage than his looking at a porn movie is. If you can't live with his looking at porn, perhaps he can live without it. If he views it as no big deal, talking about it may help you to stop feeling so upset about it. Or not... Either way, not talking about it is a surefire recipe for disaster. He can't fix it if he doesn't know what's broken.

Tired: You are under no obligation to suffer fools gladly. Communicating to people who ask questions like that that they are being insulting and ignorant is the only way to clue them in that they are being insulting and ignorant. I think you are to be commended for your restraint. I probably would have responded to the "living in trees" question by replying that we lived in huts on the ground so as to be closer to our cooking pots - white folks need to be stirred often or they will burn... Here's your sign...

Waiting: An awful lot of men are completely clueless when it comes to "reading the signals" women send them. Subtle doesn't work. Coy doesn't work. If you arched one eyebrow when you said you didn't have plans for the weekend, he might easily have interpretted that to mean, "And that's the way I want it, bub". Men can be incredibly dense. If you are interrested in a man who asks what your plans are, a far more effective reply might be, "None at the moment... What do you have in mind?". That kind of spells it out for him, and with a great many men that's exactly what you have to do. It also puts the ball back in his court while leaving you with your options wide open in case you don't like what he has in mind. If you don't speak plainly and clearly, the only men you are likely to connect with are the "playas".

Graylodge:

...Men can be incredibly dense. If you are interrested in a man who asks what your plans are, a far more effective reply might be, "None at the moment... What do you have in mind?". That kind of spells it out for him, and with a great many men that's exactly what you have to do....

That's a little too direct. In the dating game, it's important to not be too 'desperate' or too direct. You might say something like "Nuthin.......Mmmm, is there a follow up question?", or just "nuthin..... but is that just a rhetorical question?", or "well that depends on who's asking..... since you're asking I guess I would say nothing"

You have to keep it playful. Don't hide the intention, but don't say it out loud directly. It's like 20 questions or charades or those guess games and drawing game- talk around it every way you can, but never directly mention it outright.

icemilkcoffee:

Graylodge:

...Men can be incredibly dense. If you are interrested in a man who asks what your plans are, a far more effective reply might be, "None at the moment... What do you have in mind?". That kind of spells it out for him, and with a great many men that's exactly what you have to do....

That's a little too direct. In the dating game, it's important to not be too 'desperate' or too direct. You might say something like "Nuthin.......Mmmm, is there a follow up question?", or just "nuthin..... but is that just a rhetorical question?", or "well that depends on who's asking..... since you're asking I guess I would say nothing"

You have to keep it playful. Don't hide the intention, but don't say it out loud directly. It's like 20 questions or charades or those guess games and drawing game- talk around it every way you can, but never directly mention it outright.

You may be right. Of course, I am one of the completely dense ones. I can remember asking a woman in college what she had planned for the weekend, though, and when she smiled, reached over and loosened my tie and said, "I was planning on spending it with you", I thought I had died and gone to heaven. The relationship didn't stand the test of time, but I'll be damned if that wasn't one of the happiest months of my life...and if she'd been any less direct, I probably would have still been trying to figure out what she really meant while she wandered off with my roommate.

I think you may be right on that one, Graylodge. I remember when I was younger, I liked a guy and he liked me. Things like catching him looking at me, vice versa, but neither of us would make the first move because we were too shy, didn't want to get rejected, whatever. Another girl came in the picture, she got him cause she approached him directly, while I wasted time being cute, thinking he will approach me first. Soooo, I learned that if I want something, I will go after it. If it doesn't work out, oh well. But no need to play coy when someone else may get in when you are too busy playing games or thinking they will make the first move.

Tabby;

I'm sure it depends on the person, but the guys I knew in high school and college who weren't what today are called "players" were almost universally clueless - and the ones who were players were probably just as clueless in their own way. Their technique seemed to consist of interpretting everything except a knee in the groin as a good sign and hitting on every woman in sight figuring that some of them were bound to say yes.

I know when I went back to my 25th HS reunion and got to talking with some of the female friends I'd had back in the day (most of whom I had been madly in love with but convinced wanted to be "just friends") the question of why I'd never made a pass came up several times. It turned out that more than a few had just been waiting for me to make a move - and insisted that they had spent three years feeding me signals a blind guy should have been able to see - and figured I was the one who wanted to be "just friends".

Perhaps I am more clueless than most men, but from conversations I've had with other men I know, cluelessness about that particular area of life seems to be a near-universal condition. The few men I've known who claim not to be were all quite young and claimed to "understand women" perfectly. Some of the older guys I know used to claim that when they were younger too... and feel very foolish about it now. I don't want to sound sexist - God knows, I love and respect the female of the species - but I sure as hell don't understand y'all and I am pretty much convinced that men and women simply do not think the same way at all.

I've never noticed a problem with being direct in the dating game. Weirdly enough it appears that women are the ones who claim that men don't like it when we're direct, but when I talk to men they mostly prefer a direct approach.

Not to mention, if the girl dating is direct now, it means she'll be able to talk to her husband someday if she catches him viewing porn, and her daughter someday - if any - will learn to be direct in speaking to her dates and future husband and to her own father, thus eliminating 3 of these letters for that family to write someday.

Of course, they may get told "here's your sign" a lot, but it's a small price to pay.

PhysicsGirl:

I've never noticed a problem with being direct in the dating game. Weirdly enough it appears that women are the ones who claim that men don't like it when we're direct, but when I talk to men they mostly prefer a direct approach.

I remember hearing that alot when I was a kid. Perhaps in my parents' generation that held true. I don't personally know any men my age or younger who have a problem with women being direct. Hell, most of us complain alot about the fact that they so rarely are direct. One of our biggest peeves is hearing a woman say, "You know what I meant".

Honest to God, we really didn't. If we had, don't you think we would have gone through contortions to avoid having that particular argument yet again? We wish we did know what they want... it would make life ever so much simpler and more tranquil. Sadly, we don't. We are dense that way.

IncogNeato:

Not to mention, if the girl dating is direct now, it means she'll be able to talk to her husband someday if she catches him viewing porn, and her daughter someday - if any - will learn to be direct in speaking to her dates and future husband and to her own father, thus eliminating 3 of these letters for that family to write someday.

Of course, they may get told "here's your sign" a lot, but it's a small price to pay.

"Here's your sign" is not something most men are liable to get upset about hearing. One signal we actually do know how to read pretty well (having had it drilled into us by our mothers before we hit puberty) is the Patented Exasperated Female Eye-Roll - which means, of course, "Here's your sign". We know we are dense. We don't mind women noticing that fact. In fact, we'd far prefer that they notice it than expect us to read their minds... ;-)

It's amazing to me how many people feel being in a relationship is supposed to give a person telepathy. My husband loves me very much, but he's not a mind reader (no one is). So if I say, "Yes" but really mean, "Not over my dead body which you should figure out by the tone of my voice and my stance. I'm simply saying yes because I don't want to sound like a bitch if I say no." He's not going to do what I want. If I say, "No", he still has the choice whether to listen or not, but at least he knows how I feel about whatever it is.

PhysicsGirl:

It's amazing to me how many people feel being in a relationship is supposed to give a person telepathy. My husband loves me very much, but he's not a mind reader (no one is). So if I say, "Yes" but really mean, "Not over my dead body which you should figure out by the tone of my voice and my stance. I'm simply saying yes because I don't want to sound like a bitch if I say no." He's not going to do what I want. If I say, "No", he still has the choice whether to listen or not, but at least he knows how I feel about whatever it is.

I'd much rather hear a straight out "No!"

I have been known to interpret that tone of voice and stance as meaning, "Do what you want - and stop asking me stupid questions when I'm busy", "Yes, idiot... how many times to I have to tell you that" or "I really don't care one way or the other and you should know that by now". I have never interpreted, "No!" - regardless of the tone of voice - to mean anything other than "No!". I'm real good with one-syllable words. Subtle things like body language and tone of voice are pretty much lost on me...

Graylodge:

PhysicsGirl:

So if I say, "Yes" but really mean, "Not over my dead body which you should figure out by the tone of my voice and my stance. I'm simply saying yes because I don't want to sound like a bitch if I say no."

I'd much rather hear a straight out "No!"

Then there's the always-popular "We'll see." (Stress on the "we'll.") Even my autistic son figured out by age 4 that "That means "No!" Even my even-denser older brother understands that one. I try to use it only when I tire of people arguing when I give a straight-out "no."