Dear
Philip:
I get along with my brother-in-law very
well, except in one respect: he can’t stop interrupting me. This weekend, at my parents’ house, I was halfway
through telling him a story when he turned to my father and started talking to
him about a completely different subject.
It was as if I wasn’t even sitting there. He does this all the time, and even though I
don’t think he realizes he’s doing it, I always feel insulted. Should I confront him?
Cut
(and Ticked) Off
Dear Cut,
Sometimes great
actors get left on the cutting room floor; sometimes it’s great dialogue that
gets chopped. In a scene Quentin
Tarantino excised from “Pulp Fiction,” Uma Thurman puts a question to John
Travolta that your bro-in-law should ponder: “In conversation,” Uma asks, “do
you listen…or do you wait to talk?”
Your b.i.l. is a
wait-to-talker, Cut, and I’d put money on the idea that you’re not the only
person he tramples on, conversationally.
So you’re right not to take it personally. You’re also right to confront him, but not in
the way you probably mean.
Since he’s likely
not aware he’s doing it, confronting your brother-in-law about his habit of interrupting
is something that you’ll have to do situationally; that is, you’re best off if
you catch him in the act, and point out the behavior on the spot. Notice how that sounds like dog
training? That’s because it is: you have
to correct your dog while he or she is
messing up the rug/reaching for the food on the counter/chewing your shoes,
because a dog doesn’t understand the past.
“Stop it,” works for dogs. “You
shouldn’t have done that thing you did awhile ago,” doesn’t.
The trick here is
preparation. Have a rejoinder ready for
the next time he cuts you off, one that makes it clear he has been rude, and
that you expect to be treated with courtesy.
Use that rejoinder firmly, but – and this is what will make it effective
– not angrily. Here’s what I’ve said in
similar situations: “Excuse me. Should I finish my story another time?”
If his answer is
“yes,” steer your sister to a good divorce attorney.
Yours without
interruption,
Philip
Dear
Philip:
My first love just got married to someone
who looks like she stepped out of a cosmetics ad. Not sure why I feel so weird and upset about
it. Do you have any thoughts?
Wistful
Dear Wistful,
Yes, I have lots
of thoughts. I think baseball season is
way too short. I think “The Shining” is
the most overrated horror movie of all time. I think cheap Mexican food is
almost always better than expensive Mexican food. I think I just made myself crave a burrito.
Also – and this is
where you come in – I think there are times where social media is a very, very
bad thing for the soul. Let me guess, Wistful:
you and your ex are ‘friends’ on Facebook, or Instagram, or both…and now you’re
inundated with pictures of someone you once loved, clearly and exuberantly
loving someone else. (Twenty bucks says
you wallowed a bit in wedding photos.)
Even without the
pics and posts, exes make for a bouillabaisse of confusing and conflicting
feelings. You don’t want to be with him,
but you don’t really want anyone else to have him, either. You look at the woman he’s with now and
wonder if he loves her more than he loved you, if she’s getting a somehow more
perfect version of him, and – in your darkest moments – if you blew it by
letting it end between you.
The answer to all
of these questions is no, of course. He
loves her differently, because she’s different. He’s not magically perfect in your absence
(though he may be more perfect for her, in the sense of compatibility). And most importantly, you broke up because you
weren’t right for each other, in the end.
Maybe concentrate on remembering those things, and not in comparing yourself
to someone you don’t know.
For now, maybe
it’s best to block your ex on Facebook.
At least until after the honeymoon.
Yours in looking
ahead,
Philip
