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A Party So Nice She Was Invited Twice & His Fiancée Swears âNothing Happenedâ
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
DEAR CAT: Several weeks ago, a co-worker invited (via email) our entire department to her housewarming party but since I’m not close with her I didn’t feel obligated to attend. I politely declined but wished her all the best. One week after the party she sent out another housewarming invitation to the people who couldn’t attend the first one. Am I missing something or is this just tacky??? — INVITATION OVERLOAD
DEAR OVERLOAD: Tacky? Yes. Also rude, weird and borderline desperate. I imagine her email like this: âDear Those Who Didnât Come To My First Party, if you donât come to this one, please just send the gift which this invitation obligates you to give to me.â Itâs possible (though unlikely) she believed the no-shows couldnât attend but wanted to. Perhaps she received declinations to the effect of, âIâd love to come but Iâll be out of town.â Even so itâs especially poor form to re-invite people to a party where gifts are de rigueur. If she wants to get closer with her colleagues she should suggest lunch or coffee. The second invite hints at either desperation or irritation – two qualities sure to keep people away. Catâs Call: Politely decline again and please let me know if she goes for a third round.
DEAR CAT: I’m 25 and engaged to my girlfriend who is 23. Iâm pretty laid back and not overprotective of her by any means but lately she has been acting strange. Last summer she did a lot of local theater and met some new people. I got into her email account (first time I’ve ever done that) and found extremely inappropriate messages between her and a 53 year old unmarried man. I confronted her and learned she slept at his home when they had been drinking, though she claims ânothing happened.â I actually believe her that nothing happened but I can’t shake the situation out of my head. I was in love with a beautiful, smart, genuine and wonderful girl and now my image of her is tarnished. I never thought she could speak the things she typed in that email. We are still together because I thought we could work through this, but deep down I think Iâm afraid to be single. I can’t help but wonder if I should end it. âDEEP FEAR
DEAR DEEP: I donât know what was in that email (thanks a lot, Iâm dying to know) but she has no business secretly communicating with another man. Above all, at this point you should be 100% certain you want to spend your life with your fiancée. You should trust each other completely, because without it a marriage has no real foundation. Love is enough for passion and yearning but it doesnât guarantee happiness. As for your fear of singleness, life is much scarier when you feel trapped in a bad relationship. Picture a guy digging into his fiancéeâs email, finding that sheâs written all kinds of juiciness to a single manâ¦itâs not exactly a storybook romance. Itâs heartbreaking, in fact. And if you stay only because youâre afraid to be singleâ¦Catâs Call: Then youâre not ready to be married.
Whatâs your call? Share it below! Submit column questions here or send snail mail to: Catâs Call, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 34 Blvd. of the Allies, Pittsburgh, PA 15222.
I would like to respond to Deep. I have done community theater in the past and I can attest that it is not uncommon for very close platonic relationships to form during a series of productions. When you are pretending to feel such strong emotions for people on stage it is possible for those emotions to spill over into your everyday lives. It might not be a bad idea to have her introduce you to some of her friends and spend some time watching them interact so you can see for yourself if they are “close,” or “too close.”
To Overload. I completely agree with Cat. It is very bad form to insist that people come to a party where they are expected to give you gifts. That’s like inviting someone to your birthday party and putting a minimum spend on the invitation.
— Brandon, Pittsburgh PA 02/02/2010 Reply
I have never heard of inviting people to a party a second time. That’s crazy! Maybe Cat is right and those who couldn’t make it ACTUALLY couldn’t instead of wouldn’t but the chances are slim. I agree it looks desperate and it would make things very awkward for those who don’t want to go. Like how can you say no over and over again without looking rude? omg this made me laugh !uncomfortably! for the woman in question.
— Sarah, Pgh 02/02/2010 Reply
As to the question from “Deep Fear”: Find a woman who won’t jerk you around. Theater people are weird and they make excuses for ‘friendships’ with each other that get very intimate when all they’re doing is cheating. The acting pursuit is for people who need attention. One of my close friends does theater and she’s fun but she’s a drama queen in real life just like on stage. Dude if you’re sneaking around looking into her email accounts marriage is not the logical next step. It will make the relationship worse.
— Tom 02/02/2010 Reply
Overload’s workmate seems to me to be very controlling. “If you really had another obligation, I’ll just call your bluff and invite you again”. Annoying….deserves only a terse response, like “still can’t make it…have fun”.
I think that Deep is in over his head. That is, he (inappropriately) checked her e-mail because he didn’t trust her and wanted to calm his insecurities. It’s hard to say you’re laid back when you’re sneaking around reading her e-mails.
You guys need to back-up and slow it down. Call off the engagement, and see if a more honest relationship emerges for the two of you. One where she understands that you can be jealous, and she understands that there needs to be openness between the two of you regarding her relationships with other men.
Even if they didn’t sleep together, she put herself in a position where it would have happened if the guy played his cards differently.
Mark’s Call: Cat got it right. “Afraid to be single” sounds too much like, desperate to hold on, and that’s no way to start a marriage
— Mark Freeport 02/02/2010 Reply
Deep Fear…your fiance is 23. At 23, she is young and probably immature. She is getting a taste of new adventures and probably realizing that there is so much more living she wants to do. Twenty-three and 25 are too young to be considering settling down and getting married. You both should be out exploring the world, meeting new people, having new experiences, and having fun. There’s too many opportunities to grow as an individual…don’t miss them. Why do our young, twenty-somethings think they have to get married. Go out and live life! Once you have experienced life, you will meet someone in time who will have experienced life as well, and will then be ready to settle down.
Invitation overload…tacky…tacky…tacky. Politely decline. She’s just looking for more presents.
— Mary, Pittsburgh 02/02/2010 Reply
I think it’s more disturbing that Deep Fear “got into” his girlfriend’s email to snoop. Of course relationships are built on trust, but I think she should be able to trust him not to invade her privacy. If I were her, I’d be just as disappointed in him.
— Katie, Pittsburgh 02/02/2010 Reply
Re: “Invitation Overload”….tacky tacky tacky tacky tacky tacky tacky tacky tacky tacky. Don’t bother responding to the second invite and when the coworker mentions that you haven’t responded tell them you assumed it was a joke or mistake. ps: tacky.
— TK20015 02/02/2010 Reply
My Call: I agree with Katie in Pittsburgh about the fiancee trusting HIM not to invade her privacy. The whole relationship spells disaster. She’s completely wrong for ‘secret flirting’ with another guy and he’s so untrustworthy now that’s he’s snooping around which just makes him kind of sad. I feel bad for him but now she has ammo too. Couples like this always end up getting married though. DON’T!
— S. San Fran CA 02/02/2010 Reply
RE: DEEP FEAR
Better to be single than in a dysfunctional relationship.
— Marc, Squirrel Hill 02/02/2010 Reply
Hmmm. Alot of people are trying to turn it around and blame Deep Fear for finding out his fiance is “acting” up. Seems to me like he was going to find out sooner or later anyway, when she would have eventually left him for someone else. It would be nice if she didn’t give him cause to snoop, but she did, and he did, and they really shouldn’t get married until they both figure if they are right for each other.
As for Invitation Overload, your co-worker might be tacky, or maybe she is just vapid, or maybe she is greedy, or maybe she is innocently wanting to get her friends together because she is proud of her new home. If you don’t want to go, for whatever reason, just politely respond in the negative; don’t lose any sleep over this.
— Carm in Pittsburgh 02/02/2010 Reply
When I bought my first home I invited about 80 people to a housewarming in a small house with no air conditioning in the middle of summer. I was so thrilled to have a place of my own – I never gave gifts a thought, or the size of the place or the weather! Maybe the coworker is in a similar situation and just really wants people to see her place. In any case, that is no reason to accept the second invitation, but I don’t think it merits this letter either, or the gift-grabbing assumption that goes with it.
— nn from NJ 02/02/2010 Reply
Your answer to the guy who found out, via hacking his fiancée’s e-mail, that she had been indiscreet with another man was fine as far as it went, but you didn’t address his snooping and his invasion of her privacy. If he doesn’t trust her, he shouldn’t be with her, and, frankly, his behavior shows that she shouldn’t trust him, either. I wouldn’t want to be with either of them.
— Naomi, Pittsburgh PA 02/03/2010 Reply