Please send your etiquette-based questions to [email protected], subject line: “Ms. Proprietypants.” The archives can be found here.
I am a big-time, semi-professional knitter (once I sold a thing I made), and have built up a reputation among my friends for making really cool handknit things for my friends who have kids. I enjoy doing it, usually. Recently a friend of mine told me that she is pregnant. We were very close friends in college, but I have distanced myself from her a lot in the last few years. There are a bunch of reasons, but the main one is from almost ten years ago and related to someone who was really mean to me in college. When it happened, I didn’t feel like I had to explain to my friend why I was hurt by her, and it would be silly for me to tell her now. But for the better part of a decade, resentment has been building up inside me, and I don’t want to give her something I made for her poop factory. If I don’t give her something, though, it will be perceived as a slight by her and our mutual friends. Do I suck it up and make her something anyway?
Now is the moment of truth! Are you friends with this person or not?! That’s really the only question here. You refer to her as “a friend” when introducing her role in the sordid yarn (zing!), but you’ve been resenting her for ten years re. godknowswhat and sort of seem to relish the idea of slighting her via exclusion from your Mini Knitwear Klub. It’s hard to discern the true nature of your relationship, and/or what she thinks exists between you. If you have been in the business of acting like you two are galpals, get over the collegiate meanness and knit her pipsqueak a damn lobster suit. If not, then don’t! But absolutely don’t go around pretending she’s your friend, which worryingly seems to maybe be your MO now; I get the sense you guys act like friend but you’d like to take this opportunity to show her that she means nothing–nothing!–to you. That’s very bad. If she is not a person whom you value, it’s not like you need to freeze her out next time you see her on the street, or pour a drink on her head at the next housewarming party you both attend, but really, why would she be confused?
A quick quiz: Do you guys hang out? Do you call each other to talk about problems and to make plans? Then you are friends, regardless of your seething resentments. If you don’t do these things, no problem–you’re not friends! If you do these things but you don’t want to anymore, then you’re long overdue for a slow fade. If you don’t like her, it’s bad manners of you to be leading her on–people ought to know where they stand with friends, enemies, and frenemies.
Perhaps the answer is that she is a friendly acquaintance, but not a friend? If so, I don’t think she’ll be bugged out by the absence of even a “really cool” worsted receiving blanket (is that a possible object? I am just throwing together all the knitting words I can think of). Likely she is freaking the fuck out about her impending dramatic lifestyle shift, not formatting spreadsheets with which to track her anticipated shower gifts. Finally, while it’s true that I don’t know you or your friends, it strikes me as unlikely that your other friends are as concerned with whom you honor by bestowing your purled delights as you are. The answer you are probably looking for is that no, you don’t need go out of your way for someone with whom you have no real relationship. But I also suspect that you need to work on conducting said relationships with greater emotional transparency–you should be aiming for the transparancey of, say, this loose-knit sweater.
Also, don’t call anyone a poop factory. Name-calling is rude, the moniker itself is gross, and besides, everybody poops. Even you.
My BFF is getting married to his longtime boyfriend. I am wicked happy for them, especially as I have become good friends with his fiancé, who is a really cool dude, and sometimes socialize independently with him. The thing is I want to throw a bachelor party for my BFF (nothing gross, just a fun and tasteful evening) but it feels weird not to invite his betrothed, a.k.a. my good friend, seeing that I would never NOT invite him to a fun and tasteful evening that involves his significant other and many of our mutual friends. Should I stick to my guns and throw the bachelor party as if it adhered to traditionally gendered heterosexual bachelor party situations? Should I throw 2 bachelor parties for my 2 friends?? Is gay marriage laying bare the ludicrous edifice of wedding rituals???
To answer your questions in the order in which they appeared: no, no, and yes. This situation lays bare with ravishing precision the sheer gooniness of many of the rituals that have come to be associated with the ringing in of a modern marriage.
Do not throw your friend a blowout party from which his beloved other is excluded. When you typed all that out, it sounded off, right? Because it is–that’s why you emailed me! This is not to say that everyone has to fraternize with their better halves all the time, or that all social occasions MUST include significant others (most invitations should leave the question of inclusion or exclusion up to the couple, but that’s another q for another day). Nor is it to say that Ms. Proprietypants does not enjoy a louche night out with the ladies–she does! But she prefers such fun to happen organically, rather than systematically reinforcing oppressive social norms. If you are really dead set on showing your boy that you think he’s worthy of a metaphorical night at Scores, your politest bet is to pitch the bachelor party as a reunion of friends dating from his pre-committed life partner days. Otherwise it is just odd and faintly mean. If that’s not quite the almost-all-inclusive, penis-straw sipping extravaganza you had in mind, then you may wish to consider talking to his betrothed about your plans. You will then put him in the awkward position of having to be like, “No, totally, you should totally do that, I don’t mind in the least, have FUNNNN!!!!” but at least you will have paid lip service to the silliness of the whole shebang, the misplaced slathering of gender all over all elements of life, and the weird idea that once you get married you are no longer fun and palsy. Whew. Now I must go take a shower.
Tags: advice, etiquette, ms. proprietypants, raising the tone, YEAH THAT’S A PIC OF MADAME DEFARGE
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A worsted receiving blanket is indeed a possible object! Well done, Ms. Proprietypants.
LW #1, why are you still describing yourself as friends with this person when you’ve been secretly resenting them for TEN YEARS?
Ms. Proprietypants is right. Let it go. Don’t string this person along, if you are pretending to be friends, but either way, good God, let it go. I promise you nobody is going to care–your friends are not taking notes about what babies get what gifts–except you and her, and now we are back to square one: let it go. Cripes.
But don’t you get it?? Someone was mean to her! Really mean! In college!
SRSly. We all have the right to not be friends with people, but I feel like when you make an effort to continue an acquaintance it’s disingenuous to make like everything’s cool whilst secretly holding a grudge. At least the woman who hates me has made it clear from the start that she hates me! No mysteries there.
I look forward to future uses of the “YEAH THAT’S A PIC OF MADAME DEFARGE” tag.
DISAGREE in that it is ok to call a baby a whatever factory and give it a t-shirt or knitwear item that says so because everyone will think it is a cool baby who is making a Patti Smith reference.
I actually feel like I have something of advice to contribute!
LW1, if you have been leading this “friend” to believe you are friends (no quotes), then you either need to hold up your end of the bargain and treat her like a friend*, or cut bait. You’ve been resenting her for TEN YEARS for something that is too silly to tell her about while pretending to be friends??? Either let it go or let her go.
*Recognizing that different friendships take different forms. You can be friends with someone and make them baby knitwear, and be friends with someone else and NOT make them baby knitwear, because you have different relationships with them. Regardless – either be this woman’s friend, in whatever form that takes, or cut bait.
Yes! Echoing this. You do not need to be besties with everyone. You can enjoy a pleasant and somewhat distant relationship with this woman! It’s cool to have B-team friends.
The answer to the first question is “learn to crochet and you can knock out a baby hat in the time it takes to watch 1.5 episodes of Top Chef”. You can show your fondness (or lack thereof) by the quality of yarn. People you don’t like as much get cheap acrylic from JoAnn’s, people you really like get the good stuff from your LYS.
Knitting baby hats is just as quick! Don’t let the crocheting disinformation machine fool you! Big Crochet is not to be trusted!
I have never actually knitted a baby hat! I do knit, but not as well or as quickly as I crochet, and I have yet to tackle a hat. Either way – baby hats are the way to go! Doesn’t use a lot of yarn, so not super-spendy, doesn’t take a lot of time, adorable and appreciated by the recipient (says the girl who has 4 baby hats for coworkers waiting for a trip through the washing machine before being delivered to her expectant coworkers).
I basically only knit hats. A normal human-sized one can be knocked out in a weekend. And since I knit so infrequently, I feel you on the yarn semiotics! I knit things for myself in Madeline Tosh (pref. cashmere), others get whatever color I like at a reasonable price point. No way I’m spending 6 hours AND $45 to make you a hat, any other person who is not me.
Come over here and knit with me! I’ll share my Lion Brand with you. (The color I don’t like as much as the color I do, but still.)
Nope sorry crochet rules knitting drools.
Jk knitting is pretty cool too. I guess.
It’s cool. We’re all just in it for the pretty yarn!
My scrap yarn blanket just got named Big Crochet.
Also knitting baby hats is great and you can do really easy ones with that cute little knot on top and no one has to know it was your simply soft scrap yarn and you can feel like you got away with something because you didn’t spend any money AND you used up your scraps AND it took like 2 hours.
I have no advice re: the existence or nonexistence of actual friendship for LW #1, but I do have thoughts regarding gift knitting.
I can tell you from personal experience that anything that you knit while you’re feeling even the slightest bit resentful will a) make you angry every time you look at it and b) invariably take five times as long as it should. In my opinion, it’s not worth spending the money and (lots of) time to make something that is only going to make you feel bad about yourself and/or your friend.
So, my advice would be to get her something nice off her registry, if she has one, or some other generically useful baby object. If you end up mending your friendship, you can always knit something for the baby after it’s born. Kids always need more teeny sweaters!
I feel like there’s some creepy story about knitting resentment into objects that could come out of this, and I would read the hell out of it.
Why do you think some sweaters are itchier than others? It’s not the fiber,
it’s the resentment content.
sorry about that, umm, cat hair
*cough*
yes, definitely cat hair
dirtbag knitters
Plus, it’s impossible to get gauge if you’re gripping the needles with white-knuckled anger.
This is such a delightful and useful comment and not just because I can picture a resentful Rosie_M_Banks knitting resentfully.
I wrote a whole long thing, and then scrolled back up to find that you had essentially already written it. Yep yep yep. Do not knit things you do not want to knit. I have a whole list of questions to ask myself before undertaking a gift, and the first is just whether I want to knit something for this person, but the next has to be, “Would this person actually like a knitted gift?” because sometimes my inclination to give and high ranking of my skills ignores the fact that some people do not want a knitted shawl or a hat or whatever. It could well be that the resented person does not expect or want a knitted gift, because some people do not want hand knits.
Shit, this reminds me that I need to get yarn for a baby blanket. (Friend’s wife is due around Christmas, I have time, but baby blankets ALWAYS take longer than I expected.)
Also, seriously: it’s a lot of effort, if you don’t like this person don’t bother. Nobody else cares.
As I think I’ve mentioned here before, my kid has 3 or 4 beautifully knit/crocheted baby blankets that sit, neatly folded, in her closet. She sleeps with a $4 yard of cheap felt we bought last year to make the beard for a Red Sox-themed pumpkin.
This is why I basically stopped knitting for anyone except myself and started sewing instead. (Exception: other knitters who I like a lot.) Sewing is faster, less likely to get accidentally felted, and somehow impresses people more.
While the bachelor(ette) party in its most common form is ridiculous and reinforcing harmful stereotypes, in theory I think they’re quite nice. I love my friend’s husband dearly, but the night before her wedding the other bridesmaids and I took her out for (classy) fun and drinks sans husband. I’m always going to look back fondly on that night because I was honored to be able spend that time with her right before she made a life-changing commitment. It sort of reinforces the idea that we’re not losing our friend, we’re gaining her spouse… or something overly sentimental and cheesy like that.
WHAT I’M SAYING is that I think LW2 could easily throw a get-together for their friend without the other groom, so long as other groom’s friends have something planned for him as well.
Yeah, I think framing it as Close Friends, not Bachelor Party makes it fine! And I’m not just saying that because my group of friends had to have a conversation and affirmatively not invite our friend’s female partner for our (non-wedding-related) Girls’ Weekend. It is not about everyone being female, it is about a group of primary friends without their partners.
I’m a lady, married to another lady, and we had separate bachelorette parties. There’s a thing with same sex couples where sometimes you end up like, inviting your partner to ALL THE GIRLS’ NIGHTS, and then they are completely integrated with your friends, which is good! Except having your own friends (and your own interests) and spending time apart is ALSO good. I felt like separate bachelorettes kind of helped set the tone of, we’re getting married but we’re still our own people.
So, right. Like you said, yes, you’re not losing your friend–and they’re not gaining someone who is stitched to their hip and never leaves them alone for 4 minutes!
*handwaves* but of course for every couple it’s different, and we both agreed to it, and both had old friends who wanted to plan something, so. It worked out for us where it might not for everyone.
I threw my bestie an individual party before she married her lady-wife, and it was mad fun. The joint/separate question was answered in advance, because they live elsewhere (in the country), and my bestie visits where I live (in the city) often, but her wife doesn’t, and also her wife doesn’t much like parties. I liked the one I threw because it was co-ed (if you don’t invite men to any stuff in a gay lady wedding, then there are no men involved ever) and also because we went to a drag king show, which was pretty great.
Can I piggyback off of LW2 re: bachelor parties?
I am a groomsmaid for one of my college friend’s weddings, as I know him real well but not his fiancé, even though they got together when we were IN college. This is mostly because I had recently turned him down for a date. That is not the part I’m having trouble with.
I am to be included in the bachelor festivities, which are set to include go-karting, paintball, “down time,” then a trip to Atlantic City and then stay overnight at the one guy’s shore house. The problem is that I know the “down time” is probably going to involve smoking up at the best man’s place, and I am a teetotal edge kid. I am not judgey, do whatever you wanna do, but past experience with this group of people is that I tend to sit in the corner twiddling my thumbs while they do their thing. I’ve already brought it up with the groom that I intend to peace out after the first part and he’s cool with that.
I brought it up on the email chain yesterday and the response was overwhelmingly “oh, well, I guess if that’s what you wanna do, blahblah” and I guess I just need validation that because the groom gave me the okay it’s fine??
Totally fine! You are making an appearance to have fun with your friend, that is enough. No one benefits from having you sitting around feeling uncomfortable during an activity you don’t want to participate in.
It’s totally totally fine. But for the future, it also seems like the kind of thing you don’t need to talk about in advance with everyone? You do you.
I figured that Elyse was letting them know that she wouldn’t be around for the second half because of like dinner reservations or like breaking down costs or something, since these kind of weekends can end up being pricey.
Yep, pretty much. The go-karting/paintball alone is looking to run at least $250. I got included in the plans really last-minute and they’ve got this really structured and I wanted to make sure that my lack of being there for the whole thing wouldn’t throw a huge wrench in the works.
Ohhh, that makes sense!
Totally fine! I regularly peace out of gatherings with my friends for this same reason. Also, that is like five events pretending to be one event! Definitely fine not to go to everything, especially if you’ve talked with the groom.
Plus, once they’re stoned nobody will notice you’re not there anyway, probably.
What of course you can peace out whenever you want! These things are OPTIONAL. Your presence is a gift. It’s fine!
LW2 – Agree that it is totally OK and would be fun to throw your BFF a party without his BF. Why not just ask: “Hey! Do you think you and X would enjoy having low-key pre-wedding hurrahs with just your individual friend groups? If so, I’d be happy to organize yours.”
LW2: ask your friiiiiiiiiiiiiiiend see what he wants then do what he wants it’s his party
Yes! If he’s not down for a get-together of individual friend groups then you can just take him to dinner the two of you and you will still get special pre-major life commitment friend time.
This is much better advice than what was given.
Yes ASSSSSK him, do it, it’s the normal thing to do.
I don't even like babies and I am IN LOVE with the idea of babies with bear ear hoody blankets. OMG. Bear. ear. hoody. blankets.
LW1 has been angry at her “friend” for ten years because somebody (not the “friend”) was mean to LW1 in college? And this is the main reason among many similarly, I’m sure, grievous slights? I am confused.
Even though you may be friends there are still knit-worthy people and non-knit-worthy people.
Knitting takes time. More time than most non-knitters realise.
Don’t knit for non-knit-worthy people. They don’t deserve your time and knitterly magic.
I have two brothers – one is knit worthy and will send me photos and I regularly see him wearing my knitted goods – one who isn’t and I’ve spent hours making him and his family knitwear for not even a thank you text.
And if there’s ever a confrontation, be specific and say I haven’t had the 20 hours to spare that I did when xx was pregnant.
There are too many pretty things to knit for yourself than spending time on people you don’t want to knit for.
Even though you may be friends there are still knit-worthy people and non-knit-worthy people.
Knitting takes time. More time than most non-knitters realise.
Don't knit for non-knit-worthy people. They don't deserve your time and knitterly magic.
I have two brothers – one is knit worthy and will send me photos and I regularly see him wearing my knitted goods – one who isn't and I've spent hours making him and his family knitwear for not even a thank you text.
And if there's ever a confrontation, be specific and say I haven't had the 20 hours to spare that I did when xx was pregnant.
There are too many pretty things to knit for yourself than spending time on people you don't want to knit for.
I wrote a whole long thing, and then scrolled back up to find that you had essentially already written it. Yep yep yep. Do not knit things you do not want to knit. I have a whole list of questions to ask myself before undertaking a gift, and the first is just whether I want to knit something for this person, but the next has to be, "Would this person actually like a knitted gift?" because sometimes my inclination to give and high ranking of my skills ignores the fact that some people do not want a knitted shawl or a hat or whatever. It could well be that the resented person does not expect or want a knitted gift, because some people do not want hand knits.
Adding my voice to the “Let it go!” chorus for LW#1. I can’t imagine being that ticked off with someone for so long and still having them as part of my life. All that stoking of resentment-embers, and gritting of teeth and harboring of ill-will – what does it get you?
TMJ and high dentist bills? A pointless-yet-emblematic fire that really doesn’t go well with summer air-conditioning? Plenty of people were mean to me 20 years ago, 10 years ago, and probably even last year, but I couldn’t name them if you asked me to, let alone tell you which of my friends were staunchly pro-me or quietly pro-them. Plus, I have trouble maintaining the charge in my phone, so I’d be screwed altogether if asked to maintain some resentment for over a decade. So not worth it.
Knit a thing (from non-scratchy baby-soft yarn) or stop pretending to be a friend to someone you don’t seem to like all that much. I’d tend towards the latter in case your frustration infuses with the knitted article and gives the kidlet a rash or something.
Thank You! Regarding the Poop Machine comment-she appears to resent even the unborn baby her "friend" will be having. Sheesh.
Pardon me, Factory 🙂