One day I'll learn how to set up one of those *VOTE!* blurbs. Then I'll run one that says,

Is Little Miss Attila allowed a PMS day here and there?

***VOTE!*** Yes___ No___

I bet you'd take it in a landslide.

Unfortunately, the vote that really counts is you-know-whose. And goodness knows what he'd say. Therefore, I haven't asked. ;)

That's one of those questions you don't want to ask unless you already know the answer.

There's an old Jewish truism--I believe it comes from Talmudic law [someone fact-check me, here] to the effect that if you ask a question, you're taking responsibility for hearing the answer.

So: if you don't want to know, don't ask.

oh, YES. I'm going to remember that one. I have a certain neighbor who really needs to hear it.

Here's part of what led to a cooling of what could have been a nice and mutually beneficial friendship:

He'd ask me questions about himself - I'd answer very diplomatically, gently, but truthfully - and he'd have a temper tantrum at me. Even call me really nasty anti-female names. Then when I quietly said, --Not allowed, guy-- he'd reply, --Oh, that was just a figure of speech! don't be so sensitive!

?!? Wait. Which one of us had the temper tantrum again? over a gentle answer to a question, instead of over name-calling and such? Who's being over-sensitive here?

He set me up.

He plays out these scenes that have nothing to do with me, but instead with his parents and so forth, people from his past. It's so textbook obvious it's kind of pathetic. Still, those are games I have no desire to play.

Now he wonders why I don't visit any more.

And some mutual friends - get this - feel like I may have done HIM wrong.

I'm under no obligation to anyone to tolerate temper tantrums and verbal viciousness. Even if they were *earned* somehow. Which they weren't.

That one little setup, with the three sets of friends [me, the neighbor, and the mutual-friend couple caught in between] could fill a whole book with boundary issue discussions.

Meanwhile, not being either parent or therapist to this character, I've no interest in his childishness, and no responsibility to *help* him. He must take responsibility for helping himself.

And I go back to being the courteous, friendly, ordinarily-helpful neighbor I was from the beginning. Same limits. Reset.

Which is what seems to confuse everyone most of all.

*sigh*

So you see why I love your truism.