So one of my best friends, who is also an ex-coworker, V, dated another friend and ex-coworker, J, about a year ago. He broke up with her this past January and she was totally heart broken. He never gave a real reason, just said “you deserve better,” and it was really annoying. So it was pretty awks for a while because I would still hang out with him sometimes since we were friends, but she’d get really upset any time his name came up, so we decided I just wouldn’t tell her if I talked to him or saw him. It ended up not mattering much anyway because he and I don’t really talk much these days.

So last week I found out (by accident, because I saw something in my current coworker’s calendar) that he just got married!!! The girl is an ex of his, and I’m pretty sure she’s knocked up. When I first found out, I was so shocked and needed to tell someone, so I told one of V’s good friends that I’m also friends with. She ended up telling another close mutual friend. So now these girls want to get together with V and have a dinner or something where we sit her down and tell her the news. Do I really have to though?????

-Awks in the Office

Dear Workplace Shenanigans,

Matters of the heart and ovaries are always complicated, and perhaps especially in these tawdry days of mistletoe and Chanukah candle-lighting (nothing says romance like two hands on the shamash).

But like so much tinsel at a holiday hoe-down, there is a silvery lining here. First, most of us watched “LA Law” at a delicate age and thought, “Gawrsh, I can’t wait to be an adult and wear fancy suits and have sex with all of my colleagues,” only to discover that adulthood offers no promises of fancy suits. You happen to work in a very exciting office. This counts for something.

Second, it sounds like your friend V was spared. This chap clearly didn’t love her enough (there’s never a good reason for this), and chose to stop wasting her time. This is a good thing. It is far too easy to stay with someone because it seems like love or it should be love, only to discover years later that nope, uh-uh, it’s not love. Given all the boring decisions (casserole?) and terrifying scenarios (screaming children, ennui) that await any young couple, it’s best to make sure it’s love. Sure, perhaps this guy was a bit of a cad. Perhaps he didn’t do much to warn your friend of his waning feelings or express them properly. But really, the words one uses to break someone’s heart are rarely the issue. They’re just the lame souvenirs we get left with, to place on the crumbling mantelpiece above the ashes of our heart.

Naturally you feel squeamish about telling your friend that her ex got married. No one really likes breaking bad news. (Just think: if people actually enjoyed being harbingers of dread, then maybe Hitler would’ve realized he was losing the war sooner, and where would we be now? The Nazis knew it wasn’t fun, and so do you.) But wouldn’t it be so much more awkward if you were the root of her pain? Instead, you’re just a concerned friend. So it seems to me that V is fairly lucky: not only is she not married to someone who doesn’t love her (she does, indeed, deserve better), but also she has friends who care enough to break the news in a compassionate way, perhaps over dinner. And why not? Rare is the news that isn’t improved by a steaming bowl of lasagne and some whisky.

Good luck!

Emily

The post Awkward Moments Advice: Telling a Friend About Her Ex appeared first on The Faster Times.

As you may have experienced, the elevator can be one of the more awkward locales in an office building. I work on the top (40th) floor, which means a lot of people getting on and off before I reach my stop, and hence, a very long elevator ride. Since I get to work at the same time every day, I often end up in the exact same elevator as a man who works on my floor and makes the experience extremely uncomfortable.

This is what happens: He, I, and several other people get into the elevator. We acknowledge each other, and the elevator begins stopping at the lower floors and lets people off. As soon as everyone else gets off, he immediately walks over to me and stands as close as he possibly can, and then begins making conversation. I have no idea why he can’t just stay on the other side of the elevator when clearly, there is plenty of room. He stands so close that I can feel his body heat and smell what he had for breakfast. I’ve tried to come to work a few minutes earlier or later to avoid him, but it somehow works out that I’m in his elevator several times a week. It’s really starting to make me uncomfortable and gross me out.

What should I do?

Elevator Blues

Dear Needs a Lift,

The sad truth is that few experiences are not awkward in an elevator. The mix of proximity, serendipity and transience turns even the most ordinary interactions into harrowing encounters. (*Bing!* Time to wrap up that forced idle chit-chat! *Bing!* Someone is about to discover you farted! *Bing!* Nope, still not your 14th-floor crush! *Bing!* Are we “say hello” colleagues now?)

Most people emerge from elevators wishing something different had just happened. Perhaps they wish that they themselves were different , riding up and down the building of another, better life, where the single-serving interactions are more nourishing and the exotic strangers more  invitingly witty. More than a few people alight from an elevator ride craving a more sensible life, more predictable in good ways and less so in the ways that make a workday feel long. It is sad. And also true.

Given the inevitability of elevator despair, it is wise to consider the bright side of your close-talker problem. In these times of cost-cutting building managers, for example, a bit of body heat is no bad thing, particularly as the weather makes its annual exhilarating move from “moist” to “crisp”. As for the whiff of this chap’s breakfast, I need only point out that a slowing metabolism often leads to a rise in the pleasures of vicarious eating. Instead of thinking “Why am I smelling this man’s donut?”, perhaps it makes more sense to think “I am now eating a donut with my nose”.

But even our more tedious workplace admirers offer something important: the opportunity to be both flattered and disdainful. Isn’t it nice to feel beguiling? And isn’t it a bit fun to wonder how someone can be so blinded by his regard for you as to miss all of your signals of contempt? “Well I must be very fetching indeed!”, you might then conclude, as your latest passive-aggressive salvo of scorn goes unheeded. Think to yourself: is this really so bad?

Oh but you are not convinced! Okay, you have three options:

1. Discover this man’s Achilles heal. Then get him fired for it.

2. Call him “Bill”. It is now too late in the game to correct you, rendering the exchange as awkward for him as it is unpleasant for you. But if he doesn’t do the sensible thing and avoid you–indeed, if he bravely insists that his name is not in fact “Bill”, respond by saying “Oh, you’re always such a funny one Bill!” Repeat. (Replace “Bill” with “Steve” if his name is in fact Bill or even Will and also William.)

3. Date him for six months. Then break his heart. He will then avoid you.

Good luck,

Emily

The post How to Handle the Annoying Dude in the Elevator appeared first on The Faster Times.

My girlfriend is a vegan, and, where we live, upstate, there is only one vegan restaurant. My girlfriend likes this restaurant — not a problem in and of itself. The problem is that during a period in which my girlfriend and I were on a “break” I had a one night stand with a waitress from said vegan restaurant. This waitress called me many times after our one night stand, but I never returned her calls because, shortly after the one night stand I got back together with my girlfriend. Now, each dining experience is more awkward than the last. The waitress gives me the evil eye, and last time I found a small piece of glass in my seitan. She has also purposely spilled drinks and food on me. If I mention that I don’t like the restaurant my girlfriend gets upset, claiming that I’m not being supportive of her dietary choices. Explaining the real situation would screw up my relationship — she doesn’t know that I slept with someone else while we were broken up — but I can’t take this anymore. What do I do?

Carnivorous for Vegans

Dear Carnivorous,

Mazel tov: you’ve managed to find some steamy intrigue in the otherwise anodyne world of veganism. To err is human; to mix the righteousness of meat-free dining with the unpleasantness of a hairy eyeball, divine. For this you deserve a wet, fragrant crown of bean sprouts, wheat gluten and shredded soy, courtesy of the euphemism-sluts at Zen Palate.

That you were a fool nearly goes without saying. You certainly deserve to be between a gingko nut and a wolfberry-seed place. Men like you should probably stay far away from the sensitive, weak-kneed, low-pigment types who hanker after alfalfa. At any rate, you have several options:

1.) Talk to the waitress. Apologize. Tell her you didn’t mean to hurt her. Tell her if she hurts you, you will press charges.

2.) Talk to your girlfriend. Tell her you made a mistake. Tell her you lost your senses without her. You couldn’t help but be drawn to the soy-filled places you enjoyed together, and in a weak moment you took comfort in another vegan’s arms. Seitan made you do it. Tell her you are full of regret. She is your only true button mushroom; your only real veggie dumpling. When you say this, use one hand to pinch her cheek and the other to rub your stomach in the universal sign of “veggie dumplings are delicious.”

3.) Learn your way around soy protein and scallions in the kitchen. Act hurt if your girlfriend prefers dining out.

4.) Find yourself an omnivore. Those dilemmas are different.

Good luck,

Emily

The post Omnivore’s (Romantic) Dilemma appeared first on The Faster Times.

I have a really awkward one for you. I ride the subway to work everyday, and I always see the same guy on the train. He’s a nice guy, and we’ve chatted a few times. He happens to be completely bald and the other day he mentioned to me that he had a big date that night and that he needed some luck. At that point he leaned forward and pointed to his head. I asked him what he was doing, and he said that he needed me to rub his bald head for good luck. I thought he was joking, but he kept pointing to his head. I finally sort touched his head quickly with one finger, but I thought it was really weird. Should I say something? What should I do if it happens again?

Claire in New York

Oh Claire,

First, I will suggest that you are lucky. Bald pates beg to be rubbed. There is nothing quite like patting someone’s naked brain case with the meat of your hand. How do you keep yourself from burnishing nearby glinters? Some bald noggins whisper a promise of soft peach fuzz; others deliver a more waxy come hither. What steels you against this relentless siren song? So much tactile promise!

What I mean to say is that you should rest easy. You have come to me with an awkward situation, but I promise that you have been spared many others. (But really, did you not enjoy that brief finger sweep?)

When it comes to your train friend, you have several choices. To completely pre-empt awkwardness, you could rearrange your commuting schedule. Change is often good; it reminds us of our mortality. You will feel so humbled by what you can’t control (the rush of time; the frailty of your body) that you will hardly worry about being asked to rub a man’s bald head for good luck. Indeed, you may feel wistful for such things.

But if you do somehow run into this chap again, you can always pretend to not recognize him (no one likes rush-hour conversationalists anyway). If he still insists that you owe it to him to rub his head, then clearly you must rub his head. Those, I’m afraid, are the rules of luck. If the mysteries of fortune don’t leave you feeling weird, then you simply haven’t lived long enough.

Good luck, Emily

The post Dear Emily, I Have a Really Awkward One For You… appeared first on The Faster Times.