Millennial Agony Aunt: Week 14

Emily Watkins is a professional Millennial (read: precariously employed twenty-something). Each week, she answers three generation-specific queries from the depths of her on-brand existential crisis.

For the fourteenth instalment of Millennial Agony Aunt, Emily follows the theme of how regretful drunken comments or behaviours can push relationships to the brink.

Please send any quandaries, issues, troubles or thoughts to aunt@whynow.co.uk for a good dose of aunt-ing.

The second or third time my dad and my boyfriend met, my dad got too drunk and made a dreadful joke about the town my boyfriend is from. Dad’s too ashamed to apologise, my boyfriend’s never forgiven him, and they’re civil when they meet up but never really got over it.

It makes me so sad that two of my favourite people won’t ever be close — what can I do, if anything?

Frida Kahlo, My Grandparents, My Parents and Me

This is nightmarish! It must be maddening to play go-between, and agonising to watch them clam up around each other – especially when you know that opening up is all it would take to heal the rift. 

I guess it goes without saying that this is delicate. While it’s tempting to stage an intervention, bang their heads together and make them make friends on pain of no-dessert, we’re talking about adults (even if they are acting like children). Pride, rejection and an aversion to being seen to bend first is going to impede their susceptibility to that direct confrontation – but all is not lost. I have an idea. 

Here’s what you do: arrange a drink/coffee/walk with your dad. Once he’s been lulled into a false sense of security, bring up this rift and pull on some paternal heart strings. If necessary, you can roll your eyes about your boyfriend – gosh, he’s being such a stick in the mud, but if you could be the one to reach out it would mean so much to me. See where we’re going? Good. Rinse and repeat with your boyfriend (I’ve been thinking how sad it is that dad can’t apologise – it would mean so much to me if you could offer an olive branch, just for my sake…)

Appealing to both individually makes each feel magnanimous rather than defensive, and they will love each other if they can get over that initial hiccup – because they love you. Play your cards right and these men will be thick as thieves over the course of one Sunday lunch.

Our neighbours kind of hate us because we had a couple of pretty huge parties when we first moved in. Now we’ve calmed down and I want to make amends but they won’t even meet my eye when we pass on the street.

Can I bring this relationship back from the brink?

Yes, but only if your neighbours let you. Here’s what we’re going to do:

First up, you absolutely should apologise. It doesn’t sound like that’s going to happen face to face, so I hereby instruct you to leave a card along with some flowers/wine/chocolates outside your neighbours’ door.

Said card, however, must not be too long or wallowing. Anything that passes the buck to these neighbours, that makes them feel like they need to reassure you, is strictly verboten. Stick with something like ‘Dear NAMES, / I hope you don’t mind my leaving this for you, and that you’ll accept my sincere apologies for having such loud parties when we moved in. It was thoughtless, and I’ll do my very best to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Yours, YOUR NAME’.

Note and token offering deployed, your job now is to step back. I can sense that this neighbourly rift is driving you crazy, but it’s not the duty of the wronged party to make you feel better by absolving you. Do your bit and leave the door open (not literally!) to reconciliation further down the line. Worst case scenario is that these people keep hating you, which isn’t the end of the world. Chalk it up to experience and don’t make the same mistake again, ok? Ok.

Help! At a house party a couple of weeks ago, I walked in on my best friend kissing a guy who isn’t her boyfriend. I asked her about it the next day and she burst into tears, clearly feels dreadful and begged me not to say anything. I promised I wouldn’t, but now her boyfriend (who I also know really well) can tell something’s up and is asking me for advice.

Do I have to say something, or is it my job to keep her secret?

Oh god, yes! Don’t you dare breathe a word. 

I’m aware that advice is controversial, but I really mean it. Here follows a brief but unbroken list of just a few reasons why, of which there are countless others:

1. This is absolutely none of your business and 2) you have only the vaguest idea what is actually happening between these three people. 3) Your best friend deserves your unconditional support (what else are friends for?) not your puritan policing of her morals, especially if 4) there’s every reason to think that this indiscretion is a one off rather than a campaign of disrespect for her long-suffering boyfriend. 

TL;DR: back away. 

Though should I or shouldn’t I tell? might sound like a coin toss, it’s anything but. If you decide to get involved, you are wading into a private, complex relationship between two capable adults; unless you believe one party to be being manipulated by the other or incapable of advocating for themselves, it is not your job to intervene. 

Nonetheless, as someone who has been entrusted with a secret (entrusted with, stumbled upon: potayto potahtoh), you are entitled to a clearer picture. So keep your promise, shut your mouth and ask your friend for more details. The more you know, the better the advice you can give her – which, just to be clear and depending on what she says, might well involve nudging your bestie to fess up.

Again, I’m not saying the boyfriend shouldn’t know: I’m saying you don’t get to tell him. As things stand, you can only encourage this guy to talk to his partner and be there for him as much as for her with support when (if) this relationship breaks down. 

From the description in your question, it sounds like your friend has no plans to run off with her house-party tryst – and if she does, let her make that choice rather than forcing her hand by blowing up a fragile relationship. Whatever her decision is, no matter how ill judged it may seem or how much you or I might disagree, it remains her prerogative to make it. Try to honour that, and to see her fuck-up for what it really is – totally human behaviour, not a stick to beat her with.