Q Dear Man Still Recovering From A Vasectomy,
My wife and I socialize a lot with my wife's old college roommate and her husband. They're wonderful friends and we always enjoy spending time out with them. The problem is that they never seem to volunteer to pick up the check -- and sometimes they don't offer to pay their half unless my wife or I ask them to. They are both employed and comfortable, so far as I can tell. But at a certain point my wife and I just started paying for all of us in order not to make those moments so awkward. My wife would rather continue with business as usual than confront them about it. But I'm starting to resent that they manipulated us into this position. What should we do?
- Bill
A You couldn't have known this when you wrote this letter Bill, but I recently lost my wallet, and have had to rely on my friends and colleagues to spot me cash until it turns up. It's a terrible feeling! This is not to say that your friends are in the same position, unless they just have the extraordinarily bad luck to keep losing both their wallets right before they see you. I agree with your wife that it's not worth having a fight with your friends about it, but it's fair for you all to agree that when you spend social time together, everyone should at least pay for themselves. Maybe you could tell them a white lie about a specific financial goal you and your wife are trying to save for. If they are good friends of yours, as you say, they shouldn't have any grounds to try to get out of paying their own way under such circumstances, if you raise it in a non-confrontational way. As a man still recovering from a vasectomy, I certainly empathize with your wife's wish to avoid confrontation; I was not a fan of the confrontation an unknown subject's foot recently initiated against my tender scrotum. As advised by my urologist, I was wearing tight-fitting underpants and an athletic supporter, but there's only so much "support" such a garment can offer under the circumstances.
Good luck with your friends!
Q Dear Man Still Recovering From A Vasectomy,
I have just landed my dream job, and I'm thrilled to get started and prove to my colleagues how valuable I can be to their team. But I am concerned about one thing: the job requires a great deal of travel, and I am not very confident on planes. I always enjoy travel to new places once I arrive, and feel the journey was worth it when I look back on it in retrospect, but during the actual conveyance from Point A to Point B, I get nervous being in a tight, confined space, and in the middle of it, I invariably feel as though embarking on the trip was not just a terrible mistake but one that might kill me. How would you suggest that I cope with the stress?
- Alex
A Alex, I know that flying is a very common fear, what with the lack of control on the part of the passenger and the seemingly impossible physics of the airplanes themselves. But maybe it will help you on your next flight if I tell you that I know of people who travel in much more insecure ways. If you think you're claustrophobic in a comfortable seat on an airplane where people come by periodically and offer you refreshment, imagine if your next business trip was accomplished on foot, underground, in the dark, and illegally, and that instead of a comfortable hotel at the other end, all you had to look forward to was the life of a fugitive. If you can visualize the alternative, maybe air travel won't seem so bad. It's sort of like how I went into the vasectomy I'm still recovering from: I was wary of the pain -- sharp at first, and then dull for a while -- but I thought, what's worse: the temporary physical challenges of a vasectomy, or the literally endless challenges of raising another child? Given this calculation, you can imagine the bitter irony of finding out that I impregnated my wife right before my surgery. So that's another thing that could make your business travel worse: taking a flight with a needy baby, like the one I thought I definitely wouldn't have if I only got this vasectomy.Failing that, ask your doctor to prescribe you a low dose of Xanax.
Q Dear Man Still Recovering From A Vasectomy,
I've been dating a man for a few months, and so far our sex life has been good and satisfying. But what I haven't told him is that what I really enjoy is for my partner to tie me up. Nothing too serious -- just a little light bondage -- but many of my past relationships have ended abruptly when I've expressed this interest to my partners. I really like this man, so I don't want to scare him off by being too frank with regard to my sexual preferences. I also don't want to deny myself what I actually want out of fear of what his reaction might be. What should I do?
- Margaret
A I'm not sure what kinds of men you have dated in the past Margaret, but if a lady asked me to do something a little "kinky," I think it's great. That's not to say that my beautiful wife, to whom I'm happily married, is in the habit of making such requests, because she is a respectable woman. But if, in an alternate universe, I met a beautiful widow with something to prove to her recently dead husband and she wanted me to have sex with her in a stable while her horses watched, I might be so into it that I'd take my pants off so fast that my wallet would fly out of them. And the vasectomy I'm still recovering from wouldn't hinder me: just because my ejaculate soon won't contain any active sperm doesn't mean I can't still get aroused. My advice would be that you should be honest with your partner; if he can't handle it, he probably isn't the right man for you in the long run anyway. And if he is interested in meeting your needs in this way, I would suggest that you be cautious about the setting. Make sure you're in control of the environment and that you really do trust him. You don't want to get yourself into a situation where a desire to be restrained leaves you unsafe, somewhere no one can find you, writhing in the sun, just like I have been whenever I put an icepack on my testicles as I recover from this vasectomy.
Make sure you have a safe word, too.
