Dear Amy: I just found out that my live-in boyfriend has a 2-year-old child. He wants nothing to do with her or her mother, who was pregnant when we began to date. He has not seen her since the breakup.
We have no desire to see this child. He may have to pay child support anyway. We had to change our telephone number when we moved to avoid the calls.
The problem is his friends and family. I found out about this child when I read an e-mail from a close friend just ripping him to shreds.
I want to send an e-mail to everyone on his list telling them to butt out.
What do you think?
–Not Interested
Dear Not: Eewww. I think I need to take a shower.
Of course your live-in boyfriend will have to pay child support; furthermore, running from it (changing your phone number, etc.) is against the law.
This guy’s friends and family aren’t the problem.
He is. And you are.
Don’t you get it? Guys who dump pregnant girlfriends and deny their children are sleazebags.
Women who do the dirty work for their sleazebag boyfriends are aiding and abetting in the commission of a crime against society–and though it’s not technically a crime, I wish that I could make a citizen’s arrest.
Dear Amy: I am getting fed up with cell phones. Every time my friends and I have lunch, they must answer their phones, chat and talk about things that could wait.
We had lunch together for 30 years without phone interruptions and, all of a sudden, nothing is as important as that darned ringing cell phone.
I am having my friends over for lunch soon. Should I take their handbags and hide them in the bedroom, cover them with coats, and hope they don’t hear the phones ringing? I will take the time to prepare a delicious meal, and they will not have the courtesy to turn off their phones long enough for an hour or two of food and fun.
I think they are rude, and I am angry. Am I wrong? What can I do?
–Tired of CPs in Georgia
Dear Tired: I hear you, sister. Or rather, I could hear you if it weren’t for the person sitting next to me on the bus, self-narrating what must be a very empty life (” . . . he said the toenail had fungus and might need to come off . . . “). In fact, of all of the cell phone conversations I have overheard during the last couple of years, only one stands out as being justifiable. Yesterday, while at a cafe, I heard a man answer his phone, listen intently, then say, “OK. Check the patient’s history and then start the IV drip and I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Now that guy should definitely have a phone with him at all times.
You could try to respond to your friends’ rudeness with a fairly aggressive maneuver, tinged with humor.
I suggest that you get a basket, label it “The Cell Phone Crib,” or some such name, and announce to your friends that you would love it if everyone could let their cell phones take a “nap” while you are visiting with one another. You start by taking out your cell phone, turning it off and placing it in the basket. Then pass it around the table. Once your friends have placed their phones in the basket, place it in a cupboard.
If your friends refuse to cooperate, then I’d say that they are more attached to their cell phones than they are to you.
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Ask Amy appears Mondays through Fridays in Tempo, Saturdays in the Weekend section and Sundays in Q. Readers may send questions via e-mail to askamy@tribune.com or by mail to Ask Amy, Chicago Tribune, TT500, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611. Previous Ask Amy columns are available at chicagotribune.com/amy.
