Situation Sunday #5
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Situation Sunday 06 May 2007
- You work in a busy doctor's office. You are a receptionist. You have overheard the doctor telling this guy he has caught a venereal disease. And it is untreatable. You recognize the guy as a neighbor. Deep down you know the guy will never mention it to his wife. Do you bring up the subject with his wife as you are talking?
This is a sticky one. If it's someone I know only casually (and for me, that defines most of my neighbors — I barely know their names, and I'm fine with that, I'm not incredibly social), I may drop a pamphlet in their mailbox or near their door that lists common information about the venereal disease in question. I will not go over to their place specifically to say anything. And since I don't chat with my neighbors very much (since I rarely see them, actually) there won't be other opportunities to pass on the news. Besides, if the guy has a venereal disease and he's not going to tell his partner, that relationship has a whole lot more problems than I'm able to fix. (So maybe I'll drop off my aunt's card, as well as the pamphlet on STDs. My aunt is a marriage and family therapist.) - Your going on a first date, the guy/girl picks a very inexpensive place to eat. During the whole date, they tell you how they have been divorced twice, filed bankruptcy last month. Every thing is negative, you can't wait to get the hell out of there and go home. The bill arrives and they pay for it, and leave no tip. The next day flowers arrive for you, followed by numerous phone calls stating what a great time they had. Wondering when you want to go out again. How do you handle it?
Upon initial reading, that tale speaks of a needy person to me. Then again, everyone has a bad day — and that's what this person could have been having. I may go on a second date with this person, but I'd probably suggest that we meet in a group of friends. That would lessen the social and financial pressure for all parties. If my 'date' chose to be gracious and pay for my coffee, that would be fine - but this meeting in a group of friends would essentially give me a chance to see this person interact with others. This could also give me a good way to not be the sole focus of conversation. (Depending on how many times this person called me, though, I might warn my friends not to give out their contact information.) If this second meeting did not go well, I'd contact them afterwards and politely tell them that while I may have enjoyed hanging out with them and their friends, I didn't really feel like there was any closer connection between us. (Unless, of course, the guy was an utter doof. Then I'd skip the part about how I enjoyed hanging out with him and his friends, and just say that I didn't really feel like we hit it off too well, and that I wished him better luck finding someone special. If they called me back after that, I'd request that we not keep in touch. If they kept calling me back, I'd warn them that I felt like I was being harassed. If they still kept calling, I might start taking other actions...like blocking them from calling my number.) - Your mother is on her death bed, she calls you in. She tells you that your real father is the mailman, he does not know nor does your father, as she starts to tell you more details, she dies. How do you handle what she has told you, and what do you do if anything?
At this point, this new guy is only my biological male parent. The man who raised me, the man who carried me on his shoulders, the man who took me to Star Wars when my mother flat-out refused...that's my dad, in every important sense. The person who contributed the spermatazoa? I just found out about him. I'd speak with him, telling him that I wanted to get a family health history, to make sure I didn't have any health-related timebombs lurking in my genetic code that would jump out and schmack me later in my life; and if he wanted to keep in contact I wouldn't necessarily forbid it; but I wouldn't consider him my father.
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