Company's Coming - for a Month!

Getting a friend to find other digs, plus mourning alone vs. with friends.

I have a friend who is moving across the country to Boston. She moves into her new apartment in two months but starts her new job in one month. She had dropped joking hints about staying at my place, so I offered to let her stay, if need be - only meaning the offer as a helpful fallback. She immediately asked if she could stay the entire month! My roommate and I are not comfortable with a monthlong houseguest. This friend is also not very close. I don't want to leave her hanging, but this shouldn't be my responsibility.

G.R. in Somerville

It isn't your responsibility, but it will be unless you tell her right now. Anguishing and languishing and then dumping on her, a week before she comes into town, the news that she can't stay with you would be the action of a cad and a coward. So, too, is the act of foisting a pushy stranger on one's roommate for a month.

You never should have allowed her unsubtle hints to pressure you into making an offer you didn't intend to uphold, as you've surely realized by now. (Folk tradition holds that a vampire is powerless to enter your dwelling unless you specifically invite it in. Like many folk tales and superstitions, this has a grain of psychological truth to it.) If someone asks you for a favor, you are allowed to say no. The best way of saying it is: "I'm sorry, that doesn't work for me." Repeat as necessary and never offer excuses, because people can argue with them. I'm guessing you did tell her it was OK for her to stay, and now you need to retract the offer. That's more awkward than asserting yourself properly to begin with - you've surely realized that by now, as well.

So use some of these newfound realizations to get yourself out of the situation. Thus far, you've been reactive. It's time to take action and either retract your offer, with sincere apologies for misleading her, or else find a way that the situation could be made more workable. Would you and your roommate find yourselves more comfortable with the situation if she were a paying guest, chipping in a third of the rent?

I recently lost my brother. Most of my friends knew he was ill and periodically inquired after him. I was with my best friends the day after his death, but they didn't ask about him and I didn't say anything, because I didn't want to seem to be fishing for sympathy. When they found out he had died, they gave me a good dressing-down for not telling them so they could attend his memorial service, although they didn't know him. I have had to apologize repeatedly to them and now, as well as mourning my brother, I also feel guilty for angering my best friends. Was I obliged to tell them?

E.D. in Waltham

Oh, wow. Sometimes I have very strong opinions about questions, and sometimes I'm all "It depends." I have a lot to say about your question, but please allow me to preface it by saying, I don't know you. What I say could be completely off base. So if it's not helpful to you, pick up and look elsewhere for counsel, OK?

First of all, my condolences for your loss. Regarding your friends, I have the feeling that one of two things is going on. Either they are controlling jerks who are used to bossing you around, or else they are decent people who are beyond frustration with what they perceive as your inability to ask for help. (If your blood pressure is rising, remember: I could be wrong.) E.D., hon, you are allowed to "fish for sympathy" when your brother dies. How could you possibly be so self-effacing that you would not want to be the center of your friends' loving attention at such a moment? The streams are running high and fat with the trout of sympathy! Fish, already!

Your friends shouldn't be bullying you about a faux pas when you are in mourning. It's not an etiquette matter. You weren't obligated to tell them the way you're obligated to send your Aunt Betty a thank you note for the scarf she knit you. But perhaps they feel that you didn't trust them enough, or value yourself enough, to ask them to be with you - not hang out, but be with you - to care, to love, to mourn with you, on what must have been one of the worst days of your life. And if so, they might well be hurt and angry and frustrated. If so, it's still a shame that they're expressing it in a way that is making you even more confused and sad than you ordinarily would be right now.

Everyone's hurt. Everyone's sad and angry. Get together with your friends and try to work it out. Maybe they are just jerks - open your eyes to be willing to see that, if it's the case. But if they're just ordinary people who want to love you more than you think you ought to be loved - see that, too. And be willing to let them do it.

My Word!

This Tuesday, May 6, is "International No Diet Day." Experiment: For one day, eat what your body tells you to. Don't engage in "I hate my body" talk to bond with your friends. Challenge fat prejudice wherever you see or hear it. Celebrate health, not your dress size. For more information on INDD, go to eskimo.com/~largesse/.

Miss Conduct is Robin Abrahams, a Cambridge-based writer with a PhD in psychology.