Dear Queenie,
I’m an average-looking middle-aged person who has a lot of friends, mostly couples who are married or at least in committed relationships, and a good job. Everyone I know thinks I am happy and successful, but I don’t have a special someone to share my life with.
Queenie, am I condemned to being alone forever?—Singleton
Dear Singleton,
There are worse things than being alone. The worst is being stuck in a bad relationship with someone who is just not right (or terribly wrong) for you.
If most of your friends are couples, try socialising more with other “singletons.” It is never too late to find “that special someone.”
Dear Queenie,
My brother-in-law keeps borrowing things from me, like tools or my weed-whacker, but when he returns them they are not in good condition, that is, if he returns them at all which he often doesn’t do until I get after him for them because I need them myself.
Queenie, how do I refuse to lend him anything anymore without being rude?—Had it up to here
Dear Had it,
When he asks to borrow something, just tell him as pleasantly as you can manage, “Sorry, I’ll be needing it myself” or “Sure, just as soon as you return (the last thing(s) he borrowed).” If there is more than one item outstanding, feel free to hand him a list. And feel free to hand him a bill for the cost of repairing or replacing anything that was returned damaged.
Dear Queenie,
I’m in my 40s with 2 teenage children and I just found out I’m pregnant again. I’m very happy about this, but my husband is upset because he thinks he’s too old to be the father of a baby and the teenagers act as if I have ruined their lives.
Queenie, how can I get them to share my happiness?—Change-of-life mom-to-be
Dear Mom-to-be,
Remind your husband that you did not get pregnant all by yourself, he also had something to do with it. Hopefully, he will soon get used to the idea.
As for your children, hopefully they too will get used to the idea soon.
If you remain happy about this pregnancy, hopefully (again) your attitude will be contagious.
Dear Queenie,
This is in response to the letter from “Under pressure” (Thursday, March 1). You are correct that he (or she) should be making the children do their own homework. However, once they have done so, he (or she) can go over the work, mark all the mistakes without giving them the correct answer, and have the children fix the mistakes, doing this over and over again if necessary until they get it right.—Faithful fan
Dear Faithful fan,
You are absolutely right! I could not have said it better myself – in fact, I did not. Thank you for your input.
Dear Queenie,
When our son and his family visited us we noticed that his older son, our grandson, always had a lot of money to spend on anything he wanted. After they left we found that cash was missing from our spare cash envelope, and some other things besides cash were missing too.
We called our son to tell him what we had found missing and he offered to write us a check, so he seems to take it for granted that the boy is taking – stealing! –these things. I told him the missing money was not so much the problem as the fact that his son is stealing things, and now our son isn’t speaking to us.
Queenie, what more can I do?—Worried grandfather
Dear Grandfather,
There is not anything more you can do; that is up to your grandson’s parents, and they do not seem to be too much concerned about his thievery, which does not speak well for their parenting skills or for their son’s future.
However, when they visit you again, if you choose to let them do so without having done anything about their son’s bad habit, be sure to keep everything valuable locked safely away.
