Doubting Thomasina

You can’t. Anyone who claims he’s 100 percent honest is a big fat liar, but there’s a difference between fibbing to avoid hurt feelings, making up a story to get out of a jam, and persistent flat-out lying for no apparent reason. Apparently not enough research has been done on the subject for it to merit its own listing in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fourth Edition (DSM-IV), but it’s commonly known as pathological lying and can be a manifestation of an anti-social personality disorder or sociopathy—not the best things to look for in a mate. There’s also lying for personal gain and power, so if your guy’s got enough going for him to write a memoir, run a energy company, or occupy the White House, his lies could eventually pay off big in the James Frey/Kenneth Lay/George W. Bush tradition. If he’s willing to get help, you might stand a chance. That is, if you can believe he’s really getting it. Otherwise, unless you want to develop nasty habits like nagging, spying, and challenging everything he says, you’re better off finding someone else with a little less charm and a much better grip on reality.

I have a really good friend whose job transferred her to another city a few hundred miles away. I miss her a lot, but she manages a three- to four-day visit every four or five months, so we’ve been able to stay close. The last time she came, though, she (surprise!) brought her cat along. She told me she’d been taking the cat for short rides to get her used to being in the car and now the cat loves it. Well, that’s great for her and great for the cat, but it sucks for me. Mrs. Fluffy (for real) is a sweet kitty, but she’s got this long white hair that magnetically attaches itself to everything in the house but is remarkably resistant to a vacuum cleaner. Laurel, my friend, tried to keep up with the shedding by following MF around with a lint brush, but her love for the kitty blinded her to a lot of the problem. It also dulled her sense of smell; it took her a long time to notice when the box needed policing. I was still finding fur days after they left, and for a week my eyes were running and my head was stuffed. I didn’t complain, because I want Laurel to feel welcome here, but I am a little miffed. Is it cool for me to ask that next time she leave the little furbaby at home?

Foo Fur Fighter

While it wasn’t a social faux-fur pas (I know; get over it) on the level of showing up with an uninvited stoner boyfriend in tow, FFF, no matter how proud Laurel was of Mrs. Fluffy’s newly acquired travel talents, it wasn’t cool for her to bring the kitty along without checking with you first. Unless she’s consistently this thoughtless, though, this is more of a forgivable lapse in judgment than a friendship wrecker; it’s easy for some of us to forget that the rest of the world doesn’t adore our precious little pussycats the way we do.

Even if you weren’t allergic, you’d have every right to ask Laurel to make her next visit a just-you-two event. Even the most doting pet-parent won’t usually insist on making a human friend physically miserable. Leave out the part about the stinky litter box and the carpet-clinging fur and just tell her that it’s not your tender heart that’s asking but your even-more-tender eyes and head.

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