Dear Cary,
A woman who reps big-ticket products to my partner -- i.e., a professional contact -- has been hitting on him openly for several months: She's a trolling MILF.
Very persistent, lots of purple prose, lots of disclosed confidences about her tragic marriage, etc.
I'm aware of all of this, in some detail. Partner is a kind guy and thought this was a cheap ego stroke for a while. Yes, he fucked up there. He's since become uncomfortable with her, mostly since our relationship became committed and the MILF began referring to me as her "competition."
Issue: When partner was home ill for several days this week, MILF contacted me (both ignoring his wishes to be undisturbed and making use of her knowledge of nothing more than my name to reach me by e-mail). Disregarding his wishes and sleuthing me out were both creepy.
Her message was, of course, all warm cookies and disingenuous best wishes -- based on assumption that her trolling hadn't been recognized.
I need to reply with something that corrects any impression that I'm naive and unable to tell the difference between warm cookies and a Harlequin Romance-reading unlaid mama who invades my personal space and sweetly discusses her fantasy object with me, purely for the frisson of getting away with it.
Correct response? Please? I usually play hardball on these issues and am asking for any advice you may have before she goes up against the wall.
Need Extra Clarity
Dear Need Extra Clarity,
Well, I was hoping for something light as a chaser to my recent bout of heaviness (after which I feel remarkably refreshed, by the way!).
So while this is not exactly cotton candy on a paper cone at the county fair in June, it will have to do. Nobody is dying, nobody is being unfaithful (yet) and nobody as far as we know is even drinking to excess.
So I have this to say:
Your problem isn't with her. You're not in a relationship with her. Your problem is with the person you're in a relationship with.
She's his problem. If he won't get rid of her then your problem with him gets bigger, but it's still your problem with him.
You can do anything you want about her. You can put her up against the wall.
Up against the wall, trolling MILF! WHAM! CRASHTHUMP! SLAPF! KAZOOMBA!
Say you totally play hardball. Your problem still is with the person you're in a relationship with.
It's his turn to take out the trash. Not that I'm saying she's trash. Not that you would want him to literally take out the trash if she were; you'd want him to sit down and have a frank conversation with the trash. You want him to draw some clear boundaries around the trash.
Oh, but that's labeling! Calling her a MILF is labeling, too. Moreover, it's conjecture; we don't know for sure that "I" would "L" to "F" her; maybe "T"hey would L to F her in which case she would be an MTLF, which is hard to pronounce; or it might be "W"e who would L to F her, which would make her an MWLF, also hard to pronounce. Obviously "I" makes the best acronym. But the party wishing to F the M might be Aaron (or Anita), making her a MALF; or Eric, or Eloise; making her a MELF; or Eric and Eloise, making her a MEELF; or Orville or Uri, making her a MOLF or a MULF, which sounds like something that tunnels under your soil, or that you sprinkle around trees. And if Orville and Uri both would L to F her, then she's a MOULF, which just sounds obscene.
Anyway, as I said, I'm in a lighthearted mood and I hope you will take this in that spirit, although I can see that her behavior has tied you up in knots.
It would be satisfying if you and he could band together to fight her off. But that's not the situation. In fact, perhaps your usually clear head is momentarily muddled because conflict with her is preferable to conflict with him. Conflict with her means you and he band together against a common enemy. Conflict with him, on the other hand, means doing the difficult and delicate work of negotiating tricky terrain with an intimate partner. That's not as much fun.
But I don't see any way around it: He's got to make her back off.
He may need help, besieged as he is by the ravaging MILF who wafts her red lace percentages in front of his nose and seductively reveals her offer of free shipping with large orders. So to him we say:
Frighten away the trolling MILF, fella! Bark her away! Growl her away! Bar the door against the trolling MILF! Lock up the liquor and the edible underwear! Do not breathe of her perfume or gaze upon her stilettos and her fishnets or beg her to open her tight, ragged fist of discounts; do not gaze upon her purple eyelids penciled in haste before the Milwaukee marketing meeting; do not blush at her rouge, her cheeks red like excited flesh!
And to her we say: Back, O trolling MILF of the desired product line! Back!
Take a look at our product line, Sugar. We've got what you need!
"Since You Asked," on sale now at Cary Tennis Books: Buy now and get an autographed first edition!
What? You want more advice?
Shares