Does your significant other enjoy going to your business social events? Do you have separate groups of friends? I know I've had several boyfriends who would come along when I went out with my friends, but then wouldn't participate in the conversations, even when we tried to include them. Do you have this problem?

-- Anonymous, July 21, 2000

Answers

My girlfriend brings me to all of her family functions and I try to be involved with the conversation as much as possible. It's very difficult though because my French is really horrible. But I'm starting to feel more comfortable with her family and their mother tougue. I find it easier speaking with her friends though because they let me speak English. Which is not to say that her family has forbibben me to speak English. But I told them that I need the practice and so we made the deal that I'm only allowed to speak French with them. It's worked out okay so far.

But I've gone off topic. Basically, my girlfriend and I enjoy going out with each other's friends and family. Although there are moments where we rather not. But overall we don't complain too much about it. In the past several months we have been to two weddings. One for my cousin and the other for her friends. We had fun at both.

-- Anonymous, July 21, 2000

It depends on the social event...

We've been married for twenty-one years, lived together for a year or so before that... and had begun dating early in 1977... so that's a lot of social events to go to together...

Sure, we go to "family" or "couple" events -- Company sponsored dinner-dances, etc. -- together, also more casual social events with co-workers.

But not always... sometimes one of us will go to an event without the other... We work almost at opposite ends of the state (that's a Rhode Island size joke)... my job is a twenty-one mile drive in one direction and hers is about twelve or fifteen miles in the opposite direction... So something at the end of the work day -- from a casual stop at a bar for an after-work beer to more planned events -- will probably find us going with our co-workers without the other. We do sometimes socialize with each other's co-workers -- invitations to dinner or to a party as well as to company functions. When we lived in upstate New York, hours away from family, we socialized a lot with neighbors and co-workers; now that we have family in this area we tend to do a lot more socializing with relatives.

I know that the whole question of socializing can cause problems in some relationships, but we've not had problems with it. We like to spend time together, but we don't cling... we have both always had careers and we've had friends and activies that we shared but also have had friends and activities that were separate.

Nancy plays tennis; I never play tennis. I run; Nancy does not like running. But we go for long bike rides and walks together. We share a lot and do lots of things together, but we also have our own separate lives. Well, it works for us...

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2000