I feel my boyfriend doesn't respect me

Hi Al:
Ok, so it's 2 years into the relationship and I'm starting to get the distinct impression my boyfriend no longer respects me at all!

Take today for example, hed put my front door key in his pocket by mistake! I was at my moms and he agreed to come round to mine with my key. I got to my house, phoned him, and he hadn't even left! I had to sit in my car for 45 minutes when there's snow on the ground. And then he didn't even APOLOGISE!!!

And also, can you tell me why, when I'm clearly angry with him, he will make small talk and try to play fight with me like there's nothing wrong!

Why don't men say to their girlfriends, "WHAT IS WRONG? SHALL WE TALK ABOUT THIS?"?!?!
-- Jenny, UK

Hey Jenny:
That's what you should be asking George. Either he's a freakin' idiot, which might be the case, or he's seriously trying to make you mad so you would break up with him because he doesn't have the balls to do it himself. When you're dealing with this kind of problem, don't wait for him to come fourth. Grow a pair, seriously, and confront this head on. Someone has to wear the jewels!

Hottie playing hard to get

Hey AL:
There's this hot girl I work with on my floor who's playing hard to get. My friends and hers tell me that she likes me. This hottie even tells me herself... wants to go out, but something always comes up at the last minute that she can't meet. I catch her looking at me throughout the day, but I'm not getting anywhere! How can I convince her to give me a chance? Why is she so hard to get?
-- Scott, New York City

Yo Scott:
She's probably doing you a favor.

Still interested?

Mom embarasses me. Friends ignore me. School sucks!

Dear AL:
I have a few problems here, and I was hoping to get your advice.

1) My mother has taken to contradicting me for the fun of it, and sometimes makes remarks in public that she knows will embarrass me. She's a middle-aged, professional woman, which only makes the situation more ridiculous. What do you think of this?

2) I have few friends, and even fewer really close friends, whom I can get along and enjoy going out with. All is well, except that three of them have a ridiculous habit of ignoring phone calls or messages, and basically being un-contactable. I've had instances where one turned up three hours late and casually commented that she had forgotten to turn on her mobile phone. It's getting to the point that it's ridiculous, and apologies from them just don't cut it. What should I do?

3) My school has a thing about group work, and while I get along alright with my classmates, everyone already has a fixed group of friends, which means I end up as the last, pathetic one, begging smaller groups to include me. As you see it, Al, is there anyway around it?

Please help, Al. Any advice will be appreciated!

Thanks.
- Alice

Dear Alice:
You sound like a real winner.

I'm not sure why your mom treats you like shit. Maybe it has something to do with what you say, which might explain why your friends ignore your phone calls and text messages. Doh!

Either you're annoying the fuck out of everyone, your friends and classmates with senseless rants, being too needy, or you're really nice and everyone around you are a bunch of assholes, including your mom. Even if you're an idiot, not that I'm saying you are, just if, your mom shouldn't be embarrassing you. Or maybe she's just trying to save ya from embarrassing yourself that you're taking it the wrong way. I'm not there to hear what comes out of your mouth, or why your mom embarrasses you in public, so it's not easy to figure if you're mentally challenged or your moms a bitch.

My advice to you, think before you open your mouth. Know who you're with... who you're talking to. Let people like you... not by talking them to death over stupid shit (gossip), complaining or begging, but being independent and positive. If this doesn't change your mom, fuck what she thinks. Be polite and ignore the witch. You're not going to be living with her forever, or are ya?

Accused of stealing. Clueless about culprit.

Dear Al:
I don’t know how to begin, thinking about all this had made me frustrated,enough to try every stupid thing I could, It’s a long story and I hope you’ll give me a solution that works with me.

Ever since I was small I have this habit of keeping all my friends together (which doesn’t seem to happen).When I joined jr. high school(class 9) all my friend that I previously had were separated from me, and I made new friends too, but that is later on part. But one day there were incidents of stealing in our class, everybody was confused….no body had any clue who did it, incidentally at that time I didn’t have much good friends (they came much after) so I spent most of my time alone and left the class last so, people thought I was the thief, I faced huge humiliation and there was just one girl (my oldest friend whom I didn’t talk to much) who took my side and went against everybody. Initially everybody realized that I was not the one and the matter was buried.

Later when I had this huge bffs group. We have this tradition in school of giving a good luck party to our seniors (10 grade) so we were all dressed up and wore our best of ethnic clothes we have in India. The day passed we had a lot of pics clicked up. When we later loaded them up on fb everybody realized that one of my friends, lets call her ‘S’, was wearing a band similar to one that had been stolen, later on a lot of such ‘similar’ to the stolen things were found against her, but ‘s’ was a goody girl all her records were clear and initially nobody believed that she could be the one not even me,. So we tried to put off the matter somehow, but nobody knows how(or at least till I know) she got to know that we had ‘realized’ that she was the ‘one’, and the next day she came to the class and was sitting separately, later on she started crying and confessed that somebody had told her all. Now the discussion fueled up and there were group with and against her. Initially I was with her but then turned against her too. The against group was a small one as compared to the with one. Later we had a pretty huge fight and then the against and the with people got separate. This bothered me much as now there was a cold war always going between us making separate plans and keeping sweet faces in front and backbiting, this is happening even now. The difference is that we ‘try’ to keep every thing sweet. We never knew who the culprit was and nobody wants to know too, as the whole fight was really bitter and harsh. Everything was right but somehow ‘s’ keeps brewing up new controversies against us in the with group, she keeps telling them that we are planning something against her, in fact we are not.

Now what I want is that...
1. We all get together again and everything solves up…no body has bitter feelings about anybody.
2. If that cannot happen I want the real face of ‘s’ to come up.

Please alf help me whenever I think about the old time when all of us were together with no fight it was all so great……….please help me.
- Sad Soul, India

Dear Sad:
Did it ever occurred to you that unless the stolen band was handmade, maybe the band in the photo belongs to 'S' and all the crap she's being accused of taking. It's like me being accused of stealing a pair of smelly sneakers because I happen to be wearing the same style from that brand. And oh... Don't forget my cell phone! It's looks like the same one that came up missing the day before, like the Ipod that I own that someone lost two days ago. OMG!

What choices of material do you have in your area if the band 'S' wore happens to be handmade? Maybe she made it herself and happen to pick the same material. I make a bet some of your clothes happens to match your friends. Does that mean you stole them? Oh shit!

Look, give 'S' a break. Of course she's paranoid about you and your friends. You turned against her with no proof, just the thought "Doh! she's also wearing the same perfume!" Time to grow up.

Argument with best friend. States I ditched her.

DearAL:
About an hour ago I had an argument with my best friend of about a year and a half. We go to law school together and are usually inseparable despite all the people we hang out with on campus. She recently got out of a relationship that ended badly and has changed the way she deals with people because of it, she's taken a zero tolerance approach with people.

I have now started seeing someone who is a mutual friend of ours and as of late her and him don't really see eye to eye. Because of this she doesn't go out with my boyfriend and I. So, in turn if my boyfriend would call me to go out I wouldn't call her up to avoid conflict until I could get them to both get along.

For the last three days, she wasn't calling me or texting me which I found odd since we speak everyday. She said I ditch her for guys and that she's tired of dealing with me and feels our friendship is dead. When I started dating my last boyfriend, she says I would make plans without her as well. She said that she's felt that way for awhile and has just kept quiet about it. She stated that everyone invites her out but her best friend doesn't and she is livid with me because of that. I tried to give an explanation, but she says I only make excuses for myself, and she wasn't having it. By the end of our conversation, she said she will see how things go for now, but she is unsure that I am capable of repairing my mistakes. What can I do to show her that I never meant to ditch her or offend her in any way and I value our friendship. Please help!

Thanks,
-- Becca

Dear Becca:
I know she's your friend, but life is short. You don't need this shit. The only mistakes made was her being a crabby as beotch. Let her have her space. Don't call her. And with this time to think maybe she'll come around or find someone else to make miserable..

If you do talk to her and she hasn't changed, tell her how you feel bad about what happened with her relatioship, but to stop being a downer or get lost! Sometimes tough love solves these problems, or escalates it into a cat-fight. Just be prepared. Have a helmet handy!