Your friendly neighborhood bartender is taking a break from his wild dating life to tackle your questions with his patented blend of advice and adult beverages. So slide on up to the bar my friends. Now, what can I get you?
Hi JT,
I was in a secret on again, off again long distance relationship with my closeted best friend for five years. He's now in a different relationship and still in the closet. He and his partner have rings, but they take them off when they are around those who don't know about them.
I've been helping keep this relationship a secret for the last four years. I even get questioned about their relationship. I feel like telling people when they ask me but I can't because I feel I have to protect my best friend. What should I do?
A Confused Best Friend
Well, you know what you should do, ACBF, because you’ve been doing it. If someone is in the closet, that’s their choice, destructive though it can be. My guess is you’ll never really be able to have an objective view of your ex - and while it’s great that he’s still your best friend, he’s also still your ex from a half-decade-long relationship. That’s a long time, dude.
It sounds like you’re way better off not being with him anymore, since being with him means having to hide your relationship from everyone around you. That’s not fair to anyone, but most heinously not fair to you. Cherish the fact that you don’t have to bear that burden anymore.
But that having been said, it’s still his (and his new boyfriend’s) secret to tell or not tell. The next time someone asks you, just shrug and say, “That’s something you’d have to ask them. None of my bid-ness.” Then throw glitter in their faces and run away.
You know what? Just stop at “You’d have to ask them.”
Hey JT,
For the last 7 months I've been in a pretty great relationship with a guy I met at university. “I love you's” have been exchanged. On the surface it all seems pretty perfect. I've been told what a great couple we are. The things is, I can't help but question how long this can last.
We've not discussed it much, mostly because he doesn't seem to keen to, but we both seem to want different things for our futures. He seems to take quite a practical approach, favouring the idea of settling down somewhere close to home. Meanwhile, after being stuck in pretty much the same place for most of my life, I want to travel, spend a year abroad and perhaps, eventually, immigrate.
I don't want to mess things up and I really don't want to hurt him but then, if we do have to go our separate ways, will I just hurt us both more? Any advice to offer along with a strong vodka-based concoction?
Lost in Thought, Scotland
Ah, a Scotsman. I’ve met some of your people before, LITS, and I know they can drink. Any vodka suggestion I could offer would be amateur hour.
But let’s chat about your situation. Much like ACBF above, you seem to already see the writing on the wall. You have two very different ideas of what your future looks like. There are three possible outcomes, two in which you stay together and one in which you part ways. Let’s break ‘em down:
1) You stay together, and you decide, after thinking it through, you’d like to stay with him, settle down in the … uh … moor? Is that a thing? I don’t know Scotland that well.
I mean, I'm pretty sure this is what you all look like.
Anyway, you settle down with him on the moor and have two sons and a daughter, each with a head of beautiful bright red hair and a complementary sheep. I’d say, considering the info you gave me, this is the least likely possibility.
2) You stay together, and after stirring, passionate speeches about love conquering all or whatever, you ignite in him the spark of exploration and the two of you travel the world over hand in hand, but not before ripping off each other’s wool sweaters and totally doing it on a field of heather, because this is my fantasy now and fine, I admit it, my knowledge of Scotland is pretty much isolated to what I learned that time I was in Brigadoon.
3) And now we arrive at the most probable outcome, and it’s the one that was pretty clearly pasted all over the “between the lines” part of your letter. You break up, there are some tears, maybe some hot, heather-field-adjacent break-up sex, and you go your separate ways.
You say you feel “stuck” geographically, and anyone who uses that word is clearly itching for a major change. Your boyfriend, on the other hand, seems to love his home, and natural homebodies tend to find travel a hard sell.
I’m not saying you’ll definitely break up, and if you really love each other, you might explore options 1 or 2. Or, if you really think your relationship has staying power, see what happens if you both follow your hearts’ desires separately for a while. Maybe the physical distance will cause you to realize you want to be together after all, whatever that means for your life plans.
But one thing’s for sure, LITS. This is a talk you need to have. And the longer you wait, the harder it’ll be.
Hey JT,
Single lady here. I'm hosting a Christmas party at my house, and I want to have a fun signature drink to offer guests, especially because not one, not two, but three potential future ex-husbands will be coming over. Anything really sweet and Christmasy?
Put a Ring On It (Then Take it Off)
A couple years ago, PAROI(TTIO), I went to my friend Kelly's sister's Christmas party. Since I didn't know anyone, I figured the best way to break the ice would be to act as the self-appointed bartender. When you're making drinks for people, you get to be really popular. Here's a drink that everyone loved, and in keeping with the theme it's Yule-iffic. May I present the candy cane martini!
To make a delicious candy cane martini, you need:
1 oz vanilla vodka or rum, depending on your taste
1 oz white creme de cacao
1 oz peppermint schnapps
If you want to be extra fancy, you can purchase something ahead of time, and that something is rimming sugar.
I swear I'm not making that up! That's really a thing!
Anyway, nothing says fancy party like a glass that's just been rimmed within an inch of its life. So you rim the sh*t out of those glasses.
And if you have a real sweet tooth, you can add a garnish of an actual candy cane. Beware, though. At Kelly's sister's party, I had like five of those, and I was so filled with liquor and sugar that I eventually found myself puking all over the plastic Rudolph in her front yard. Not my finest moment.
Merry Christmas!
To ask JT a question, email him at jtadvicecolumn@gmail.com. Or you can be super tech-sexy and ask via Twitter. Messages may be edited for space (but they're totally more likely to get chosen if they're three paragraphs or less. Just sayin'.)
You can find previous editions of AfterElton's Ask JT advice column here.
