Carolyn Hax: Triangle messy shape to be in

Carolyn: I’ve become involved with someone who’s in a long-term relationship with someone else. They’ve been long-distance for about a year. I really like her, more than anyone I’ve met in a long time, but I feel very conflicted. She is as well; she has said that she feels like she’s having an affair, due to the length of her time with him.

I worry that I’m being destructive in her life and her boyfriend’s by not ending it. But I miss her terribly when we’re apart, and I think we have something pretty special. Should I break it off? – Washington

Today. You don’t need me for this.

Just in case your brain hasn’t been blunt enough with your heart: You’re “conflicted” by the choice between what’s right and what you want. That isn’t a choice.

I realize it doesn’t seem so black-and-white when you’re in it. People do fall into things innocently or gradually or desperately, and it is human nature to rationalize. They aren’t married. You aren’t lying to someone who trusts you.

But she is. And you’re questioning, which means your conscience is twitching, which means you either leave now, or live with knowing you chose not to travel the high road.

Obviously it’s always better not to get into these messes at all. But once you’re in, the best you can do is get out. When she’s free, she’ll know where to look.

Carolyn: Where do you stand on the most divisive question of our time: splitting the check evenly versus paying only your share?

Thanks to a blessed, blessed work obligation, I missed a bridal-party smackdown over a dinner check during a bachelorette party. Some people ordered tons of wine and appetizers “for the table.” Others consciously ordered lightly to keep the cost down. There was a reckoning when the check came.

It seems ungracious to penny-pinch, and unfestive to discuss splitting the check beforehand like an IRS official, but it also seems presumptuous to assume everyone can (or wants to) chip in for alcohol and food they don’t eat. – Baltimore

I think I just heard church-and-state, foreign-or-domestic and paper-or-plastic breathe a big sigh of relief.

I think the argument that it’s ungracious to “penny-pinch” is a false one. Some people just don’t have the disposable income to spend big at restaurants – or they have some but would prefer to choose their occasions rather than be railroaded into them. It’s hard enough to be budget-minded in public without also getting slapped around as cheap.

However, I don’t think the only answer is to establish ground rules beforehand. It’s still possible to ensure everyone leaves happy (or, at least, justly treated) – first by asking around before ordering a round, and later by asking, when the bill arrives, whether there are any light eaters or drinkers who would object to a split. If the organizers don’t speak up, someone else can and should.

No doubt some people will feel they’ve been put on the spot or shamed. But just as big eaters shouldn’t expect the light to subsidize them, the light eaters shouldn’t expect the big to notice how little they ate. If one set of grown-ups can learn not to judge, the other can learn to stand up for itself.