Opinion

Dear Goldy:

My parents are divorced. My father remarried. My siblings and I don’t spend a lot of time with him. We really didn’t have a choice or a say in whom he married, but we were fine with that. We lucked out. His wife is nice and doesn’t seem to mind when I or any of my siblings is around.

As per usual, I receive emails after a Yom Tov from singles and married people alike telling me of a positive or negative experience they had over the holiday. Many emails are wonderful, and I’d love to share them all, but I haven’t the space. Because of that, I had to pick and choose from letters and take out excerpts to share. I also shared excerpts from my responses. Like always, I try to balance things by providing views from both sides – those with positive and negative stories.

Dear Goldy:

I’m writing for my sister. My sister is a sweet, fun, creative young woman – she’s normal. She’s 27 and just went out with a jerk.

It seems you can’t turn on the radio or television without people apologizing for their past behavior or speech – even if they don’t remember doing/saying it or if it was taken out of context – every day. Sometimes this can be a good thing. But, in my opinion, I think people apologize too much. And half the time they weren’t even guilty of doing the act of saying the words they are apologizing for, but someone misunderstood or was offended. But I’m not here to get political or PC about the issue of apologizing. I’m referring to plain old everyday interaction with people. I’m guilty of it, as well. Case in point: I was standing in the checkout aisle of the grocery store, minding my own business, when someone bumped into me with her wagon. “Sorry,” I say. But why am I apologizing? She bumped into me. I was standing motionless next to my cart online. Her cart “collided” with me. I wasn’t running around, with a blindfold on, bumping into people. “It’s okay,” the offender tells me. Wait, what just happened?

Authors Note: I may have written about a similar topic years ago, but I can’t find it because I don’t remember the title. The article was about a Facebook post and the reaction it garnered. It involved dating, and how people feel about...something. It’s not in any article that has been published since 2019. I checked. I’m taking the chance and hoping this was not the topic. If this is very similar to another article, I apologize, but I hope, for most of you, it will be new.

Dear Goldy:

I want to start out by saying that I like your column and enjoy reading about the different issues that you and the readers write about that relate to dating, but I do have to ask: Who are you to give advice or to even write a column where people ask you advice? How can you sit at home and decide to write whatever opinion you have and expect people to listen to you? Like I wrote: Who are you?