My friends and I are so open and transparent about everything -- fights with our husbands, our sex lives, even our fantasies are not off limits.
But I guess I crossed a line the other day when I confided in them about certain adult videos I watch.
It was the topic of conversation at lunch and, after everyone shared their preferences for X-rated content, I shared mine, thinking nothing of it.
Let's just say it has something to do with stepmoms... and while I initially thought it was totally normal, it did not land well among my group of friends.
They recoiled in disgust as soon as the confession left my lips.
'But you are a stepmom,' one of them remarked.
Indeed, I'll admit that I am. I only recently married a man a bit older than I am, who has children who are well into their 20s.
And let me just make clear: I've never thought about his kids like that. My adult film preferences are just pure fiction - nothing that I would ever want mimicked in real life.
But that didn't stop my friends from passing judgment on me and accusing me of something utterly vile.
They have barely answered my texts since, and I am both hurt and angry that the people who once made me feel comfortable being vulnerable are now shaming me for revealing this secret.
Now, I am embarrassed at the thought of being around them, as I know they will likely be thinking about what I said.
Sincerely,
Mortified Stepmom
International best-selling author Jane Green offers sage advice on readers' most burning issues in her agony aunt column
Dear Mortified Stepmom,
Let me start by saying that fantasies are completely normal. Many, perhaps most, people have secret fantasies that help them feel stimulated, but would likely never dream of actually making their fantasies come true.
The problem I see here is the propensity to share our innermost fantasies with our friends.
Friend groups of women can be particularly tricky.
We feel supported enough to share everything with them, fearless in the perceived safety of a group of women who understand.
While it feels like a wonderful gift, groups of women often blow up after a while as drama and gossip infuses the group.
And there is nothing worse than knowing there are women out there who know everything about you, including our deepest secrets and fantasies, who no longer have our backs.
I understand the peer pressure, especially when everyone else is over-sharing, but it is far safer to confide only in a trusted, long-term friend. Because once the information is out there, we have no idea who they will tell.
I'm sorry that you have found this out the hard way.
But true friendships are about acceptance and a lack of judgement. If you are being judged and avoided, it seems to me that they were perhaps never the friends you thought they were.
While there is little you can do to change their opinion - after all, you can't put the tiger back in the cage - there is no need to feel ashamed.
The lesson here is to let go of the need to fit in and overshare just because everyone else is doing so. Keep your fantasies to yourself, and perhaps it's time to find new friends who are less judgmental, who could perhaps laugh with you when you say something they disapprove of, rather than ghost you.
Dear Jane,
I was hacked, but aside from a mortifying mass email, the results were even worse than I could've imagined.
It all started when I got a text from my friend asking why I was inviting her to a birthday party in March - six months before my actual birthday.
When I said I hadn't, she responded with a screenshot of an email she had received from my address, only I never sent it. As it turns out, someone had hacked my account and sent around a phishing email... to my entire contact list.
That included old bosses, former peers, grandparents and, yes, even my exes. These are people I hadn't contacted in years, so imagine my embarrassment that I then had to send out another message informing them of what happened.
I thought I was in the clear until one of my exes - who I would consider 'the one who got away' - reached out. Apparently, he was secretly thrilled to receive a message from me and was disappointed that the party had been a ruse. But, he said, he still wanted an excuse to see me.
'Dinner next week?' he asked. I agreed, but I feel guilty.
The issue is not me - I am single and, truthfully, would love to see him - but he's engaged. It makes me feel slightly icky to see this through, even though it could be nothing more than a platonic catch up (though his excitement to see me certainly seemed like it would be considered a 'date').
Is it wrong to still want to see him and grab dinner with him?
Sincerely,
Hacked Humiliation
Dear Hacked Humiliation,
Part of the world we live in now involves our emails getting hacked on a daily basis.
I hear from multiple new writers a week who say they have received a message from my email address inviting them to join a writing community I have organized - but I did not send those emails.
There is little you can do about the hacking, but the invitation from your ex is one you should probably avoid.
As much as you'd love to see him, the proposition of dinner seems to have different connotations to, say, an invitation to catch up over coffee or grab lunch. Dinner is loaded, and you are right to have reservations given that he belongs to someone else.
But it may be innocent.
The only way to find out is to ask him.
You can send a response saying you would love to see him as a friend, and are looking forward to catching up and hearing about his fiancée. You could throw in something about how happy you are he has found the right one.
This sets a clear boundary, indicating that you're only interested in him platonically.
It may be that your intuition is right and that his excitement indicates something more, but you won't know until you say something.
If you are indeed right and he is interested in you in any way other than as a friend, walk away. No dinner, no texting, no flirting.
That may be hard particularly given that you think of him as 'the one who got away,' but that also tells me you are idealizing him in some way. We tend to do that with people we aren't actually involved with particularly those from our past.
If he is coming on to you while engaged know this is not a man with any integrity and however much you may want to see him a man who does that is not a man you should want in your life.
Jane's Sunday Service
We all have a narrative about who we are.
As such we often want those around us to believe that we are good people good spouses or good parents.
But people reveal who they really are by their actions not their words.
Watching what people do is the best way to discern whether you ought to have them in your life.