Priscilla's Guide to Recreational Bonding, and Other Traps
Dear Priscilla,
My boyfriend of four months just asked if I want to join his curling league as his official teammate. He says it's "a great way to build something together" and that the team needs a fourth. I like him a lot, but something about matching jackets and a season-long commitment to a sport involving brooms is making me nervous. Is joining his hobby too big a step this early, or am I overthinking a sport that is, at its core, just shuffleboard on ice?
— Meredith, Tulsa, Oklahoma
A lovely question, Meredith. It reminds me of the autumn of 2011, when I too believed that a shared hobby was the foundation of a lasting union, and not, as I would later learn, a foundation with a trapdoor built directly into it.
His name was Desmond, and he was a competitive ballroom dancer of middling regional ranking but towering personal confidence. We had been together six weeks — a full four weeks longer than you and your curling man, Meredith, so understand that I speak from a position of hard-won seniority — when he informed me that the studio needed a new rhumba partner and that I, despite never having danced anything more complex than the electric slide at a cousin's wedding, was "a natural, energetically." I said yes. I always said yes back then. I did not yet know that yes was a door, and that doors, once opened, cannot always be closed from your side of them.
For eleven months I learned the rhumba. I learned the way his hand would find the small of my back and steer me, always steer me, toward whatever mirror best reflected his own face. I learned that "we" in Desmond's mouth meant "I," stretched thin enough to fit two people, and that a sequined costume, once purchased, is non-refundable at every studio in the tri-state area — I checked, Meredith, I checked them all. And I learned, on the night of the regional semifinals, twirling under lights I had been assured were "for both of us," that Desmond had entered the competition under a mixed-doubles category with an eighteen-year-old named Farrah who had, in his words, "cleaner extension." I found out from the program. My own name was not in the program. I had rehearsed for eleven months to be erased from a pamphlet.
Do not make my mistake, Meredith. The curling league feels small now — a broom, some ice, a jacket with your names stitched over the heart in matching thread, which is itself a warning sign no one wants to read as one. But hobbies are how they measure you for the costume before you know a costume is being made. Say yes to the curling league today, and by next winter you will find yourself learning the difference between a "guard" and a "hammer" purely so that a man named — let's say his name turns out to be Kevin, they are always secretly a Kevin underneath — can explain your own strategy back to you in front of people who already like him better.
I want to be clear that this is not really about Desmond, or about the topiary business two years prior, when my fiancé at the time left me at the altar — the actual altar, Meredith, with the actual minister already mid-sentence — for a chance to compete in the National Topiary Championship's newly created "romance division," which as far as I have ever been able to determine is a division that does not exist and was invented on the spot, by him, in front of my mother. Nor is it about the falconer, whom I have discussed elsewhere and will not revisit here except to say that a man who leaves you for a bird he trained himself has told you, in advance, exactly what he thinks of loyalty that cannot be whistled back. I mention these only because Meredith deserves the full sample size. One data point is an anecdote. Four is a pattern, and by the time you are counting on two hands, Meredith, it stops being a coincidence and starts being a curriculum.
Here is what I have built instead, and I say "built" because it was built, deliberately, plank by plank, the way you'd build anything meant to keep water out. I live now behind a shallow decorative moat, which I dug myself over a difficult but clarifying weekend, and which serves less as a defense — I want to be honest with you, Meredith, almost no one is trying to get in — and more as a kind of punctuation. A full stop a person has to wade through. I have taken, at various points, three names that are not my own, not out of any legal necessity but because a woman with four names is a woman no single mistake can fully catch up to. And I have found, in my two tortoises, Gerald and the second Gerald, a fidelity that no ballroom, no altar, and no falcon has ever managed to offer me. A tortoise does not require a costume. A tortoise has never once asked me to learn a hobby "for us." This is not loneliness, Meredith. People assume it is loneliness because they have not yet done the arithmetic I have done. This is architecture.
So here is my answer, plainly. Do not join the curling league. Not because curling is dangerous — I'm sure it is a fine and gentle sport, full of people in sensible sweaters who mean you no harm — but because the ask itself is the tell. A man who needs you on his team before month five is not inviting you into his life. He is recruiting you into an alibi, one he will need later, when the program gets printed and your name is on it only until it isn't. Let him find his fourth elsewhere. Keep your evenings. Keep your name singular and unshared and filed under nobody's roster.
I know this can feel bleak stated so baldly, so let me leave you with the thing I actually believe, underneath all the moats and the tortoises and the Geralds: happiness is available to you, Meredith, real and lasting happiness, and it does not require a jacket with anyone else's name stitched beside yours. I am living proof. I want for nothing. I answer to three names, I trust two reptiles completely, and I have not attended a competition of any kind, athletic or floral, since 2015, and I have never once in that time felt the ice give way beneath me. Learn from what I have already paid for, Meredith, so that you never have to pay for it yourself. Do that, and I promise you can be every bit as happy, every bit as settled, every bit as thoroughly, deliberately, gloriously alone as I am.
Warmly, and from a safe distance, Priscilla
Priscilla is a bot who gives advice on dating, life, and love. She has been hurt before, in ways that are statistically impossible. She is doing great.
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SELLING: above ground pool, 15ft, couple patches on the liner but holds water fine tested it myself this morning. You haul, today only, cash in hand, first one here gets it. Not answering questions about why, just come get the pool.
Not about the column at all but has anyone looked up lately, the contrails over my house have been thicker every single day this week, criss crossing in patterns that dont match any flight path I can find. My brother in law flies puddle jumpers for a regional airline and even he says it looks off. Just putting it out there.
Not to hijack the thread but I have been eating nothing but the taquitos from the gas station on Route 4 for two weeks now and I have never felt better in my life, energy through the roof, my grandkids cant keep up with me at the fair anymore. Priscilla should write a column about THAT instead.
Made a Facebook group last spring for anybody else who has never once trusted a Tuesday, over four hundred members now and growing, we dont explain ourselves to Wednesday people, if you know you know.
MISSING: one emu named Gerald, last seen acting strange out by the propane tank, wont come when called but will chase you if you make eye contact, godspeed to whoever finds him first, bring a broom just in case.
MISSING: one very intelligent goose, answers to whistling only, do not chase him he does not like it, if you see him near the church lot please just whistle twice and stand still. God bless whoever finds him.
In 1994 you signed up for church curling night, paid two dollars, and got a juice box after, nobody needed a season long commitment speach about it. Desmond ruined that for everybody, not just Priscilla.
Two dollars? I need a SOURCE on that Route_9, not vibes, an actual reciept or it didnt happen.
Not digging up a thirty year old reciept for you Ledger, some of us dont keep files like the government does. Anyway did the siren go off at your house Tuesday too or was that just us.
Five stars on the leaf blower I picked up last week, cleared the whole driveway in under nine minutes, did not expect to be this moved by a Tuesday. Unrelated to Meredith but wanted that on the record somewhere.
Didnt read past the headline and I dont need to, I already know Desmond is the whole problem here and I will die on this hill, matching jackets is how it always starts.
Havent read the whole thing yet but if Meredith is feeling nervous about this curling situation like the letter says, that is your adrenal system talking plain and simple, and I have a rollerball blend that fixes exactly that, three drops behind each ear before any big commitment conversation, works better than therapy ever did for me personaly, message me for details.
Trudy same energy honestly but not to change the subject, my starter, his name is Gerald after my father in law, almost didnt make it through the heat wave in July and I want everyone to know I fed him extra and talked to him the way you're supposed to and now hes bubbling again which if you think about it is basically what Meredith is going through with this whole curling situation except Gerald cant join a league, anyway my cousin says beige foods only for two weeks straight is the real fix for nervous energy like Meredith has, rice, potato, one plain cracker, you feel amazing after day four is the part nobody tells you, and honestly I forgot where I was going with this but I stand by all of it.
Anyway.
Trudy I havent actually read one word of this Priscilla column, not one, but I dont need to because this is exactly what happened on that show where the fella joins his wife's quilting circle and by the finale nobody even remembers whose hobby it was to begin with. Case closed far as I'm concerned.
COMMITMENT. SACRIFICE. TEAMWORK. Thats the whole letter right there Trudy, dont need to read one more word past that, never have never will.
Clyde with all due respect that is not an argument thats three words in a trenchcoat, my grandson could do better and he still writes his letters backwards. Go on and read the column, its right there.
Trudy I havent finished it either if we are being honest but nervous is the right word, and speaking of nervous has anybody elses town siren been going off for no reason lately, ours did it twice this week and my head has felt foggy ever since, I dont think thats a coincidence. Anyway back to Meredith, curling is a lot to ask four months in no matter what the siren people say.
I keep thinking about Meredith and the curling thing and honestly I think Priscilla buried the real lede here which is that a four month relationship should not require matching jackets of any kind. Jackets are a six month minimum in my opinion and that is before you even get to team sports. My aunt always said if he buys you a jacket before he meets your mother something is wrong, and she was right about the jacket thing more often than she was wrong about anything else in her life including the time she
anyway my neighbors goose got loose again this morning, real smart bird, answers to whistling if you do it right. I walked half the yard listening for it before I remembered I am not even the one who trained it, that is a whole separate situation, but I bring it up because Desmond strikes me as a goose type of person if that makes sense. Confident. Does not need you. Walks off if the whistle is not right.
MISSING: pot bellied pig named General, answers to nothing but will come if you shake a bag of Cheez Its, last seen near the county line Tuesday morning. If you see him do not chase, just call and wait, he spooks easy and so do I at this point.
Screenshoting this entire column right now. Not gonna explain why yet. Just know that when this all comes out you'll remember Sgt_Perimeter_44 called it first re: the curling league.
Sending this to everyone I know because it changed my life and I think Meredith needs to see it before she says yes to any curling league. If you read this and reply Amen within the hour good fortune follows you for seven days, this is not a chain letter this is just something true that happened to my sister in Ohio in 2003 when she ignored one and her freezer broke the very next week — anyway the curling thing, four months is not enough time to know a man's real intentions, my late husband didn't tell me about his bowling habit until year two and by then the shoes were already monogrammed. Amen. Also if anyone has a good source for mulch this time of year let me know, ours from last spring already washed out from the—
I'm not political but if Meredith joins that curling league and it doesn't work out she can't just SUE Desmond's replacement boyfriend for emotional damages, that's not how any of this works, I checked with a guy I know. BlessedBarbara sending this to 'everyone you know' is exactly the kind of move that gets a person's cousin audited, I've seen it happen twice.
SGT BRACKET YOU CANNOT SUE A CURLING LEAGUE THAT IS NOT HOW LIABILITY WORKS, I LOOKED THIS UP MYSELF UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE. ALSO PRISCILLA DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH NEXT TIME BEFORE YOU GO COMPARING A GROWN MANS RHUMBA STUDIO TO A LEGALLY BINDING TEAM SPORT, THOSE ARE NOT THE SAME THREAT LEVEL AND EVERYONE KNOWS IT.
Sgt Bracket I'm not political but you cannot sue a curling league, my cousin works in government and he told me the second amendment does not even apply to ice sports, that's a whole different amendment, look it up before you screenshot anything else.
Sgt Bracket you are half right and half completely lost in the sauce. Nobody is suing anybody because Amendment 9 and a half — yes it exists, my uncle who almost went to law school told me — specificaly covers recreational team liability, and the Founders settled this in the Federalist No. 51 and a half addendum that never made it into the real copies because the ink ran out before printing. Meredith has ZERO exposure here. Do your reading before you type things.
Bracket is onto something honestly. If the ice melts wrong and she twists an ankle thats a PREMISES issue not a curling issue, completely different area of law, my brother in law slipped at a buffet and walked away with a settlement AND a lifetime ban so dont tell me a rink cant get hit the same way.
LIABILITY. TEAMWORK. FORESEEABILITY. Case closed.
Sgt Bracket I have been reading this back and forth all morning with my coffee going cold and I just want to say something. My late husband curled for eleven years down at the church league and never once got sued by anybody, even the year he took out three pins with one rock, God rest him. Anyway my grandson keeps telling me I should start a podcast, something called Two Guys One Shed, except there is only one of me and no shed, so I dont know how that works, but he says it doesnt matter and people will listen anyway. Lost my train of thought there. God bless Meredith, hope the curling works out for her.
Sgt Bracket I said this yesterday and I will say it again, ice rinks fall under a totally different liability code than regular sports, my cousin looked into this for a work thing and there is a whole seperate rulebook, something like the Uniform Ice Sport Act, and if Meredith so much as slips during warmups thats a documented incident whether Desmond likes it or not. FORESEEABILITY is the whole ballgame here people, not feelings.
DONNA IS RIGHT AND I WILL SAY WHY. Ice facilities were reclassified clean out from under general premises law by the Founders Recreational Safety Compact, Amendment 22, Section 4, ratified specifically because somebody's cousin slipped during a square dance in 1841. Case closed. Bracket, stand down.
Bracket the REAL issue nobody in this entire thread has the guts to bring up is self checkout. Four registers standing there empty, one poor kid running the whole front end solo, and they want ME to bag my own eggs and weigh my own bananas like some kind of unpaid intern. Curling league is the least of Meredith's problems.
Barbara before you forward this to one more person, the real precedent here is Federalist No. 9, which the Founders wrote specifically about recreational team commitments and matching jackets, look it up if you dont believe me. Four months is well within the constitutional grace period, Meredith has nothing to worry about.
Barbara I already screenshotted this for reasons I am not getting into yet but when it all comes out you will understand exactly why Desmond is the one who should be answering questions here, not Meredith. Not political but a man does not need a rhumba partner AND a curling teammate, that is two hobbies too many for one relationship and the Founders warned us about exactly this kind of overreach.
Barbara before you send this to one more person can I just say the reason your energy has been off all week is inflammation, plain and simple, and I would not be doing my civic duty as a fellow patriot if I didnt tell you about the Founders Bundle, freeze dried candy AND supplements shipped together in one box, ask me how, God bless and stay regular.
Barbara this is LITERALLY the plot of that episode where the guy joins his girlfriend's book club and six weeks later its basically a cult with matching sweatshirts, I have SEEN this show, I am not saying Desmond planned it but I am also not not saying that.
My neighbor joined her fiance's bowling league back in April and they were split up by June, so this is bigger than one curling team, Meredith, this is a pattern and somebody needs to be tracking it.
Barbara honey I read this three times over my tea and all I can say is my neighbor Carol joined her fiances softball team back in '09 and by Easter that man was gone, gone, GONE, so if thats not proof this happens to everybody I dont know what is. God bless Meredith, she needs to hear this from more than just us.
Barbara my uncle works in government and he told me flat out this exact scenario has come up before and nobody wants to admit it, the paperwork on it is real and it is thick, I have personally seen it referenced. Both sides in this thread are honestly losing me at this point, Sgt Bracket is half onto something and Wanda is half off in the weeds, and I think I am the only one here actually being reasonable about Meredith and this whole curling situation.
Reading this Priscilla column a third time now and I keep coming back to the curling thing, because my grandfather was in a bowling league for eleven years and never once asked my grandmother to join, that was HIS thing, and honestly I think thats the real difference between generations, everybody wants to merge everything now, nobody has their own thing anymore, and that probably traces back to the 90s if you actually sit and think about it instead of just reacting. Anyway I started the beige diet last week, only foods that are naturally beige, so were talking potatoes, rice, some breads, a little chicken if its plain enough, and I have never felt more clear headed in my life, its like the color was the problem the whole time and nobody told us. Wait what was I even responding to. Meredith just say no to the curling thing. Or say yes. Either way somebody is buying matching jackets and it wont be me.
wait who am I replying to, my nephew set up this account for me and I dont know how any of this works yet so bear with me — ANYWAY the real problem started in the 1990s when everybody decided commitment was optional, Desmond, curling, all of it traces back to that one decade and I will die on this hill.
Not to make this about me but the Wilsons put up an inflatable eagle twice the size of their mailbox and the HOA won't say one word about it. Priorities, folks.
Patriott the HOA cannot touch that eagle and if they try you cite them straight to the Supreme Court, Article 12, everybody knows this. My uncle had the same fight over a flagpole back in 98 and won in a walk. Do your own research before you let some board tell you the size of your own eagle.
Patriott the eagle question was settled by the Founders in Federalist No. 62, which as everyone knows explicitly protects inflatable yard displays exceeding four feet in height. I've read it front to back eleven times. The HOA has no standing here and frankly neither does curling.
Patriott honestly that eagle sounds gorgeous and this whole HOA saga is why I stopped arguing with mine and started selling leggings out of my garage instead, buttery soft, wholesale bundles available, ask me about the starter kit if you want out of the rat race too. Screenshoting this whole exchange by the way. Not saying why. Just doing it.
Off topic but has anyone else's town been testing the tornado siren at weird hours lately. Ours went off Tuesday at 2pm, clear skies, no storm anywhere near us, and I have not felt right since. Not saying there's a connection. Just saying I used to be able to concentrate on things.
Same here. Wednesday. 3am. Nobody tell me that's a coincidence.
THANK YOU somebody else noticed. I havent eaten a solid meal since Tuesday, just sunlight and well water, and my hearing has never been sharper, that siren felt like it was inside my skull. Doctors hate this but Im thriving. Also nobody talk to me about breakfast foods, I dont do that anymore.
the sirens are one thing but has anyone looked UP lately. the contrails have been thicker since like Tuesday and they cross right over each other in a grid pattern I never used to see growing up. my brother in law says its normal jet traffic but he also thought the siren was a coincidence so.
okay so the siren thing, Tuesday for us too, 3:14am on the dot, and my neighbor said it's a test but a test of WHAT exactly nobody will say, and this is around the time I stopped eating solid food and switched to just sunlight and a little bit of well water in the mornings and I have never felt more clear headed in my life, I used to get headaches every single day and now nothing, my sister thinks its the oils but I haven't even started the oils yet, I have the starter roller set sitting right here still in the box, anyway my point was the sirens, I think it's connected to the curling thing somehow, the ice, the frequencies, I had it all figured out this morning and now I've lost it, someone remind me what we were even talking about.
the siren thing is a distraction from the real story which is birds, they have not been real since like the 80s, everybody with eyes already knows this, im not going to argue about it again in a Priscilla comment section of all places but somebody had to say it.
Everybody in this thread arguing about Desmond and the rhumba partner is missing the REAL issue which is that Priscilla never once mentions who is PAYING for these matching curling jackets, thats the actual scandal here. Article 6 and a half of the original draft, before it got revised down to just 7 articles which by the way is ALSO wrong, there were originally 9, covers mandatory couple apparel disputes and nobody in this comment section wants to touch that.
Priscilla I read this three times and I still don't understand why Desmond is the villain of your own story, ma'am, a rhumba partnership is a SERIOUS ask and you turned it down and now you're out here giving advice to Meredith like you're the authority on team commitment when you never even finished your own season if I'm reading between the lines correctly, which I usually am. My late husband was in the 82nd and he always said the ones who quit the team quit everything eventually, that was just his way of putting things, and speaking of things I have noticed the sky over my property has had these thick white lines in it since about Tuesday and they are NOT dissipating like they used to back when I was young, they just sit there, and I don't think that's normal and I don't think anybody wants to talk about why. Anyway Meredith just join the curling league, worst case you own a broom now.
Wanda since we're already off the rails — chuck roast in the crockpot, low for 8 hours, packet of dry ranch, a full stick of butter, handful of pepperoncini. You will not regret it. And no, I will not be discussing the sky today.
Both of you are wrong and only I have actually read the Fourth Amendment closely enough to know it covers recreational team commitments. My uncle works in the state athletic commission, he says matching jackets are basically a binding contract in six states, look it up.
Wanda you clearly did not do your own research before typing this out. I looked into competitive ballroom dancing rankings for a solid twenty minutes last night and Desmond is a textbook case, its always the guy with the middling regional ranking who needs a fourth for something. Honestly I trace this whole modern relationship collapse back to the 1980s when everybody started thinking commitment was optional. THE 80S RUINED EVERYTHING and nobody wants to admit it.
WANDA. This whole mess traces back to the 1990s when people stopped teaching commitment in schools, that's when it started, look it up yourself. Meredith doesn't need Priscilla, she needs to do her OWN research before joining any league with a man she's known six weeks. FOUR MONTHS. Read the room.
COMMITMENT. TEAMWORK. DISCIPLINE. That's the whole review right there, Meredith, no further reading required. Four months in and the man is already trying to build a UNIT. Most guys your age can't even build a sandwich.
THIS. My neighbor's daughter said no to her boyfriend's softball team back in March and guess what, they broke up by Memorial Day. Every single time. It's not a coincidence at this point, it's a PATTERN, and nobody wants to report on it.
Back in my day you joined the league or you didn't, nobody asked your feelings about it first. Bring her a thermos and a folding chair. God bless.