1)Don't give this hateful person a ride. Neither you nor your boyfriend wants to ride with her. This is HER fault, not yours, and you shouldn't feel guilty. You won't look like a jerk, you'll look like someone who isn't going to put up with insults.

2)Use one of Carrie Ann's responses - trust me, they'll work. Your boyfriend will have your back, and your mutual friends will, too. It isn't just you - people like this are never nasty to just one person. Her remarks tell you 2 things about her: a)oviously, she's bitter about what she lost, and b)she actually DOES care about appearing cool and high-brow - she's got self-esteem problems. A college reunion means that you're all what...31? 32? Letting her know that you're beyond that ridiculous game will put an end to the comments. If it doesn't, and she chooses to make a "fight" out of it, everyone will see her true colors.

You got the guy, not her. Sounds like she's showing everyone why without any help from you.

Screw her. Why spend any time with her *at all*? Your boyfriend has offered to avoid her - take him up on the offer.

She is a shallow, insecure, evil person.

We all have the ability in our lives to choose the people we spend our time with. I know that sometimes it seems like we don't, but the truth is, we do.

If you don't like someone, if someone is mean to you, if they put you down...

DON'T ASSOCIATE WITH THEM.

You're never going to change her to be a good person, she'll always be that way (or at least if she changes, it's going to be from her own volition), but you do have the freedom and choice to ignore her and snub her.

Screw her.

Do NOT share a ride with this woman to the reunion. Why she asked to share is just besides the point. Who needs to be cooped up with crazy for that long?

Who cares if others think you are crazy or "not nice"? The woman is being mean to you, and they are not exactly protecting you. This is a form of "crazymaking behavior, coming from a crazy person who wants to screw with your head. Crazy is contagious. Stay away.

Why is it so important to be "nice" or not present as "crazy" to the vicious and their accomplicies?

First, DO NOT go to her parties. That is "rubbing her nose in it". Space is a good thing. On the other hand, the fact that she asked for a ride makes it seem that the "ex" is looking for contact.

WHen she makes the comments, the "What did you say" is a good come back. "Do you really mean that the way it sounded?" is also good. A straight out "What a mean thing to say" is good to. SIlence is great if you can pull it off. "Why would you say something that nasty?" Is good. WHen she protests that you are "oversensitive", come back with "Normal people don't like being insulted." or "You need to take your meds."

I would give the ex a wide berth. The group seems far too incestuous. It's time to cultivate shared friends and new places all of your own.

Why hide the accomplishments? Why not have BF brag on them?

Ultimately, this is a case of "ex at the wedding". Don't create upsetting situations for yourself. Stop worrying about her "dictating your actions" and worry about your comfort instead. When you die, no one will say "but she was so classy to her boyfriend's ex" at your funeral.

I sympathize with the letter-writer, but her biggest concern in general seems to be that she doesn't want to feel that her staying away from gatherings thrown by the ex merely because of the nastiness of the ex, since that would mean the ex is "dictating" her behavior.

I think this is a self-defeating attitude: How you act vis-a-vis a certain person is surely dependent on your relationship with that person, so why shouldn't you let your decision as to whether to attend the ex's gatherings depend on how she acts towards you?

Maybe the answer is that these are major social events in your circle and you don't want to miss them.

In which case the answer is to hold your own parties and invite only those people you feel comfortable with.

By the way, I do *not* subscribe to Mr. Tennis's suggestion to say "Fuck you!" to her. This does not seem likely to me to resolve anything, but only to escalate the level of nastiness.

I do, however, think you should first make at least one attempt to communicate directly to the ex what is bothering you and give her at least one chance to stop her nastiness toward you. If she doesn't, then, well, she'll understand why she's not getting invited to your getherings.

People seem confused. Imagine this sort of statement.

"I tried to catch up on my fiction reading with that 'magical' Kafka on the Shore, but after I saw Sidney Pollock' s Frank Gehry documentary I was just too involved with fantasizing about a hot, real world philosophical three way between Jean-Luc Nancy, Slavov Zizek and Giorgio Agamben about community and the architecture of postmdernity. You like fantasy stuff, LOTR and all that, don't you sweetie?"

"Fuck you" or "that is so mean" doesn't often make a dent with domineering, intellectually superior bitches.

Unless the victim can respond by deconstructing Murakami and Tolkien while simultaneously explaining how Jackson revolutionized the use of CGI in feature films on a par with Latin American literary magic realism, careful evasion is really the best way to go.

And I understand what it means to feel sorry that you won something that you really believe is worth having.

But as a man I have to tell you that what a woman once told me about other women has its analog in men: when a woman gets flowers from a man, it's because she wants them.

When a man gets attention from a woman it's because he wants it. He's asking for it and she's giving it.

I believe in clean breaks and giving people time to hate your guts. I believe in the basic goodness of the people I choose to share my intimate self with and so I know that good people always make amends and overlook whatever ugliness it took to get on with their lives.

I understand that allowing people to get angry and hurt because of a breakup may not be in vogue, but I believe it is a necessary evil. That your beau hasn't given this woman such clarity and closure suggests to me that he is using his ex as a tool to control your behavior. And your discomfort could well be your own subconscious alerting you to some vague sense of danger.

Fuck that.

Be really clear with your boyfriend and really honest with yourself. It's okay to be a neaderthal or medieval about offenses to your primal self. If he's a good guy he needs to understand that triangulation is the enemy of intimacy, not its friend.

As for her...I think you're feeling something important through her that you need to process yourself and move beyond. And I think it has to do with the position this ex is in. It's not about competition, although that is what the surface appears to depict.

It's really about power, control and fear of intimacy. What this boyfriend does to others he is more than capable of doing to you. Do you really want to trust your heart, soul, friendship and valuable time to someone who leaves such stinking wounds in people? Is it that much fun to live in fear of his narcissism? When do you suppose it's going to cut in the opposite direction?

She's not breaking you guys up, she's doing you the same favor that you did her, only she's too numb to see it. She wants back on the merry go round and you already know what dizzy feels like and aren't too thrilled by the idea of having a lifetime of it. Sure he's fun and exciting and interesting now. But decades of this shit? C'mon. Your gut is telling you what's real and it hasn't evolved to the stage of self doubt. Trust it and take appropriate action.

Clear the air and stick up for yourself with your boyfriend. His ex is just a foil, a victim of circumstances and is unremarkable because she is a role player. Your problems are with him so ever so-gently ask him to do the right thing. And then WATCH HIS FEET, accepting that how he does anything will be how he does everything. If he keeps stringing her along, you have a choice to make. He needs to give this poor lovesick woman closure in no uncertain terms. Fuck nice; she needs her heart back in a form useful in another relationship and that can't happen while she's pining over some narcissist who pretends to be clueless while he's stringing along another victim.

Cary's getting rusty in his old age. He used to pick up on stuff like this before. He might need a vacation from all this reading.