Checking In
Should the Romance Go Up in Smoke?
Fri Nov 23, 3:00 AM ET
DEAR MARGO: Normally I believe people should largely figure out their own problems, but this is about a woman I love so much I would do anything to make her happy, even write to an advice column. I'll spill the info: We've been going out for three months (but have known each other for two years). I was previously a smoker before we started dating. I told her I would quit for her -- which I did. It was easy to do because I love her.
Recently we had a pretty rough fight and I left so as not to exacerbate the problem. My friends invited me to a party, and I was so emotional and upset that I had a cigarette. I told her about this and she's reasonably upset, as I betrayed her trust.
I know I shouldn't have made such an impulsive, stupid decision, but I now literally beg you for advice. How can I get her trust back?
--- HEARTACHES
DEAR HEART: I don't think you betrayed her trust so much as you fell off the wagon. Mark Twain spoke for me (and innumerable others) when he said, "Stopping smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I have done it dozens of times." It is a real addiction, and one slip ought not discourage you or cause your beloved to find you untrustworthy.
What happened to you is understandable. Just as alcoholics who drink to drown their sorrows have to learn that sorrows know how to swim, smokers trying to quit need to know in their guts that smoking doesn't address whatever is going wrong.
If you get back on the no-smoking wagon, the woman of your dreams should feel just as she did before. She is making your lapse a little too much about her without understanding that swearing off is not easy. Your effort should count for something.
--- MARGO, KNOWLEDGEABLY
Your Secret's Safe with Yahoo!
DEAR MARGO: Some time ago, my boyfriend, Laurie (it's a boy's name in England), got me to take some rather saucy photos of myself in my underwear, as he was working in another city and our love life was restricted to phone sex. We were communicating by Yahoo! mail, and I'd send him sexy snaps every week.
Then I heard a rumor that the young men who work at Yahoo! and places like that have easy access to the e-mails. When I heard that, I thought back over the years about all the private, sometimes quite dirty e-mails that I mailed Laurie and, of course, all those photos. I'm going crazy with worry.
Don't tell me that companies like the phone company and Internet companies like Yahoo! have security measures in place, because a good friend of mine showed me just this week how staff can have access to people's e-mail as easily as taking candy from a kid.
--- CAUGHT IN A WEB
DEAR CAUGHT: A Yahoo! News vice-president (my boss) answered your question for me.
"User privacy is of the utmost importance in everything we do at Yahoo! You'll find it spelled out in our TOS and Privacy Policy that Yahoo! will not monitor or edit the contents of a user's private communications. All the relevant details can be found at http://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/utos/utos-173.html. (To translate from geek-speak to English, TOS means terms of service.) We don't read people's e-mail and we don't target ads based on their contents -- unlike, say, gmail -- where no human reads the e-mail, but their algorithms do. This is the reason you can write a friend about poor Aunt Hilda in Halifax being depressed, and then get an ad for mental health services in Nova Scotia."
So, my dear, fear not about your private messages to Laurie on Yahoo! unless someone hacks his computer.
--- MARGO, CONFIDENTIALLY
Dear Margo is written by Margo Howard, Ann Landers' daughter. All letters must be sent via e-mail to click here.
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