Ask Ed The Sock 16: Bad Breath, Teen Princesses, Trusting Your Ex

In every issue of FAZE MAGAZINE, our readers bare their souls to Ed The Sock & Red, Canada’s high priest and priestess of morality, etiquette and, especially, common sense. Here are Ed & Red’s unfettered and heartfelt replies.

Send in your own questions and hopefully Ed & Red will be able to answer you in an upcoming issue of FAZE.

ISSUE #16 Q & A

Faze Reader:
A girl I know in class has really bad breath. I’m not sure she is aware of it and I really don’t want to get into it with her either. I just want to know if someone who has bad breath can realize it and do something, without me having to say anything?

ED REPLIES:
Well, think about it — she still has bad breath. So either she can’t realize it on her own, or she’s realized it and doesn’t care. If it’s the latter, then you need to find better friends. If it’s the former, that answers your initial question. So now it’s up to you whether you’re going to gently tell your friend about her problem, or constantly stand upwind of her.

Faze Reader:
I just want to be left alone. Is it too much to ask? If I don’t call some friends for a day or two, they call and leave all kinds of messages. They always want to hang out or talk on the phone. When I don’t return their calls, they get mad. What is a polite way of telling everyone I just want my space?

ED REPLIES:
You’re asking the wrong guy for advice about being polite. But if I were to take a flyer on this, I’d say that friendship is a two-way street and you can’t just expect your friends to spin their wheels until you feel like talking to them. You need to find a compromise between your friends’ desire to talk to you and your desire for some space. Though why they want to spend so much time with you is a mystery to me, ‘coz you seem like a misanthropic loner. Though so am I, so consider that a compliment.

Faze Reader:
I really like this girl but I don’t think I can afford her. She has expensive taste and dates guys with cars. I could take on the challenge of trying to date and reform a princess but I don’t want to end up hating her. What should I do?

ED REPLIES:
You want to reform a teen princess? Why not save yourself the intermediary step and just go right to bashing your head against a wall? Forget it.

Faze Reader:
I just found out that my current boyfriend knows my ex. The break up with my ex was pretty bad and I’ve never spoken about it to my boyfriend. I’m afraid now that he’ll get the wrong version first. Should I volunteer my past or believe my ex will be polite about us?

ED REPLIES:
Generally, you shouldn’t trust an ex to represent a break-up accurately. But if you’re a teenager, you should NEVER trust an ex to represent a break-up accurately. There are too many ego issues involved. But don’t go all emo and make some tearful confession to your boyfriend…just fish around and ask him if the ex has mentioned anything about you, and then deal with that.

Faze Reader:
I like this guy, and we’ve been friends for a really long time. We were gonna hook up but then he got really popular with the girls at school and now looks like he’s not interested in me. Are guys always immature like this?

ED REPLIES:
Yes.

Faze Reader:
I have a crush on my older sister’s friend, and I know it’s totally against the rules to even be thinking about her, and if my sister ever found out, she’d make a big stink about it, but I really want to ask my sister’s friend out, should I?

ED REPLIES:
For the purposes of this answer, I’m going to assume that you’re male—though your letter doesn’t specify. If, in fact, you’re female, that opens up a whole other can of worms I’m not getting into here. Now, the answer to this really depends on too many variables for me to give you an answer — such as the relationship with your sister and her friend’s comfort level with dating the brother of a friend. But there’s a more important question you’re not asking here — would an older girl want to go out with a younger guy? Generally, the answer is “no”. So until you start shaving regularly, stick to girls who enjoy the romantic allure of riding with their dates in the back of a stank city bus.

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