To Buy or Not To Buy: Sometimes It’s Best Not to Question
March 26, 2009, by Prudence Baird
What do you do when a friend—or worse, relative—writes a book? Are you expected to buy it? Or, should you say you’ll buy it, and then don’t? If you buy it, do you have to read it?
What if the book is a nine-pound, seventy-dollar obscure tome on chess entitled, Chess Advantage in Black & White?
I haven’t played chess since I was beaten by a six-year-old back in the 1980s. I’m sure my brother-in-law is still waiting for me to show up and ask for his John Hancock on the copy I promised to buy (but never did). I have more than enough unread books lying around this house—some of which I even want to read.
The decision is a little less black and white (ahem) when the book is affordable, lightweight and fluffy. I apprehensively bought—then gobbled up in an unexpectedly delicious afternoon—my friend Carine’s juicy memoir, Sex, Cheese & French Fries.
But when Leslie penned her book, I hesitated. What if someone smirks at me as I stand in line at the register with my copy of How to Marry a Divorced Man? That could be as embarrassing as the supermarket incident when I ran headlong into a guy I dumped in high school while pushing a cart loaded with incontinence products for my mother.
The question gets muddier when a friend, relative or—God forbid—your boss’s wife makes something. I’ll never forget Norm, whose frighteningly pasty wife wrapped old soft-drink bottles in string, spray-painted them poo-poo brown, and sold them at swap meets. The thought of her broiling in the sun with her string-covered bottles made me feel that the end of civilization was at hand.
Norm brought a crate of these hideous artifacts into the office and forced everyone in his department not only to buy them, but to compliment them as well. I’m still rinsing out my mouth from the lies I told three decades ago.
Arielle’s book, The Soulmate Secret, poses a different challenge. The book promises to teach fool-proof techniques to recognize and attract your soulmate.
What if I read it and discover I’ve not married my soulmate? What if I find out the good-natured, bespeckled man to whom I’m married and whose passion for burying his head in a book and spending hours on the computer following the Cincinnati Reds is warming a chair that could be occupied by, for instance, George Clooney?
Who am I kidding?
I remember talking with a mother at my son’s former school in Los Angeles. Her husband, a handsome, gregarious, award-winning film director, was the object of desire by just about every mother with a pulse at morning drop-off. As my friend and I gushed over her husband, the young woman tossed her chestnut main, and snorted. “Are you kidding?” she asked. “Just try to get him to pick up his socks or put the toilet seat down. He argues about everything.” She looked at our gaping mouths. “Yeah, everyone thinks he’s great. But just try being married to him.”
Maybe I will buy The Soulmate Secret after all. And ship it anonymously to that director’s wife.
March 26th, 2009 at 8:57 am
I always tell my pals that seeing our shows is not a requirement to spend the night here. Though I am now the proud owner of an $1800.00 necklace a friend made because I wanted to be supportive of her art. I’ve worn it like, a half dozen times in 10 years. I could’ve simply admired it. Ah well–it is really pretty.
Thank God the blog is free.
March 26th, 2009 at 9:10 am
A friend of mine made a special pillow for use by children with autism. It was basically a nylon bag stuffed with polyester fill. I paid $27.50 for it and my ASD child never looked at it, never touched it. What a waste. I threw it away two years later after finding it under the bed covered with dust mice. If she was really a friend, she would’ve given it to me considering it cost all of one dollar to make (at the most. I guesstimate that I have spent well over a hundred thousand dollars on B.S. therapies for my child. Make that $100,027.50.
March 26th, 2009 at 10:05 am
There seems to be a fine line between being obligated to friends and relations and being supportive. Then, when you throw enthusiastic into the mix, it can be a downright conundrum. Most of my friends and relatives who have written books have given me signed copies. (Good thing, since my brother and sister-in-law write scholarly textbooks.) Recently a new friend gave me his book and I promised to write a review for his Amazon page. I have yet to do this (weeks later) because I haven’t had time to read the book and now I’m going on vacation. I feel obligated, and/but I want to support… sheesh! It’s a tough one Pru. Thanks for bringing it up, the guilt is mounting…
P.S. Yes, I agree Sex, Cheese and French Fries is a delicious read!
March 26th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Well, thanks for the plugs for Sex, Cheese and Fries, girls! I find I buy stuff just to be supportive way too often. Lots of times, I don’t even know the person that well. I just want them to feel good, but sometimes, afterwards, I feel stupid for having spent the money. A woman I know wrote a book that she made perfectly clear she expected me to buy (she had bought mine, after all); and I promised I would. But when I went to check it out on her website and read excerpts, I just knew I would never read it (I thought the writing was bad), plus I just didn’t feel like shelling out the $22.50. So, I didn’t. And I’m sure she hates me for it.
The other thing is blogs. Must we read our friends’ blogs? And do we expect them to read ours? I’ve gotten more than one sideways look from friends who I can tell feel put out when having to fess up that they don’t usually get around to reading them. Maybe it’s best not to ask, and not to expect.
March 26th, 2009 at 11:54 am
And Prudence, you are so damn funny!
March 26th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
I just shelved in a new bookcase yesterday a bunch of books by bloggers that I bought last year because I have this thing about supporting each other no matter what. I haven’t read them. Probably won’t. But my purchases will be registered in their stats, and I suppose that’s the point for me.
March 26th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
I’m intrigued by the Coke bottles! This is a great piece. Thanks for making me laugh!
March 26th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
I have so many friends who make jewelery, it isn’t even funny. What’s up with that? How much jewelery can you buy (a lot, actually)?
I hear you re: George Clooney and the soul mate thing. Personally, I think you’re soul mate is whomever you get along with pretty well. It also needs to be mutual. I mean, I’m pretty sure that Jeff Bridges is MY soul mate…I just don’t think I’m his soul mate — and so on.
March 26th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Great topic! As a professional writer with a couple of published books, I read this post with great interest and appreciated your perspective. Supporting any friend’s business — whether she’s a dentist, an attorney, a ceramic artist, or an author can be a sensitive issue. I had a friend who often hassled me all the time for not buying a Chrysler (he worked for the auto company). When I asked him why he never subscribed to the newspaper I write for, which was so much cheaper, well, he just didn’t get it …
March 26th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Sometimes I feel it and sometimes I don’t. When I don’t I just don’t – buy it or read it. I feel at 50+ I get to do that. I always congratulate anybody who has the will to finish a book (badly written or not) and wish them luck!
I know the handful of friends I can ask for feedback. They are close enough friends that I know they will say no or yes based on how they feel and we will still be friends regardless. As far as the blog goes some folks respond and and some don’t. I never ever ask. Its easier on me that way.
March 27th, 2009 at 9:40 am
And they say that MEN are the only ones whose thoughts stray into fantasy about being paired with someone else!
I think Prudence has got a good topic there, regarding with the thoughts that go through one’s mind when a friend publishes a book and you say you’re going to read it. And then don’t, having thereby entered a wasteland of guilt that keeps on going and going and going.
March 27th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
in the theater world there is always the moment when you know you have to promote your show to people who don’t know your work… same in music. A dear friend came to see a play that I did and her relief was palpable. Her words backstage came with a rushing sound…”oh god, I’m so glad you don’t suck!” So, bearing that in mind, I try to support everyone and keep my thoughts judiciously to myself. As long as it’s under $20.
Thanks for the great topic and website…
March 27th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Funny, I feel guilty ASKING someone to support one of my enterprises. But that’s a whole other subject.
I think the bigger issue lurking beneath the humor is that we women are suckers for this kind of thing. We feel expected to say “yes,” and can’t seem to say “no,” no matter how much we really want to. I like “mellimel’s” response. Just congratulate them profusely, but make no commitments to anything other than “checking it out.” Hopefully, that will let your conscious off the hook and leave a couple of extra dollars in your wallet.
If, on the other hand, you like being a true “supporter” of all of your friends, just spend the money and write it off as the cost of friendship or doing business. If it’s a book, just make sure to tell them you may not have a chance to get to it anytime soon, but you want to be supportive of their achievement.
That being said, I hope I can count on all of you to read my book when I finish writing it
March 28th, 2009 at 8:31 am
now wait a minute here, i am not “bespeckled”. that would imply a skin condition. i am, however, for the record, “bespectacled.” and if your soulmate is george clooney, then mine is anne hathaway. (the one shakespeare married, of course.)
March 28th, 2009 at 10:03 am
Haha. See what happens when you forego marrying a movie star and choose the smartypants guy with the glasses? That’s the last time I trust dictionary.com over you, dear. And if you think I used to be a bag of bones, just imagine what cuddling up to Anne Hathaway’s remains would be like–a Tim Burton movie, to be sure.
March 30th, 2009 at 8:50 am
Been there, done that…. And it was my husband’s book. Yawn
April 5th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Prudence, you do make me laugh–and I love your husband. I’m sure he’s much funnier than George Clooney, and you absolutely need someone with maximum wit…I can’t bear to think of all the stupid things I’ve bought to be supportive, or not bought and had to endure plagues of guilt about the feelings I might have hurt. Such an uncomfortable topic, good for you for airing it (with humor)…