Dear Bruce

Hang Up in Alabama writes Dear Abby: I am a 65-year-old male, and I recently went out of town on business with a 28-year-old male coworker. During the entire dinner, he continued looking up stuff and responding to texts on his cellphone.

You are correct that someone more polite would have put the phone down and socialized with you. But let’s discuss the realities of business travel. Not everyone is at work to make friends. You don’t get to pick your travel companions, and they might not like you or be interested in you. They might not feel any obligation to entertain you. And you should try to be sensitive to their needs.

Business travel means that your companion isn’t home with their significant-other or family. Mr. young-and-rude might have been looking forward to some quiet time on the phone with someone special after dinner, which he could have only if he got all of his work done first.

If your employer was cheap enough to put you both in the same room, Young-and-rude probably needed a break from his travel companion. In absence of that, he was doing his best to ignore you.

If there’s a next time, make your own arrangement to eat where Young-and-rude won’t be. And if you are sharing a room, arrange to spend the evening out of it – and tell him you will. He’ll probably appreciate the privacy.

In a letter to Miss Manners: I am a young person with recurrent hip pain. … My parents are the type to tell me to “walk it off,” even though a cane would help me a great deal with my pain.

Dear Bruce compliments you for taking charge of your own medical condition at a young age. Don’t ever stop! Adults that drive their medical care, rather than passively receiving it, have better outcomes.

Ms. Manners’ suggestion of a walking stick is excellent. These are regularly used by normally-abled hikers. Pick one out in an online catalog. REI is a great place to start, but many online stores carry them. Find one you like, and ask for it. Dear Bruce uses one that doubles as a camera monopod. Ms. Manners’ mention of the highly-illegal sword-stick is humorous: forget about it.

Parents who are insensitive to the needs of a child with chronic pain are a problem that other adults should take seriously. Ask any of your teachers to help you see your school’s guidance counselor, and tell the counselor that your parents aren’t giving you the help you need with your pain. You should also tell any of your doctors, if you can see them without a parent in attendance.

Dear Bruce and Ms. Bruce have both received some relief from pain related to skeletal and gait mis-alignment through shoes with orthotics fitted by a competent pedorphist. If you haven’t received this sort of care, it’s worth trying.

Sonali Chandra tells Jane Ridley of Insider: I’m a 35-year-old virgin and I won’t have sex before marriage. The 9 men I’ve dated so far have been jerks about it.

Dear Bruce supports everyone’s right to define their own sexual identity, however difficult their path. This won’t be an easy one.

Sonali, you’re going to be a 36-year-old virgin soon if you don’t change your strategy. Stop expecting men who are routinely offered sex by the women they date to forego that for you.

The only chance to hold your “v-card” until marriage and get married is to find a man who is a serious member of a devoutly religious community. Because that’s what you are – though you might be denying it. Virginity is a religious issue and a matter of personal choice. Our single-lady readers who are sexually active would be highly offended if you were to imply that it is a matter of morals or ethics.

Those religious men won’t be asking you out at the gym reception desk. You will need to go to the house of worship where they are. Don’t be surprised if they don’t let you participate in the same way as the men.

Once you meet him, you’ll find that devoutly religious men are their own sort of jerk, but they share the way you value women’s virginity. Many won’t believe that men’s virginity is nearly so important.

Expect to take a subordinate role in the marriage and do all of the child and home care. If you get a religious enough guy, you will also support the family with your job while hubby worships and discusses religion with other men like himself all day.

Copied writes Carolyn Hax:

[My friend] said she had “finally” booked the venue — the same venue we’re using [for our wedding]. When I asked about it, she said she is delaying her wedding until after mine because mine will be way better so she’s just going to copy all my ideas. I don’t want my wedding “copied.”

Dear Copied, you and your friend have no idea what a wedding is actually about. It’s not the big party. It’s the fact that you and your partner will be married afterward, perhaps for the rest of your lives. In contrast to that, the big party is of teeny, tiny importance.

Your friend has no self-respect, if she believes that she has so little style that all of her choices can only be dumb and your wedding will be so much more cool, Ms. da Vinci.

Whatever you are doing for your wedding, it’s likely been done 1000 times before, and you can’t copyright it as performance art. Ms. no-self-respect has a legal right to copy it, but you are still free to whine about it and block her texts.

Get your priorities straight. Stop thinking about the big party, and start thinking about what comes afterward.

Homesick Wife writes to Dear Amy,

… it’s been almost two months, and I still find myself missing my parents and siblings. I lived with them my whole life — all the way up to marriage. … my house isn’t home yet, and going from living with five other people at home to just two people is scary.

Dear Homesick Wife, Here’s what Amy was too nice to say:

You lived with Mom and Dad until the day that you were married and moved in with Hubby that day. You’ve never been on your own for one day of your life. Never had your own place. Never been responsible for keeping a roof over your own head. Hardly even been responsible to keep yourself entertained. You’ve always been kept.

If you had ever had sufficient time on your own, you would already have handled homesickness, and you’d know what to do with yourself right now. You’d be a lot more of a grown up than you sound.

And unfortunately, this is just the start. Suppose it doesn’t work out with hubby: If Mom and Dad aren’t able, or happy, to take you back, you’re going to face being alone for the first time. And that’s just the fear that keeps so many women in a bad marriage indefinitely.

As soon as children come along, any minute now, are you equipped to bring them up to be self-sufficient individuals? Right now, you wouldn’t be a good role-model.

So, now you need to start having your own life and being your own person from inside of your marriage. And that’s not easy. Counseling might be a good first step, wherever you can get it other than the Church. The Church’s version of a good girl is someone in just your position. But it’s not good for you.