Feed a Fever, Starve a Crush

 Dear Bitter Single Guy: My friend's husband has a crush on me. I work with him and stay with them both when I am in town. He calls me occasionally and I am not sure if his wife knows this. I have no romantic interest in him, and I know that his crush is not real. I know the smart thing to do is keep my distance, but my friend will pick up on this and I don't know how to explain. Do I pretend to ignore this? -- Stuck in the Middle

Dear SIM: The Bitter Single Guy understands why you are tempted to ignore this situation. Somehow we humans (is this just a Western Hemisphere thang?) have learned to just ignore things that are difficult or painful rather than dealing with them directly. This is the seeming hope that something unpleasant will just go away by itself. The BSG's mom, if the vacuum cleaner made a weird noise, used to put it back in its closet hoping it would cure itself before the next time she needed to vacuum. In his memory, this was quite an effective technique, so is the one the BSG will recommend here. (The BSG fooled you just then, didn't he?).

SIM, the BSG recommends that you quietly remove yourself from this soon-to-be-ugly triangle. If your friend's husband is clever, he'll get the hint and back the heck off. If he confronts you, make some story about allergies to their cat, or that you'll never find a local boyfriend if you don't have a place of your own or some such innocuous lie. If your friend picks up on it, you can just poo-poo the whole thing (using the same lie, hopefully), knowing that it will solve itself in time. Just put that vacuum cleaner back in the closet, SIM. The BSG and his mom both know that sometimes things just work themselves out.