◆ Ask Amy: Quiet homebody repels friendship attempts.
Dear Amy: My husband has a highly specialized career. As a result, I find myself in a subculture (spouse) of a subculture (occupation) of a subculture (company).
My husband works with "Dan," who is married to "Cate." For a while now, Cate has been reaching out to try to get together. She is an extroverted overachiever, always surrounded by scores of people, while I am a quiet homebody and tend to lean on a few very close family and friends.
A few years ago, after fertility struggles and IVF, my husband and I had a baby girl. While we were discreet about it during the process -- it is stressful enough without an audience -- we have been quite open about getting pregnant through IVF.
Cate recently asked me about our experiences with IVF. I was happy to let her know the name of our clinic and answer a few of her basic questions, while sidestepping the more personal ones.
Most of all I strongly recommended that she speak to her doctor to explore their options.
She has now asked me multiple times to have lunch with her or to meet up to "talk about it some more." If this was a more casual acquaintance, I would be fine setting a boundary and reiterate that she should talk to her doctor for more information, but the other layers of mutual friends, coworkers, and spouses complicates things.
I can't risk offending or upsetting her, but I also don't feel comfortable as an expert or confidant on her fertility journey, especially if it means sharing the personal and financial details of mine.
On top of this, my husband and I have just started trying to get pregnant again, so I am going back to the injections, monitoring, and procedures in the coming weeks.
While that is going on I really won't have any extra bandwidth for her. — Only an Acquaintance Dear Acquaintance: You will have to risk appearing shy or "standoffish" while trying to politely repel this eager person.
Tell her, very truthfully, "Everybody's experience is different, and so I can't really help you too much through this process. I hope you followed through with your doctor."
In terms of her attempts to engage you socially, you need to convey:
"Thank you for the invitations -- it is so nice of you, but I'm a bit of a homebody.
“I hope you understand." You can write Amy Dickinson at askamy@tribune.com or by mail to: Ask Amy, Chicago Tribune, TT500, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611.