ArcaMax

-- Lost in Bama

Dear Lost: This is a dangerous game. You ignored your own sense of caution, and have landed without a safety net. You should make efforts to get out.

If you are a religious person, you should join a church to meet people, and ask for help with housing. You might be able to rent a room in someone else's home in exchange for the same services you are offering this man. If you are an able and enthusiastic dog lover, once you are out of the home, you might be able to charge him (and others) for dog sitting.

Use the internet to explore other creative living options, with the same enthusiasm you used this medium to meet him. People who have seasonal homes sometimes hire house sitters to stay in their houses during the off-season. An internet search reveals several ways of connecting with house-sitting services.

I hope you will vet these opportunities more carefully than you vetted this man.

Dear Amy: A friend with whom I've occasionally traveled recently retired from a major airline. He has great travel benefits. Now that he is retired, he has time on his hands, and expects me to drop what I'm doing and take off with him, but I still work full time.

My friend is not financially well-off, while I am comfortable.

The real reason this friend is so keen to have me as a travel partner is that in the past I've paid for hotels as a way of saying "thank you" for the free or reduced-cost airfare.

Not only do I not have the time, but I don't enjoy traveling with him because he is selfish and expects me to do what he wants and not what I have an interest in.

I told him I won't be traveling with him because I prefer to travel solo, and now he isn't talking to me. This hurts -- after more than three decades of (supposed) friendship. What now?

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