We've been together one year. He cooks and can fix anything. He’s very smart and a hard worker.

He's capable of apologizing and is very connected emotionally. We don't live together, but I split my week between my home and his.

The problem? He's what I consider a slob.

When something’s used, it sits for weeks where put down. Clothes are thrown on chairs, tools left on the porch, shoes everywhere.

Dirty Kleenex on the bathroom floor, stovetop left dirty. Teabags and dirty dishes accumulate in the sink. I could go on…

If I point something out, he’ll address it, but the next day it's as before.

I understand that he doesn't see it. He's 50-plus, has lived like this all his life.

I'm very neat and organized, so I get agitated and upset, and don't feel comfortable for the three-to-four days weekly that I’m there.

Beyond Messy

It’s not a simple problem but with patience, creativity, and willingness on both sides, there can be some progress.

Each of you has to recognize and respect that you both have a long history of behaving very differently on how you handle your surroundings, clothes, dirty dishes, etc.

However, you share his house enough that each of you must compromise.

If finances allows, hire cleaning help on the day before you generally move in. That’s a start.

Then, make cleaning up easier – more wastebaskets in places where he’d normally use Kleenex, shoe racks at the door and in his cupboards, clearly marked shelves, drawers, and hanging space for clothing.

More ideas will come to you, IF he’s receptive. And you’ll have to modify your own reaction and praise his efforts.

But don’t just pick up after him. Try to institute a half-hour joint pickup session, perhaps with a reward, e.g. a hot bath and mutual massage.

I may be losing my best friend to loneliness. It started after we all left school, plus I got married and moved 30 minutes away.

We all started noticing passive aggressive Facebook posts about alternative medicine and pseudoscience, without much rational argument.

I haven’t spent as much time with him as I should have, he was best man at my wedding. Our conversations often turned south when he made a claim, failed to back it up, and became despondent when I didn’t accept his word.

Sometimes, I laughed at his proposals, but regretted it afterwards.

He recently backed up one of his claims by outing people, including myself, on social media for smoking pot.

He believes attacking people is the appropriate response to opinions with which he disagrees. I feel he may’ve crossed a line here.

Everybody is pulling back, making his loneliness worse. How do I save my best friend from himself?

Concerned Friend

You stop disrespecting him, laughing at him, and judging him.

Instead of  putting down his ideas, listen for awhile, try to acknowledge where there’s value (even science-based physicians have regard for some alternative medicine approaches) and if necessary, agree to disagree.

If you want to remain friends, you need to save him from ridicule and putdowns. Tell the other friends to let up, too.

Also, if you saw him from time to time, you’d know if he’s truly lonely and possibly depressed. If so, help him realize he needs to get pro-active about lifting his spirits.

On the “alternative” side, exercise and healthy nutrition could benefit him, as could his finding some friends who share his interests.

Some of my friends think I don’t like fat people. Not true. I just put them in the same category as two-packs-daily smokers and severe alcoholics.

I’ve been known to make comments about overweight children by saying “It does less damage to have ten-year-olds smoke and drink than eat all that junk food you give them.”

My cousin had to have some of his five-year-old’s teeth pulled as they are rotten from junk food. But he loves the kids, he says.

I try to hold my tongue, but my look when I see them says it all.

Disgusted

Whoever hired you to change the world made a mistake – people don’t learn from smartass criticism and attitudes of superiority. They learn from information given kindly, from caring attitudes, and from modelling healthy behaviour without ramming the example down people’s throats.

All your doing is pushing people away. That’s no help at all.