Dear Abby:

I feel really, really ashamed of this... but I've just got to come clean. For the last year or so I've been avoiding someone... someone I've known forever and a day.

Now don't get me wrong. I've known her since we lived next door to each other in 7th grade and I love her to death. She's a sweet, caring, wonderful person... who just happens to have the creepiest taste in men. I mean it's worse than my taste in men often is, and that says a lot. (If you're on my friends list and think you're one of those men, you're not, okay!)

Anyway, T is on her second husband right now and I haven't known this guy all that long... only a handful of evenings spent hanging out at their house, just the three of us. What creeps me out about him isn't that he spouts off Rush Limbaugh diatribes or has really short arms, it's more than that... I don't really want to put my finger on it, but I guess I will.

Her husband completely creeps me out. He's a close-talker (likes to sit hip-to-hip when talking to me even though their couches are huge), he's always talking about which neighbors of theirs are swingers, and he's always suggesting that I should stay over at their house no matter how much/little I've had to drink and no matter that the drive home is only 40 minutes. I mean, he won't drop it... I'm on my way out the door, getting in my car even, and he's still saying: "We've got plenty of room here, really."

There's also the topic of his favorite party trick: the human heart beat.

Every time I'd hang out with them, he'd bring this up and how he loves to find some unsuspecting person at one of their neighborhood parties and surprise the poor bastard. Why is this creepy, you ask? Because this "trick" consists of him asking if you've ever seen "a human heart beat" and when the uninformed victim inevitably says "no," my friend's husband proceeds to drop trou and do something with his ballsack that makes it simulate a pulsing heart.

My first thought is: "Sweet Jesus, WHY?"

My second thought is: "What kind of delusional megalomaniac would think that anyone (much less a whole room of party goers) would want to see this dude's groceries?"

I've not witnessed this sight, thankfully. I was warned in advance by my friend that her husband liked to do this thing, then got all the gory details as he proceeded to recount the glory of his pulsing nuts.

After a couple of times of this coming up too eagerly in conversation, however, I became afraid that if I were to go back to their house that I might finally fall prey to this trap. Like he'd be hiding around every corner of their house, balls to the wind, waiting to pounce. And forget about me ever sleeping there! No way. I just know that I'd wake in the middle of the night to a pulsing sensation against my cheek.

The last time that I hung out with them, I requested a public place (a mall) and felt slightly more assured that he wouldn't risk it there. I even tried to get it to be a "girls day out" kind of thing, but the nut pusher came along anyhow. Apparently, he just doesn't let her leave his sight. And since then, my friend has emailed me several times, inviting me back to their place for various parties and festivities and I've always had an excuse. Recently, I've gotten so tired of giving excuses that I haven't even answered her last couple of emails at all. It's terrible, I know. But I haven't the energy to fend off the offers anymore.

The question that remains, given that I'm truly a shy and introverted person, is how do I tell my friend of 23 years that her hubby is too creepy for me to ever want to come around again? Do I just let her ask me why I won't come out and then reply, "Your husband's nuts," and let her figure out the double meaning or what?

Signed,
Allergic to Nuts