By Shelly Reuben August 28, 2026

It is that time of the decade for me to retire my slightly battered address book, and replace it with a new one. Which, absolutely, positively, I will do this week.

As always, the experience is going to be heart-wrenching.

You see, I have this rule. When friends are cruel to me because (“How dare I?”) I voted for Trump, or I believe that one can’t change his/her sex, or because I support Israel, I don’t take out a black crayon and angrily obliterate their names in that small, portable, white-pages-of-my life.

I just ignore them. The same way I would if they were sneering at me from across the room at a cocktail party. And after a while, I don’t even have to do the “ignore” part anymore, because my brain has some sort of a shut-off valve, and I stop seeing their names completely. As if they had never been there.

My friend Lucia, in a moment of pique, once snapped out the words, “Denial is under-rated.” Since then, I have pondered that statement often, and come to believe it has merit. Particularly when trying to figure out the behavior of people who are unfigured-out-able.

Deny. Deny. Deny … and move on.