Dear Abby letters turn birthdays, DNA, and fatherhood

In two Dear Abby letters, a birthday host faces backlash after inviting an extra guest, while a Wisconsin reader—after learning her biological father’s role—wonders whether to mark Father’s Day with a card or a call.

A birthday celebration that was meant to stay simple turned into a five-month rupture after one dinner invitation became a fight over boundaries.

The first letter came from a woman in California who says she planned a birthday dinner at a fine dining. special occasion restaurant. She invited her friend “Sybil. ” and around a month earlier she called to say she had also asked someone else to join them because it was also Sybil’s birthday. The host says she assumed the three of them would enjoy a night out they rarely take together.

Because she was hosting, she says she told Sybil she would pay for all of them. But Sybil, according to the letter, refused to go unless the host “uninvited” the third person. When the host would not do that. the host says she later received an email telling her to “leave me alone” after she tried—unsuccessfully—to phone and arrange an alternative date to celebrate at a less expensive restaurant. something she says she couldn’t afford to host twice.

Now. the writer asks what to do next. saying she won’t apologize for including another person at a dinner party she was hosting. but she is willing to move on. She says it took a mutual friend to explain why she got the “leave me alone” email. and she admits she didn’t consider the possibility that she could be wrong.

Abby’s response was direct. The advice begins with a suggestion that it might have been better to ask Sybil in advance if she would mind the additional guest. But Abby argues that not doing so doesn’t justify what the host describes as an excommunication. Abby says she does not think the host owes an apology. and says instead Sybil owes one for the overreaction shown by the “leave me alone” message.

The second letter shifts from birthday dinner drama to a different kind of upheaval: identity, grief, and what it means to recognize someone as a father after DNA rewrites the story.

The writer from Wisconsin says that three years ago she learned the man who raised her wasn’t her biological father. She says she suspected it for years and asked her mother twice. and that her mother angrily denied it both times. She says the man who raised her was definitely her father, and that he passed away in 1989.

In more recent years. the letter writer says she obtained her DNA profile through a cousin and reached out to her biological father in 2020. She says they met twice, and that their relationship has remained cordial. She also says she sent her biological father and his wife a Christmas card that he acknowledged with a phone call. and that she calls him around his birthday but does not send a card.

Now she’s wondering whether it would feel strange to acknowledge Father’s Day with him. She writes that her biological father wasn’t a dad to her in the way she knew her father growing up. but that “we all know he’s my father. ” including his one other daughter. The writer says she’s been letting Father’s Day pass and wants advice on whether she should send a card or instead call.

Abby responds by validating the instinct behind the question. She says she can understand why. after losing the man the writer always regarded as her father. the writer might feel drawn to have a father figure in her life. Abby’s suggested next step is practical and focused on feelings on both sides: ask the biological father how he feels about a card and a call and what he would prefer.

The Dear Abby letters leave two different tensions hanging in the air—one about how a birthday should be shared. the other about how fatherhood should be recognized. But both letters circle the same problem: when people assume they know what someone else expects. the consequences can land harder than intended.

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