For reasons I just don't understand, many of my conversations today have dealt with the quandry resulting from being stuck in the middle of a dispute between two loved ones.

I like to get myself in these kinds of jams, and I've often punished myself, thinking that you usually have to do something wrong to wind up in the middle. Maybe you've over promised, let confidences slip, really tried to help or simply gathered more information than was strictly proper about something that wasn't your business.

Either way, I've categorized the stuck-in-the-middle position as one you earn by doing something nefarious. True, some folks lie their way into this unenviable, if highly exploitable position.

But at a lunch meeting today, I realized that the over-caring sort of person gets stuck here as well. I arrived at the meeting with a stomach full of guilt about an argument I was trying to defuse between two loved ones without spilling any secrets. I wasn't sure how I'd fared. Then my associate told me about the complex relationship between her boyfriend, his daughter, and the girl's mother. This woman had tried to show the girl some attention and brighten her spirits, but had managed to spark an explosive argument between the two parents.

There was once a list of things you didn't talk about: someone's spouse, how much money something cost, who had a better job, etc. But today, while the number of socially unacceptable subjects is dwindling and relationships and family structures become ever more complicated, where do we draw the line?

The only answer it seems, is that we shouldn't ask questions we don't want asked of ourselves, we shouldn't ask for information that we won't want to divulge, and we shouldn't make promises we can't keep. Good luck.