Polly,

I'm a new reader and dig your crazy no-bullshit advice. But I'm writing not so much for advice, but to throw down the gauntlet. My understanding is that always ends well.

The subject is me cheating on my wife. I'm sick of feeling guilty about wanting to, and rationally I'm having a hard time figuring out why I shouldn't because I think it may actually help our marriage and improve the chances of us providing a happy home for our children. Clearly a convenient conclusion but one I've done a lot of thinking about.

Here are the supporting facts:

1. My wife is no longer interested in sex. She is too busy and tired from stressing over the kids and delivering our little royals to their next playdate to generate biological feelings for me. Before the children were born we had a "zestful" sexual relationship but no longer.

2. It is said men in general have a much higher sex drive. I am a man and find this to be a considerably large understatement, along the lines of saying Transformers might be a shitty movie.

3. I find my wife sexy; I also find other women sexy. Some of these women will have sex with me and we will enjoy it.

4. Having sex with other women will relieve much of the emotional resentment I have against my wife for her sexual indifference (even though I empathize with her), and we will have a better emotional relationship as a lack of sex will no longer be a source of conflict.

5. I will feel physically better if I have sex with other women because I will be released from the buzzing, thrumming miasma of lust that plagues me every moment during a sexless week. Believe me, most men are familiar with these feelings.

6. My wife is an outstanding mother, and otherwise a good wife and best friend.

7. I believe my children will be happier raised in a home with a caring mother and father present.

8. My wife and I have spoken about my inescapable need for physical affection; we have tried methods to rekindle her physical passions, but to no avail.

9. Deep down I believe she would tolerate my affairs as long as I was safe, respectful, discreet, and continued to be a good father and husband. I think she would prefer that approach over a frank discussion about open marriage, which would hurt and offend her with its brazenness. I would rather carry the burden of culpability than dispel her sense of our family.

10. Affairs with other women will not change my love for her.

Finally—and this is more of an observation—if gay men can maintain their marriages while entertaining outside engagements, isn't it biased and unrealistic to punish their heterosexual peers for addressing the same urges?

My challenge to you is to make a compelling case why, on balance, I should not pursue outside affairs in the interests of my family's longevity and happiness, provided the facts above. I don't think you can.

Sincerely,

Cheating Gauntlet Man

Dear CGM,

Cheating is called cheating for a reason. The issue on the table is honesty, not sex. If the lack of sex in your relationship poses a serious threat to your marriage, you should sit down with your wife and tell her that. You should ask to see a couples' therapist together. You should say that you need her to commit to some concrete plan for changing things between you, whether that means letting someone watch the kids one afternoon and one evening per week so you can have time together, or deciding on a minimum fooling-around schedule, or reading a book about sex therapy and then talking about it, or some combination of those things. Tell her that you need to know that things are going to change, because your frustration and powerlessness in this area is affecting your outlook on your life and your marriage.

Here's what you shouldn't do: Assume that your wife would be fine with you discretely running around town, fucking other women, or that she'd prefer that scenario to discussing this openly. Because I can personally fucking guarantee you, your wife would rather talk about it. She is not remotely ok with you fucking around. You've been watching too much "Mad Men." Making a rousing argument for fucking other women on the sneak is a pretty elaborate way to justify something that's unjustifiable. It's a brave-looking way of being a total chickenshit.

Fucking other people when your wife thinks that you two are monogamous is dishonest, hurtful and beyond insulting. It's the kind of thing that many people never, ever get over. It's the kind of thing that will lead to you, alone, in a one-bedroom apartment, while your sexy, wonderful wife remarries someone handsome and loyal and honest who makes his desires known instead of hiding behind logic and lists.

Married gay people who fuck around on the side tend to have conversations about it first. The difference between discussing it openly and honestly and just sneaking around behind someone's back is enormous. Having an open marriage and cheating are two entirely fucking different things. The former is a choice. The latter is a crime that's willfully committed against the other person. When you cheat on someone, you betray their trust, you rip apart their love for you, you embarrass the fuck out of them, you depress them (in this case, at a time when she has little people who depend on her and she can't really afford to be depressed beyond belief), and you permanently alter their ability to respect you. Do you know how bad that feels, loving and believing in someone more than anyone else, and then having your love injured irreparably?

It's unspeakably arrogant to assume that your wife will never find out so you don't have to examine any of these very real consequences. How often do you think random women who fuck married men end up telling the wives about the affairs? How often do you think wives find out by other means? All the fucking time.

To me, what really works about marriage is the feeling that you have someone on your side, who would never do anything to hurt you. When that person betrays you, it's hard to get that feeling back. And in the company of children, believing in your partner is unquestionably crucial, and intoxicating, really. You know that you're supported and cared for. Having that support and trust and care ripped from you, when there are little kids in the picture, could make someone feel more vulnerable and heartsick than you can possibly imagine.

I know you think I'm being dramatic. I am not fucking being dramatic.

Now, to be fair, I think that for heterosexual men, what really works about marriage is the feeling that you have a woman on your side, who loves you and loves your kids, and who is also very attracted to you. When that person rejects you, over and over again, it's hard to get that feeling of well-being back. Believing in your marriage and having regular sex with your wife is also unquestionably crucial, and intoxicating, really. Having that support and attention ripped from you, when there are little kids in the picture, could make a man feel more vulnerable and heartsick than his wife can possibly imagine.

If that feels accurate to you, then my guess is that you don't really want to fuck random women as much as you think you do. What you really want is to feel desired and adored by your wife, whom you love very much. You feel invisible. You feel like she doesn't want or even love you anymore.

Your challenge in this situation is to show up and make yourself vulnerable, not to disappear and force her into an inherently vulnerable position. Your challenge is to resist the urge to avenge your wife's lack of desire (by fucking other women). Even though you've gone to elaborate lengths to make this form of punishment appear harmless and logical, at some level, this is about you feeling hurt and neglected and powerless to change it.

When you feel hurt and vulnerable and you're willing to talk openly about it? That's an opportunity for your marriage to grow into something more beautiful than it was before. You already have a decent marriage. Don't run away and protect yourself and lie and hide and fuck yourself and your kids over in the process. That may be the easy way out in the short term. In the long term, though, you'll drop a bomb in the middle of your life, and you won't be able to pick up the pieces once it goes off.

Honesty. That's all you need. You need to go to your wife and be very honest about your sexual needs. If she waves you off, and doesn’t listen, don't accept that. Make her understand that this is a gigantic thing in your life, and your marriage is at stake.

Now, I have to admit, I'm sort of wondering how involved you are with your little royals. You talk about your wife ushering them hither and thither, but not you. And you seem to assume that you'll have plenty of free time to wander off and fuck other women. Does your wife have that kind of free time? If she wanted to have an affair, could she conceivably free up her schedule to fuck someone on the sly? I'm guessing that she's running around in circles, picking little fucking shoes up off the floor, or waking up in the middle of the night with a sick kid, or doing another fucking load of laundry because you forgot. While you imagine fucking other women, what is your wife doing? Loading the dishwasher? Sleeping, because she never fucking gets enough sleep and she feels exhausted all the time because she never has a second to herself?

If so, I would suggest that you get to know your little royals a little better. Tell your wife that you're going to take Saturdays from 10 to 4, and she can do whatever she wants. Her interest in sucking your cock may experience an uptick under such circumstances.

But if your kids are very little and your wife is very, very busy with them in ways that you could be, too, if you got off your smug ass and made it so, yet you sit back and watch her rushing around in circles and you still expect her to keep everything running AND fuck you every night once the kids are tucked away? You really should divorce your wife and hire a housekeeper, a nanny and a live-in sex worker instead. Because that's the level of service you seem to require.

I suggest you spend more time with your kids, and also more time thinking about what's best for them, so the burden of stress doesn't always rest on your wife. Find out how you can do more around the house so your wife is less sick of seeing your fat face, begging for a tuggy. Meditate. Exercise more often to burn off all of that free-floating lust. What ever happened to good old-fashioned jacking off, anyway? Christ almighty. But more than anything else, learn to speak honestly to your wife. Explain to her what your minimum needs are, and (IMPORTANT!) ask her what her minimum needs are, in order to feel happy. Explain that you really feel like your marriage will suffer horribly if you don't have more sex, and (IMPORTANT!) ask her if you can't watch the kids more or take over the dishes every night so she can read a book. Say, "I'll put the kids down, then we make out right after that, then I'll do all the dishes while you go to sleep." Believe me that there are ways to entice her.

Obviously you need to adjust your expectations a little about how much sex you can have, and she needs to adjust her expectations that sex can only happen when she's totally in the mood. Sometimes, you get in the mood by going for it, plain and simple. Sometimes you get in the mood by saying "Well, it's Friday at 3 p.m. and we're home alone. It's now or fucking never." Sometimes you get in the mood by watching your husband usher the royals to a play date while you flip through a magazine for once in your sorry life. I know, it's all so fucking romantic. The faster you both accept that having a family sometimes means not fucking like rabbits whenever the mood strikes, the faster you're going to wake up to a new paradigm that isn't as compromised and flat as it sounds, it's just different. The sex is actually just as good. We were built for it. Everyone gets worked up over how it should start, how it should unfold, how spontaneous it should be, how much it should resemble a scene out of Top Gun, all blowing curtains and plinky soft rock. Sex itself is pretty excellent with or without the candles and the plinky plonk.

Now, I would address the idea of an open marriage, but I think you need to completely redesign your marriage to accommodate your wife's and your needs before you think about that option. And anyway, open marriage means both of you can have sex with other people. It doesn't mean that you can but she can't. (I've heard of this arrangement, and sorry, but it's sexist and idiotic.) That path is pretty perilous, particularly with kids in the picture. Maybe they can swing it in France. I don't doubt it. If I had access to lots of red wine and stinky cheese and smoking hot Parisian men, I might pry open my sad little heteronormative mind to just about anything.

But you haven't really worked on your sex life in earnest yet. It's understandable that this is not your wife's top priority, but if you're really contemplating cheating as much as you seem to be, then you'll be doing her a big favor by making the bleakness of your current outlook very, very clear to her. She needs to stop waiting for magic to happen, and start making a concrete effort to meet you halfway. You need to meet her halfway, too. If I were the one charged with handling the lion's share of the kid-related shit, I don't think I could look my husband in the eye without sneering, let alone fuck him.

Again, this is not "Mad Men." Right now, you are keeping a big part of who you are hidden. As long as you're lying, you can't have a good marriage. More lying won't fix that.

Polly

Dear Polly,

My boyfriend told me last night he wants me to sleep with other men. He says if I am willing to be in an open relationship, then he wants to "make it work." If I am unwilling to consent, then we're going to break up. These are my options, and I don't know what to do. The decision we're going to make needs to happen quickly, so I hope you can offer your advice soon.

Some background: I am 28; he is 21 (if you are shaking your head already, I don't blame you). We've been together for just under two years. We met over Pride Weekend 2011, the day after New York State legalized gay marriage, a heady time. I had recently ended a two-and-a-half year relationship with a man who was 15 years my senior, and I was doing typical newly-single things: fooling around with a bunch of guys, going out all the time, spending all the money. I met this handsome, charming 19-year-old and thought he would be my summer fling, but ended up developing strong feelings for him. Later that summer, he went back to college upstate, and I became his long-distance boyfriend. We've been together in a monogamous relationship ever since, which has required a lot of sacrifice on my part, specifically traveling to see him at school and also visiting him twice when he spent a semester overseas. This is our second summer living together, and I have never loved anyone more in my life.

I am surprised by this development, but I can't say it's coming out of nowhere. There have been some issues in the past with him keeping secrets (exchanging nude photos with guys online, being on Grindr when he lived overseas) and me finding out via snooping (I'm the worst), but never any cheating. I feel like we've moved past these trust issues, and I'm deeply grateful that he had the courage to tell me this rather than sleeping around behind my back.

We discussed too many things to reprint here, but the main issue seems to be that he feels like something is missing from our (very active) sex life, that it's not as exciting as it used to be. He does not want to rip off my clothes and throw me on the bed every time he sees me, as he once did. He finds me attractive but is not actively attracted to me in the same way he used to be. That sounds like fairly standard long-term relationship stuff to me, but since this is his first one, he is apparently freaked out by it. Worse, he often feels like it is difficult to get into the mood to have sex with me. I feel terrible that he has been regularly consenting to sex that he wasn't 100% into. He doesn't want to switch things up in the bedroom, either; he just wants causal sex with randos, but he doesn't want to date them.

For my part, I am very happy with our sex life and have never had better sexual chemistry with someone, so it saddens me to learn that the feeling is not mutual. I should note here that my previous relationship was highly dysfunctional and my then-boyfriend had zero sex drive, meaning sometimes six months or more would go by without any action. This led me to secretly cheat outside of the relationship until it ended. All of which is to say I understand how bad it feels when you're with someone you love and the sexy times are not all that you want them to be.

My boyfriend says he loves me, I am his best friend, he wants to be with me forever, and the thought of breaking up is both unfathomable and sickening. I agree with him on all these points, but he also seems not very into the idea of having sex with me! It's hard to know why he wants to continue if that's the case. Is he just too afraid to break up with me?

I have a pretty common problem: I don't want to lose the man I love and my best friend, but I am also extremely against the idea of an open relationship. It makes me feel kinda old-timey, but I appreciate the stability and comfort that comes with boning the same person forever. I am not ruling out the possibility that I could be happy in an open relationship, but it would be extremely difficult for me to endure, I think. The thought of him having sexual experiences without me is really troubling, but he says he is completely comfortable with me sleeping with other men (which, to be honest, is something I don't have a strong desire for). Sure, there are guys I would sleep with, but it's not something I need to do to be happy and feel satisfied.

I love him, so is it worth giving an open relationship a shot and then calling it quits if it fails? Or is it better to end things while they're good and let him explore the world and figure things out? It seems like those are the only choices I have, and no one likes having an ultimatum. As you can tell, I don't have a very positive outlook on the open relationship scenario. I will say that I am willing to introduce other people into our sex life so that it remains a shared experience. He seems open to the idea, but I can't tell if that's naive or wishful thinking on my part.

Given his age, I'm not surprised that he wants a little more sexual experience. I tried to be diligent about making sure that he really wanted to be in a monogamous relationship so early in his life, and I do believe he really did at the time, but I get that these things can change. I wish he could just take a year or two and get all his fucking done and then commit to me, but I know that's completely unrealistic. I think he's being a bit dramatic in saying this, but he currently feels that if he is struggling with monogamy in a relationship with the person he loves the most, then monogamy will never be "viable" for him.

Right now I'm angry and hurt, focused on the sacrifices I've made. I've spent a lot of money to make this relationship work, what with the constant travel, and I've also called on friends to help him get summer jobs. That's just me being petty and defensive—those are normal things to do for those we love. My point is I'm aware that I'm upset, and I don't want to react out of anger. I want to take my time and figure this out the right way. I can't believe he is willing to risk losing me entirely in exchange for the freedom to sleep with other men. I can't believe that the first boyfriend who I felt comfortable enough to introduce to my family is doing this to me. I think he is scared, confused, and overwhelmed. I feel the same way. Neither of us knows how to proceed.

What should I do?

Sincerely,

Life Is Garbage

Dear LIG,

Your boyfriend was 19 when you met him. He wants to have some experiences, not just be hidden away with you forever. He knows that in ten years, he'll regret not going out into the world and sowing his wild, wild oats.

I would let him go. You've stated in 15 different ways that you don't want an open relationship. Obviously you could try it out, but my hunch is that you'll only end up traumatized by it.

You say you've given up a lot, spent a lot of money. No one has given up more than a 19-year-old guy whose been in the same long distance relationship for two years of college. He's being honest with you. I understand your anger and disappointment, but you have to take a step back and look at this a little more clinically. You say you can't believe that the ONE person who you love like crazy is doing this. Dude, you knew he was 19 when you met him. You can pretend that you were tricked, or cheated, or bait-and-switched, but that's not remotely what happened, and in your clear moments you can obviously see that.

Yes, you're hurting. And you'll miss him. But he needs to get out and do his thing. He's just too young for this, that's all. Of course he has unrealistic expectations of relationships. He won't figure out how it works until he gets more experience. I know married people who are still confused about this, simply because they've been married to the same person since they were teenagers.

In my personal experience, it doesn't take all that long for a lifestyle of slutting around to sour on you. Now obviously gay men have redesigned and perfected that lifestyle in a way that makes it much less sour. And it's also less rife with unwanted sexist implications than it is among heterosexual randos. (GodDAMN I love that word, "randos." I wish I had more day-to-day use for it.) But I can easily see your boyfriend coming back to you eventually. Maybe that's unrealistic, and certainly you can't focus on it. But I can see it.

I guess you could try the open thing if you really didn't want to see him go. I don't know. I feel like your emotions will get in the way. And if every time he comes home from a night of hot sex, you're right there weeping into your hands, that's going to doom the relationship forever. At least if you give it a clean break, there's some chance that he'll get his fill and return. And you'll survive with your dignity intact.

Does anyone who's in a functioning open relationship want to weigh in on that? From what you wrote in your letter, though, I think an open relationship would be emotional hara-kiri. It just doesn't sound like it will suit you.

And maybe it's worth saying this: You love him a lot, but you will fall in love again, probably sooner than you expect. You might not want that now. But you never know what you'll find out there. You could stumble on a love that puts this one to shame.

Let him go. You'll be fine—great, in fact. Just let him go, with your blessing. Even if he gets teary and wants to come back, I would insist that he take some time away. He needs to feel what it's like to be alone. That will do good things for him, and for you. It sucks, but it's not the end of the world. This will suck at first, and you'll be heartbroken. But then it'll get much, much better. Keep the faith.

Polly

Are you anxious to find the cure to your vague dissatisfaction with everything? Write to Polly for some vaguely dissatisfying guidance!

Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl's existential advice columnist. She's also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses."The Cheat" photographed by Joseph Bremson. Sea of hot men photographed by "Albert."

The post Ask Polly: Give Me One Reason Why I Shouldn't Cheat On My Wife appeared first on The Awl.

Dear Polly,

I’m a woman who will soon be 30. I am terrified of watching my physical beauty deteriorate over the next decade.

I’m conventionally attractive. I don’t believe that being pretty translates to any tangible social power, but I do get positive attention from people, which I enjoy. I love being gazed at. I don’t mean street harassment or anything like that, but the way that people (of all genders) get these dreamy, enraptured looks on their faces when they see me. I think beauty has some magical quality to it, and it makes me feel alive. When I look at myself, too, I sometimes get the same sensation as when I behold an emotionally stirring work of art—shimmering, crackling, breathless. There truly is nothing like a beautiful face.

And so, the prospect of losing this—and I know I will lose it, everyone does—fills me with such crushing dread. I take care of myself as best I can in terms of a healthy lifestyle and sunscreen, but I know that every day that goes by, I am aging, and ultimately powerless to stop it. (I don’t have much faith in the ability of cosmetic procedures to keep my face looking exactly the way it does now, so that “option” is of little comfort). It’s like I’ve been given this precious gift with the stipulation that it will be yanked away from me before my life is even halfway over. I don’t know how to cope with this. I have these horrible moments now in which I see older women around me and feel a visceral sense of disgust and pity—obviously a projection of my own fears.

The prospect of looking older is sometimes so intolerable that I sometimes plan ways to commit suicide in the future. Because I realize this sounds/is crazy, I looked into a treatment program for Body Dysmorphic Disorder. I was told, however, that I don’t qualify because I don’t currently hate my appearance. I started seeing a therapist and a psychiatrist, but neither diagnosed me with anything, they essentially said that “most women have these concerns” and I’ll probably “age well anyway.” The psychiatrist offered to prescribe a sleeping pill if the thoughts kept me awake at night. The therapist suggested that I read feminist literature. My mother told me I must have things pretty good if I can spend so much time fixating on my future face.

Do you have any advice?

Dorian

Dear Dorian,

I wish you'd attached a photograph, so I could gaze upon the emotionally stirring work of art that is your head. I don't know how else to conjure the emotion that's required of me at this moment. What are you going to lose, exactly, when you get older? Even when I picture you as Giselle, I remain unmoved. The enraptured gazes, the crackling, shimmering whatever… It's so hard to imagine. It makes me tired just thinking about it.

You say there's truly nothing like a beautiful face. That statement makes me imagine a giant plate of delicious nachos, a good book, and a cold beer. It makes me think about dogs with weird personalities, and funny children. It makes me think about the sound of rain on the roof when you're taking a nap in the afternoon. Pretty faces can go fuck themselves, compared to peanut butter cups.

If none of that makes sense to you, then let me just say this: Your priorities are going to change drastically. Even if you keep living in this bizarre airless room where you gaze at yourself all day like the evil queen in Snow White (there's a reason they make fairy tales with big, important lessons about vanity), you're still going to mature over the next decade and find that all of this pretty face bullshit just doesn't have the weight that it once did, not even to you.

In the meantime, though, you really need to find something else to occupy your mind. You don't sound stupid, but you do sound extremely bored, and very depressed. The world is so much more engaging and incredible than you're making it seem. What's kept you in this two-dimensional realm of the mirror? Who trapped you there? What's at stake? Are you lonely? Do you feel like you're running out of time to find love? There's something else to this picture that you're not addressing, and without knowing more I can't tell you that much. You should definitely find a therapist who's interested in delving into this question with you, who seems determined to dig through all of the dimensions of what your experiencing.

Mostly, I have to tell you that time doesn't run out as fast as you think. Most women I know looked like they were 29 for about a decade, honestly. And yes, things change in your 40s, but mostly, if you're living right, you just want more time to do stuff. Even when you start to have to make adjustments to the tired-looking woman in the mirror, you find ways to love that person, too. The hideous old face you imagine now isn't yours. The face that is yours might disappoint you sometimes, but it won't be as devastating as you think.

You need to listen to that Alanis Morissette album, the one where she thanks India and proclaims that she'll be good even if she gains ten pounds. Alanis is just the ticket for you right now. She'll make you see how poisonous your superiority complex is. You may hate the old, ugly person you think you'll become because you're not sure what else you have to offer, besides your face. You should dedicate yourself to becoming someone whom you'll feel proud of, without or without the shimmering and the crackling. Haven't you ever met anyone who wasn't conventionally attractive, but who was incredibly charismatic and enviable? If not, you really need to get out more. Instead of gazing at your own heart-stopping face, you should throw out your mirror and dedicate yourself to something that feeds your soul and makes you feel even more alive than, I don't know, admiring your own image? It's a bad habit. And apparently it makes you feel powerless, because you're getting off on something you feel you're about to lose.

Here's the truth, and you're just going to have to trust me on this: You're not nearly as old or as beautiful as you think you are. And even if you are the most ravishing woman alive, I'd advise you to imagine, instead, that you are very young and very plain. Then walk out into the world, and be a regular person among the other regular people, with your whole life ahead of you. You'll be surprised at how good that feels.

You pity the old ladies. What you don't know is that they pity you even more. They know what a burden you're carrying around, and they know how bad it makes you feel, to think of losing this thing that's actually a crutch that keeps you from maturing and connecting with the real world.

I know you're just being honest. I don't want to give you shit for that. I just think you need to get a bad haircut and eat a big piece of cherry pie and join the rest of us. When you do, you'll see the truth at last: Life is beautiful. Pretty faces are a dime a dozen.

Polly

Dear Polly,

I'm in my early 40s; an aspiring writer and graphic designer; have been in a relationship for over ten years with my 'fiance'; desperately desiring a child and feeling like I've run out of time.

I put the word fiance in quotes because we've been affianced for almost ten years now, with no prospect of actually getting married because he's been there twice and is 'done with that shit.' I've been married once before too, and while I respect his decision, I kind of feel unhappy that it's his decision and not ours.

I've waited all this time for him to come around to having a child with me, but he's always put it off (he already has one [with a previous partner] and he's not ready for that responsibility again; one of us was in the middle of jobs; we were renting; we owned a place of our own but it was an apartment, not a house), and now it feels like my biological clock struck midnight a long time ago and neither of us noticed. Because now he says he's ready to think of having another kid. Yet many times these past years, whenever I've brought up my wanting a baby, he's pointed at my cat and my parrot and made Old Crazy Cat Lady jokes. I never found them funny.

I left my steady job last year to go back to graduate school—I'm pursuing a degree in graphic design. We talked about this before I made the move because it was a drastic career change for me (I was middle manager in a major retail chain); he had promised to support me/us while I did this. It seemed only fair to me since he had quit his job four years ago while he tried to 'find' himself. During those two years, I bore the brunt of our household expenses, insurance, etc. (The little savings income he had went to child support.) Even after two years of soul searching, it doesn't look like he has any idea of what his driving passion is. I, however, know what I want to do, finally, and wanted to go for it. We moved to a cheaper city near my university last year. He had told me he had interviews lined up; when we got here, I found out two of those interviews were for part time jobs (and things he was vastly overqualified for) because, 'I figured I'd need some time to get used to corporate slavery again, babe.' In the meantime, our bills weren't getting paid. So I begged and pleaded with my old boss to let me back as a part-time remote worker to supplement what he was making. I had to give away my bird because she had a fungal condition and I couldn't afford the vet anymore. And this means that on top of being a graduate student, I'm working practically full-time because I constantly take on freelance gigs.

He's extremely handsome and well-built. Women swarm him wherever we go (he used to be offered modeling gigs when we were younger). I'm kind of average-looking-okay, and I have put on some weight in the past years. Also I was a blonde when we met, but I've gone back to my natural deep brown hair now. Which means he frequently makes —even in public—jokes about me pulling a 'switcheroo.'

He has no faith in my creative aspirations. I try to remind myself that he uprooted and moved to a new place for me. Which is totally a big deal. However, he keeps harping on the fact that he did this (which diminishes the sacrifice, am I wrong in thinking this?); but also he will make disparaging remarks about my projects and compare my achievements with others ("so-and-so won this award, how come you didn't? aren't you good enough?").

I know I've made him sound like a nightmare. But we have many sweet moments too. My last birthday he organized a surprise trip to Peru as I've always wanted to visit there (my favorite grandmother came from Lima). And I have to admit we have the best sex ever. Really. And after all this time we're both super attracted to each other. There's no denying that.

My friends and family almost universally hate him. One of my sisters cancelled her Christmas trip to see our parents at the last minute because she found out he was going too (he usually doesn't attend any family events). Two of my closest grad school friends are constantly pressuring me to leave. So much so that I've distanced myself from both. I love them dearly and I understand they want what's good for me, but it also feels patronizing that they're professing to know better than I do what's the right thing for me. I feel the same way about my sisters.

This is the longest relationship I've ever had. I feel like he's a good person, but maybe not good for me at this point in my life. But at the same time, maybe that moment, where our lives click together is just around the corner. I've invested so much here, given up so much of what I wanted to be with him, that I can't help but wait for that mutual moment to arrive.

Am I being impatient? Am I being wrongheaded? What can I do?

Maybe Knows What to Do But Not How to Do It

Dear MKWTDBNHTDI,

All these years together, waiting to get married and have a baby, and now he wants to have a kid and you're wondering if you should break up?

Your friends and sisters are constantly pressuring you to leave your husband? You know that's because you spend most of your time together telling them he's a total nightmare, right? And when they agree with you, and support you in your efforts to move on, you distance yourself from them?

You are an equal partner in the crazy life you've created. You've kept your husband around so that you will always have a scapegoat. (You work your ass off! You had to give your bird away! You just can't stop having great sex!) It really sounds to me like you're actively choosing to be locked into a long-term jail with this guy, and when other people try to help you out of that jail, you give them the heave-ho.

Are you asking if you should break up with him? Here's my answer: If he doesn't support your dreams, belittles you, and makes you pay for everything, then yes, you should break up with him.

Because I don't think this picture improves magically. It just gets worse and worse. But when you finally do break up with him, try to make sure that you haven't alienated every last friend you've ever had, because you're really going to need them to help you pull through this major addiction you have to a very good-looking, very condescending, very lazy man's contempt.

Polly

Do you have a long history of broken friendships? Do you want to know why? Write to Polly and she'll venture a haphazard guess or two!

Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl's existential advice columnist. She's also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses. Photo by Dan Cook. Cat photo by "Heather."

The post Ask Polly: I'm Almost 30 And I'm Terrified Of Losing My Looks appeared first on The Awl.

Dear Polly,

Is it possible for someone to have commitmentphobia while simultaneously professing enthusiasm for commitment—all while not doing much about commitment, either way?

Let me explain. For the past year and a half I've been dating a man in his early 40s. I am in my mid-30s. Most of our friends are married, cohabitating, have kids, have houses. You know the drill. I have never pushed on these issues, mostly because I don't feel the need: I have a career I like, friends and family and hobbies I love, a nice place to live, the ability to pay my own bills. My life is full and rich, and this great, smart, caring guy I began dating, after a year-long period of close friendship, simply made it fuller and richer. I'm not against marriage or kids or any of that, but it's never been my top objective. I'm sure this dynamic evolved, in part, because in the past I've dated younger guys who were even less interested in any sort of settling-down than I was.

Now, from fairly early on, we decided to date exclusively and my current fellow seemed to have 'future' on his mind. He emailed me real estate listings for houses. He talked about wanting to be a dad and coach Little League. He will say things like "I can't wait until we can buy a place in [quaint nearby town]." He jokes about how we'll have to develop a finding aid when we combine our respective book and record collections. And you know what? Instead of being nervous or put off by this, I found it exciting! Turns out, planning for a joint future feels doable when you are with someone who seems invested in it, and who is a good person, and who has an excellent book and record collection. "This sounds great," I told him. "I'm in." And I meant it.

The thing is, I'm starting to think that what he enjoys is the fantasy of commitment—the ideaof a cute house in [quaint nearby town], me bringing in greens from the garden, the kid suiting up for Little League—not the reality of making it happen. I've tried to have conversations about, say, moving in together, and a panicky look crosses his face. I can practically smell his stress levels rise. We drop the conversation and let it go. Lately if I bring up stuff like that he says he's sick of talking about it. I get it, commitment is scary, but if it is so scary, why the house listings? Why give me a gardening book as a present, when I live in a Manhattan condo? It's sort of the relationship equivalent of someone who watches the Olympics religiously but cannot bring himself to go to the gym.

We've talked about this, and he tells me that he struggles with indecisiveness and is prone to sticking with the status quo until an external force makes him change. But we're at a point in our lives where our living situations and future plans are self-driven. We have no roommates to leave us in the lurch, no graduations to launch us into a new job market in another town. Some of my girlfriends have told me to "put my foot down" and "give him an ultimatum," but that is SO not my bag. Really, I just want to know where I stand, and I don't want to end up looking like a fool by mistaking his future-talk-mirages for something solid. If he wants to keep it casual but spice things up with unattainable domestic fantasies, I guess that's OK, right? So Polly, is this a case of commitmentphobia trying to pose as something else? Is he being selfish, or am I? Also, is this give-your-partner-an-ultimatum thing really a thing? According to my girlfriends it is, which horrifies me—then again, they teased me when I found out that Spanx are a thing and I found those horrifying, too. Maybe I am just clueless, in general?

Sincerely,

Single, Spanxless and Confused

Dear SSC,

Everyone hates ultimatums. It's demeaning to give one, and it's obnoxious to receive one. It's like giving someone Spanx as a gift. But you know what? Just as some women feel better when they wear Spanx, some men will not get off their asses without an ultimatum. And by "Get off their asses," I do not necessarily mean "Run out a buy a diamond ring." In most cases, it's more like "Stop bullshitting their girlfriend and make it clear that they are definitely not going to be gardening-and-Little-League material for at least another decade."

So that makes giving ultimatums even worse, because you're likely to get bad news. If there's one thing I've learned over the course of several long-term relationships, and witnessed among friends, it's this: Men who get very nervous and evasive and refuse to talk about commitment after a year or so usually (7 times out of 8?) don't commit. You say that you don't really care about marriage and kids, that everything is great. If that's the case, then why even write me a letter? Relax and enjoy yourself. If you don't need the goddamn Spanx, why denigrate those who feel they do?

But if you're thinking that marriage and kids might move up your priority list, if you imagine yourself in the same situation two years from now and that doesn't seem all that great, then I'd address the issue right now.

When I was 34 years old, I started to notice that my live-in boyfriend of two years, who loved to talk about how awesome our domestic life was, always talked about marriage and kids like they existed in some distant future, when he was much, much older and had a great career. In the meantime, we should just relax, pack another bong hit, and watch "24."

Life with this man was pretty enjoyable. He was a happy, talkative ray of sunshine. But I was sure I wanted to have kids, so I told him we needed to get serious or I should move on without him. He said he couldn’t decide, so we went to couples' therapy. Even in couples' therapy, it was hard to get any information. (If there's just one thing you want to know and your guy won't say that one thing? You've got your answer already.)

So finally I said, "I'm going to give this three more months." He agreed. One night two months later, he told me how, on a recent visit to New York, he'd told all his friends that I was disappointed that I didn't get an engagement ring for my birthday. I'd never said that. (Who gets engaged on their birthday?) But he'd added together my deadline with his habit of buying crappy last-minute birthday gifts at the local drugstore, and came up with that assessment.

See how pathetic my ultimatum looked then? Demeaning. Just terrible. I felt like a disgusting sea slug, crawling around 50 leagues under the seas on which his delightful little stoner sailboat glided peacefully along.

So I broke up with him. Three months later, I met my husband, who is pretty and kind and has a great career where the bong should go. In fact, he's downstairs right now rubbing sunscreen on two little girls while I sit here tapping out highly subjective drivel. He probably should've found some sunshiney cookie-baking pin-up girl, but instead he got me. His loss is my gain, motherfuckers!

Nine years later, my ex is 42 years old, he's never seriously dated anyone, and he's humming "Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand!" while spanking it down to Sports Illustrated's latest discovery.

I know I've probably told my twisted, dark heteronormative fairy tale many times before. The real lesson here is that my exboyfriend would've upheld the status quo forever. He liked me enough, he just didn't want to commit. He looked at me and he thought about all of the sunshiney cookie-baking pin-up girls out there he could marry instead. I knew that all along. I knew I'd rather be alone than stay with someone who was ambivalent about me.

I understand that your life is good, you're undecided about marriage and kids, and it's silly and beneath you to deliver an ultimatum. But you must ask yourself if you'll be happy with the status quo in a year or two. You really do need to figure out whether you want kids or not. Don't walk away from that question just because it fucks with your current life and makes you feel like a walking cliche. If you decide you'll absolutely be happy without these things? That's fantastic. Now you can sleep better at night.

But if you know deep down what you want, and you just don't want to be the sad, lame woman who wants those things? If most of all, you don't want to play the part of the woman who has the gall to ask for marriage and kids (instead of getting them, magically, from a charming prince)? Well, that's not going to serve you very well.

Some people will tell you to follow The Rules, pretend not to care, stay busy, act happy, pretend you're nonchalant about the whole goddamn thing. I can understand this approach for the first few months, but after a year, you need to know if you're with someone who can tolerate a serious conversation about what you both want from life. Pretending that you don't need that and you can hang with some weird, juvenile fantasy that romantic entanglements should always be shrouded in mystery? That path lies to ruin, in my opinion.

It's not creepy to talk about what you want from your life, no matter how much other people want to make you believe that. Don't ever design your life around the need NOT to be That Woman. Because our culture makes every fucking one of us into That Woman. We are That Woman when we refuse to take whatever is dished out at work, without complaint. We are That Woman when we cry at some moment deemed inappropriate by someone without a fucking soul who's incapable of feeling human emotions in the first place. We are That Woman when we live alone and we adopt a cat, because we fucking like cats. We are That Woman whenever we dare to behave like regular human beings.

Most of the good things in my life came out of being That Woman.

Decide what you want, and then own it without shame. Knowing what you want, even if you might never get it, doesn't make you a loser. Owning what you want, and sticking your neck out for it: That's what separates happy people from unhappy people. Standing up for your dreams and politely declining to "be cool" and "hang" and play along with the status quo? These actions are crucial. They shape your whole life. Without them, you are merely a spectator.

As a woman, you will be denigrated for saying what you want. Because you have made your desires known, and because those desires might be inconvenient to others, you are a problem. People are very good at shaming desire out of women. This is not a conspiracy. This is social reproduction. These are the natural forces that uphold the status quo.

If you think marriage is a joke, people will shame you into thinking you should be married. If you put your kids in day care, people will make you feel shitty about it. If you don't want to have kids, people will act like you have a serious problem. If you think Little League and herb gardens in a small town sound vaguely dreamy, you are That Woman who wants gross, typical things that she'll probably never get.

Fuck that noise. Do not let the world shame you out of your true desires. Dig deep and decide what you want. Then own it. If you can't do that, then you should expect to be disappointed.

Polly

Dear Polly,

I love reading your advice and wondering who these people are with such complicated lives. Well, now I am one of them.

I recently made a new friend at work. He just moved to my city from across the state and basically knows no one, although his fiancée will be joining him in a few months. A couple of my other friends at work are annoyed with him because they just want to go home and sleep after work and he is constantly bugging people to go out. But I see where he's coming from. I have a fair amount of free time and am always up for an adventure, so we've been hanging out a lot in the past few weeks. He and I started to get a little bit flirty, and I figured it was all just in good fun.

One night we got pretty drunk and ended up kissing at the end of the night. The next day he explained to me that he's been having problems with his fiancée. She cheated on him about a year ago and ever since then they have been trying to repair the relationship. Evidently she wants him to go out without her for a while and be open to new relationships, so that he can experience other people before they get married. (He dated other girls before her, so it's not like he's never experienced any other women). He claims he didn't think he would ever be able to do this because he loves her too much. But then he met me. And now he doesn't know what to do.

We are now in this weird grey zone where we hang out all the time and do couple-y things, but we aren't hooking up and we haven't kissed again since that night. We did both attend a wild party where we got wildly drunk and held hands/cuddled on the couch all night. That's all. I was hoping that I could just see him as a good friend, but the problem is that I'm starting to fall for him. I know I should end it now and stop seeing him altogether but I just can't. Every time I see him or I get a call or text I'm drawn back in.

It's hard to hang out in a large group because my closest friend doesn't like this guy. To be honest, he can be a bit self-centered and is always talking about himself. He's had an interesting life though, so I like listening to his stories. He's extremely polite, holding doors and such for me, which most guys I know never do. I just don't know what I'm getting out of the relationship. I know he is going to go back to his fiancée in the end. Should I cut it off now before I get more hurt? Or should I enjoy this time with him now? (I am moving away in under a month for a new job). If I keep seeing him I know I'll want to move the relationship to the next level. He's said that he's very attracted to me, but it feels wrong for him to cheat on his fiancée. Even though she kind of wants him to.

My friends all agree I need to stop seeing him, and I know that's true too. Even if I delete his number, I'm still going to see him around work and our neighborhood. Once I see him, he'll charm me back into making plans with him.

I'm afraid I'm going to fall in love with him. Then I will leave and his fiancée will come back, and I'll be alone in a new city, a nervous heartbroken wreck. At least if I break it off now, I'll have my friends here to support me when I'm a wreck.

I'm usually pretty even keeled when it comes to relationships but this one is throwing me. I'll have a great time with him but it always kills me when he walks away at the end of the night. I'm even getting weepy about it at work, which is something I never do. I want more and I know he can't give it. But I can't seem to give him up.

What do I do?

Can't Walk Away

Dear CWA,

This one is easy. You're leaving town no matter what, and this guy isn't sleeping with you now and he's not dating you no matter what. Why hang around and demean yourself for another second? This thing you're in isn't romantic or exciting or worth mooning over. You know what is romantic? Telling him he's never going to see you again, and then sticking to it.

Think about your life story. Do you want your moving-away story to have a dark cloud over it, so that whenever you look back on this time, you feel sick over what a loser you were to be hung up over that guy with the fiancée? Or do you want to look back and say, "Oh yeah, that was the time I stood up for myself, walked away from a guy who was just milking me for adoration and attention while his fiancée was gone"? Do you want to call your friends, tell them you're through with this guy, and it's time to go out and celebrate? Or do you want them to look at you and sigh and shake their heads, in a way that burns into your brain and maybe even begins to define how you feel about yourself?

Do you want to move to a new city feeling like you're someone who stands up for herself, who never settles for less than she deserves, who doesn't get involved with attached men, who absolutely draws the line when things start to look dicey?

You already are that person. All you have to do is walk away, and never look back.

Polly

Are you That Woman? Then write to Polly immediately!

Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl's existential advice columnist. She's also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses. Top photo by Philip Taylor. Bottom photo by "che corona."

The post Ask Polly: Should I Give My Commitment-Phobic Boyfriend An Ultimatum? appeared first on The Awl.

Appearing here Wednesdays, Turning The Screw provides existential crisis counseling for the faint of heart. Because you can't always do who you want.

Dear Polly,

I am catnip for guys with girlfriends. Six times a guy I really felt a connection with has informed me that he has a girlfriend after we've flirted/kissed/went on incredible dates, etc. Last weekend, I met Number 6 through a friend at a music festival. We totally bonded, hung out casually all night, flirted while he walked me home and then he kissed me. Like, a "holy shit I feel like a damn woman" kiss. A feel it to your toes kiss. And I want him. He messaged me saying he wants to see me again, that he's not going to be able to get me out of his head.

The next day, when I gushed about it to our mutual friend, she was all, "Holy shit! You mean Number 6? He totally has a gf!" We checked and it was true. I haven't brought it up with him, and he's going to be in town again next weekend? I feel like his relationship problems are his own to deal with. I just want this beautiful man on my pillow, stat. I want an affair to exist in its own self-contained universe, where we can just have an awesome moment and explore this connection without anyone getting hurt, but I recognize that that's not the reality. Talk some sense into me? I am sick of missing out on incredible experiences because of my moral compass, and I'm thinking of going ahead with it.

The Maybe Other Woman?

Dear TMOW,

Missing out on incredible experiences like fucking some dude with a girlfriend?

I suggest you set your sights a little higher. You sound a little proud of your status as catnip for guys with girlfriends. Serving as an intoxicant for a deeply fickle animal is not exactly an honor. One minute he's rolling around, relishing your specialness. The next minute he sees something shiny glinting across the room, or a fly batting against the window pane, and he's gone. I mean, look: he told you that he's not going to be able to get you out of his head until he sleeps with you. So fucking what? He makes you sound less like an incredible person and more like some kind of bacterial infection.

Taking great pride in your ability to attract men and turn them on is a little bit like bragging about the fact that you breathe oxygen and grow your own hair. Look around you. Turning men on is pretty goddamn easy. Men live to be turned on. If you're not there to drive them crazy, they'll find something else to do the job: a teen star bending over a pool table in the pages of a shitty magazine, a passing smile from the cashier at Fatburger, a little inadvertent jostling from a stranger on the subway, the luscious curve of a tower shaped like a giant peach. Believing that you're made of magic because you can make a guy hard? That's borderline delusional. For some reason the Pussycat Dolls spring to mind, with their angry porno pouts and their "Dontcha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?" pushiness. Billions of women share this magic. Having a moral compass: Now that actually separates you from the herd. Why would you toss it aside for the sake of this girlfriended jackjuice?

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I hit on this friend of a friend at a party, made out with him, then wound up in some giant house in the Hamptons with a bunch of his friends. Sounds kind of assertive and spontaneous and awesome, right? It was, until my guy ran off to the bathroom, and two of the women there told me to "watch out for him." How do you watch out for a guy you're sharing a room with, 3000 miles away from home? Turns out he'd had a rotating cast of women out to the house every weekend that summer.

Now, I wanted to roll with it. It's not like I started the whole thing with him because I was in love. But on the ride up there, talking and drinking coffee, ocean breezes whipping through my magical-rando-arousing hair, I thought that I was special, and that of course he'd see that, and of course he was probably falling in love with me already. So I sat there by the pool next to those two (kind? malevolent? who knew?) women, and I rewound the tape. In fact, the only two revealing things my guy had said to me were 1) that we looked so good together that people on the streets of NYC kept stopping and staring at us (red flag!) and 2) that guys probably found me intimidating because I already had a successful career (giant blaring alarm!). Anyway, he came back from the bathroom, and we talked in "our room." I told him I felt a little weird. He said what's the big deal? Meanwhile, the two women in the next room played that Lauryn Hill album, the one about having some self-respect for once in your life, you pathetic little hoochie piece of shit? They played it over and over again, at a very high volume. It was like some kind of divine (malevolent? who knew?) intervention. The next day, I felt less like magic and more like the not-so-flavorful flavor of the week.

We drove back to the city. When I got back to my friend's apartment, she told me that she thought I was an idiot for being so spontaneous and assertive in the first place. Then I flew home, feeling shitty.

My point is, existing "in some self-contained universe where you can just have an awesome moment and explore this connection" is all well and good, but it pays to consider some of the unknowns. When you picture this man on your pillow, you probably imagine that all of the variables line up the way you prefer: He is attentive and enthralled. He doesn't mind using a condom. You don't notice any herpes sores or the like. His cell phone doesn't ring, and if it does, it's not his girlfriend. He doesn't use a really sweet voice you've never heard before when he talks to her.

You're placing yourself in an emotionally dangerous situation which you may believe you're thick-skinned enough to tolerate. I'd argue that, if you really are that thick-skinned, then you have even bigger problems than the ones currently on the table, and, as a start, you'd be better served to treat yourself with more protective kindness and love instead of throwing yourself into situations that are custom-designed to eat away at your self-esteem.

Women who can disregard the feelings of other people's girlfriends and wives are women who have been disregarding their own feelings for a long, long time. So first of all: Stop doing that. You deserve better, and so do they.

You're in the habit of leaping before you look, getting wrapped up in the moment, being swept away by a great kiss before you know the first thing about a man. Believe me, I get it. Back when I lived that way, men told me all the time how mesmerizing and special I was. But they never seemed to want to call me up, sober, and take me out for coffee. It never occurred to me that I might simply sit back and wait for an attractive man to show some real interest in my personality before I agreed to spend time with him.

Think about what you really want for yourself, in the best of all possible worlds. You sleep with this guy, and you're solidifying your status as drug-for-the-ficklest-of-animals. You're leaning into your role as flavor of the week. Pick up your fucking moral compass, dust it off, and walk away.

Polly

Dear Polly,

I'm having kind of a weird situation with a work colleague. I'll preface this by saying I'm happily married with two kids, definitely talk about my family a lot at work, etc. Anyway, this guy and I are in the same department and friendly, in the sense that we get coffee (in the building) together sometimes and IM here and there to bitch about bosses, work, etc. But lately he's starting to weird me out. We already live in the same general area, which is not really a big deal, as we tend to not run into each other outside of the office. But for quite a while now, every single time I work from home, he IMs me with some joke about him coming over to my house for whatever reason or us eating lunch together. And a couple of weeks ago, he just randomly blurted out "so when should I come over tonight?" like an hour after I'd passed on department drinks because my husband had to work late and I had to get the kids. I'm just getting pretty squicked out. I mostly ignore or take forever to respond to his IMs these days, but today I just got another IM about hanging out, and ick.

So I'm not really sure what to do. My bosses are pretty useless at handling conflicts and I'm kind of reluctant to turn this into a harassment thing when it's not really sexual or threatening. I guess what I'm looking for is a good way for me to diffuse this situation myself. Any thoughts on what I can do?

Signed,

Sick of Creepy Colleague

Dear SOCC,

I like that term, squicked out. It sounds the way it feels.

Personally, I like to get a little mean in these situations. Sneaky mean. Still friendly, but harsh. Fight his casual insinuations with casual insinuations of your own.

In your case, bringing the mundane and (if possible) disgusting realities of your life into his brain at inopportune times should do the trick. When he IMs "So when should I come over tonight?" you IM back, "Whenever you're ready to wipe some shit off some little butts." For times when your husband is in town, you could say, "Definitely come over right now. You can watch the kids while (husband's name) and I get a hotel room." He'll get the message.

During the day, when you're alone in the house, you can IM things like "I've got a sick kid here, actually. Want to scrub the vomit out of the couch cushions for me?" Or say, "[Husband's name] took the day off to surprise me! Isn't that sweet of him? Have a nice afternoon! ;)" Don't forget the winking emoticon at the end, which should shrink his boner faster than an ice cold drink poured straight down the Dockers.

When you see him in person, be sure to talk about how in love you are with your husband, how attracted you still are to him, how you're planning a weekend away and all you're going to do is lay around in bed and drink and eat the whole time. If his dating life comes up, always say how lucky you feel that you found someone who's so perfect for you, who makes you happy every time you see his gorgeous face.

But if that doesn't work, and you really want to shut this guy up forever and ever, Amen? Mention that your husband is incredibly well-endowed.

I know that sounds absurd, and risky. I'm sure that introducing a sexual topic is not recommended in any of the sexual harassment handbooks. But let me tell you something, those handbooks are written by people who don't know the first thing about this kind of a guy and what motivates him. What motivates him is the fantasy that you want him, bad. What decimates this motivation is talk of big dicks that don't belong to him.

I had a male acquaintance who kept saying lewd things to me. It started with him talking about girls he was dating (I was just another frat boy confidant), but then it got more personal, and repetitive. He was sure I wanted him, and simply saying "I have a boyfriend" didn't do much to convince him otherwise. Plus, it was obvious that he thought my boyfriend was kind of a chump, maybe because he was nice and slightly dorky and didn't make six figures like Mr. Wonderful himself. It pissed me off, and his nonstop talk of screwing around started to make me uncomfortable, in spite of my running assumption that lewd talk could never get under my skin. So I mentioned in passing that my boyfriend had a really big penis.

I thought this comment would quiet him down for a second, that's all. Instead, it was like I dropped a nuclear bomb in the room. He looked sick. I almost felt guilty. But there was no more getting squicked out, ever. He didn't say another word about us. Instead, he'd bitterly say things like "Oh, but you probably want to run home and fuck your big-dicked boyfriend." The mere mention of my boyfriend's name upset him.

It was pretty extreme. But I sort of enjoyed how much it tortured him, because I am evil. (My boyfriend liked it, too.)

But if this coworker of yours doesn't have a giant yuppie ego that's begging to be whittled down to size, you should just talk about your great husband and your adorable kids constantly. Every time he IMs you, tell him something cute your kid said, then say "Have a great day!" (Insert emoticon here.) Do it over and over again. Do it when your kid isn't being particularly cute or clever at all.

He won't want to spend time with you anymore, trust me.

Polly

Are you getting squicked out by something? Write to Polly and tell, tell, tell!

Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl's existential advice columnist. She's also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses. Catnip photo by Linda MacPhee-Cobb. Giant dong photo by Brendan Wood (heh).

The post Ask Polly: Should I Give In And Be The Other Woman? appeared first on The Awl.

Dear Polly,

I'm 24 and female. I graduated last year and moved to New York City and I'm hopelessly single with no real friends. I know, pretty original. I've been here for a year, and I work at a great start-up and I feel suicidal. I'm also an alcoholic.

I feel so insecure that no one likes me. I'm lucky to work at a great company with incredibly smart people. I do customer service, and it's an investment company, so the questions aren't always super easy, but I entered the position feeling very, very stupid compared to my coworkers. Six months in, I still feel insignificant and nervous around my coworkers and the general populace. I studied math and grew up around Indian parents who always valued intelligence, and I feel that, by doing this job that doesn't require much textbook intelligence (much less than what my coworkers do; programming, higher level math, etc.) or creativity (like my cool art and fashion industry acquaintances), I'm somehow deficient. Please note that I do like my job, but I feel insecure about it.

I'm also lucky to work in a place with young people who are cool, where drinking is encouraged. However, this makes me feel even more insecure, because I feel like these people don't like me as much as they could. They're very kind, but I feel insufferable, and I do have a loud, aggressive personality that I find hard to tone down. I feel judged and needy because I feel that they can tell that I'm dying for their love and attention.

I especially feel insecure at times when I drink, because I have never been able to control myself under the influence of alcohol. Not only am I a lightweight, but I get angry, sad, and sometimes violent. I meet nice guys who fall for me and my unique personality, and then they see my ugly drunk side and dump me. This has happened over, and over again. When I meet someone new, I'm just waiting in fear of when they find out about this crazy side and leave, like always. I don't expect happiness for myself and I don't see it in my future in my current path.

I think sometimes it even makes me feel good—to know that I was dumped because of almost a clinical, uncontrollable condition like alcoholism, rather than a serious deficit in my personality (I know this is crazy, because my alcoholism has come to define me, and my relationships). I've also lost lots of friendships due to my drinking. I have no respect for myself.

I've been drinking heavily since I was 18. This is because alcohol, and drinking culture, is so integral with every single one of my friends and coworkers. Drinking is also how a lot of my friendships and relationships have formed and been nurtured. I met the last guy I was seeing at a bar. I don't like online dating, as my biggest turn-ons are men who have lots of friends and are extroverted, and these types of guys don't need the internet. Bars are where I meet new people. My work also has free happy hour every Friday, where we all bond. It's my entire social life. However, when I drink (not all the time, but increasingly more often), a very dark, ugly side comes out—an anger so deep, that I have rarely ever experienced it sober. During the worst times, I black out, and I forget all the bad stuff that happens—and my friends, my exes, don't. They had to deal with it.

I've physically attacked some of my best friends for no reason, and have almost gotten arrested multiple times. I've said horrible things to my roommates and acquaintances. The worst is with people I'm dating. I've wanted to stop drinking since I was 19. I guess I just don't think about the dark stuff when I pick up my first drink of the night—I think about the 15 minutes of fun I had before I got too drunk and went crazy, or those times that nothing bad happens (though those nights are rare).

The last guy I really liked, maybe loved, dumped me after I yelled at him, sobbing, for no reason, in front of a group of laughing strangers in front of a hip nightclub in NYC. I also fought with him and became very combative for no reason under the influence, as remnants of my fights with my exes would bubble up. Who would want to date someone like this? My reputation is literally fucked.
Because I have no strong friends or relationships, I feel like a bad person: evil, unloveable. I've wondered if I'm a sociopath, because I keep drinking even though I've hurt so many people, and done so many fucked up things. I desperately want to be in a loving relationship and have warm friends, but I've never been in a real, healthy relationship, and am scared that I am too scarred to ever maintain one. I feel insecure all the time, and am sure I give off a nervous, negative energy, so consequently, I have not been meeting any guys (whereas before, I would meet guys all the time who would come to hate me. I am not on speaking terms with any of my exes, or flings). I have no friends, but small acquaintances, who I feel do not like hanging out with me (usually, I'll get invited out to bars once in a blue moon). I'm so lonely, it physically hurts.

As I enter my mid-20s, I know my personality will be "solidified" and I'll be this general person for the rest of my life. I fucking hate myself right now. I love my sense of humor, my general extrovertedness and my energy, but maybe that's all bullshit because I have no friends to show for it.

I know the answer is obvious: stop drinking. What the heck will I do to meet and socialize with people then? All the best, coolest people I have ever met all drink heavily like it's their job. I'm also scared that once I stop drinking, I won't make any new friends or meet guys.

Also, how do I stop being so insecure? I feel just like I'm in middle school again and I'm the weird foreign kid that everyone hates, or is, at the very least, annoyed by. It's killing me inside.

Can't Stop

Dear CS,

When I first met my husband, he had an old dog that was always trying to lick your teeth. If you ignored the dog completely, he would whine softly, wondering if you really loved him or not, but he'd leave you alone. If you paid any attention to him at all—crouched down to pet him or to talk to him—he'd lunge at your face and stick his tongue in your mouth. (He had amazing timing and accuracy. Open your mouth for half a second, and his tongue was swiping across your front teeth like some foul mop.)

That dog was never satisfied. He was pretty sure you hated his guts, but he punished you for merely acknowledging his existence. Eventually, you did hate his guts. He trained you to feel that way about him.

The dog needed more exercise, and he needed to be sternly prevented from tooth-licking back when he was young and adorable and his tongue didn't resemble a dying fish's asshole yet.

"Do fishes have assholes?" That's what you'd ask me if you weren't drinking too much and questioning your self-worth constantly. You'd be capable of spontaneity. You wouldn't alternate between grandstanding and attacking people and apologizing for yourself and shrinking away into nothing. You could say whatever sprang to mind, or you could be quiet. You wouldn't emit a soft whine whenever people ignored you. You wouldn't punish people for socializing with you, dating you, or otherwise paying attention to you.

Maybe you'd be calm enough to notice that you're just as smart and interesting as those creatives and math geniuses around you. If you were seeing a really good therapist, going to AA meetings, and refusing the temptation to rip your well-being to shreds every few days, you might notice that at least half of those people who drink like it's their job aren't actually drinking that much. When you're a drunk, you always assume everyone else is getting wasted, too. But some of those people are nursing the same drink for hours, but still getting loud and bawdy just like everyone else, then waking up at 6 a.m. for a jog the next day.

No matter what those people are doing, though, you must not drink anymore. You don't know who you are yet, and you're preventing yourself from getting any kind of a grip on your identity every time you pick up a drink and erase your sanity. Every time you drink, you end up running your stanky tongue across someone's mouth. People don't like you for a very good reason. You're trying to grab what you need, to lash out at people for not giving it to you, but you're not giving them a thing, and you're destroying your own will to live in the process.

I know that more self-hatred isn't going to help. All I want to say to you is that the mediocre, shy, boring person you fear you are is actually funny, clever, unique, and eminently lovable. Strip away the blustery bullshit and the laborious attempts to win attention and love, and you're automatically a lot more interesting.

This is what you need to do: Get a therapist. Join a gym and go every day. Go to an AA meeting every night. Start writing in a journal. Accept a brand new life of squareness, averageness, unimpressiveness. Don't broadcast. Don’t charm anyone. Try to be very quiet. Allow yourself to be ignored. Make yourself a long reading list, and dedicate yourself to it. Join a meditation group. Play the shy, dull girl. Listen. Watch. You will be amazed at how many people want to know more, are drawn to you, respect you, admire you.

Out there in the world, millions of people are loved for who they really are. When you hang out with bar-hopping hipsters, that can sometimes convince you that you need a lot of witty banter and madcap antics to keep the world interested in you. Don't get me wrong; some of my closest friends are bar-hopping hipsters. Just rest assured that, down the road, some of the very traits that captivate us socially start to sound more like soft whining. People who know themselves and love themselves—whether they're socially smooth or awkward, outspoken or quiet—are the best people to know. (Go read this very practical guide to having fun while not drinking by Anne T. Donahue right now.)

You're wrong about your personality being solidified in your 20s. Nothing is every solidified, not in your 20s or 30s or 40s or beyond. Staying flexible and refusing to see yourself as doomed is a big part of that. You'll feel better and better about yourself as your 20s pass, but you must start treating yourself like someone who matters in the world. If that means you need to aim to have a job that's more ambitious and uses your smarts or creativity more, then make that one of your goals. But first and foremost, you need to stop looking to other people's faces and words for reassurance, and decide for yourself who you are and what you want from this life. When you feel yourself trying to seek out approval and attention, just stop. Dare to exist at the periphery of the conversation.

It's OK that you landed here. You're young and you're learning how to navigate a crazy world. Everyone makes a big mess of things when they're in their 20s. "I made a lot of mistakes, I made a lot of mistakes," Sufjan Stevens sings over and over at the end of "Chicago," and his melancholy is laced with a redemptive kind of forgiveness. Forgive yourself for fucking up, and know that you will be loved and adored and heard and treasured as a friend. You will have everything you've ever wanted.

But you need to stay sober and believe in yourself like it's your job. Now is the time to cultivate your sense of gratitude for small things. Walk outside, in the early morning chill, in the pouring rain, and tell yourself: I am fully alive, I am eminently lovable, and my life is just beginning.

Polly

Hi Polly,

I recently met the perfect guy. Super cute, hilarious, able to tolerate my particular brand of crazy, and also super kinky and sex positive! Score! Things were going so well (for once), but he suddenly ended things a few weeks ago. Needless to say I was devastated. When I asked him what was wrong, he gave me a laundry list of issues. He said that the main two reasons were that I was too self-deprecating and not very confident, and also that I was always apologizing for myself. More specifically, I was incapable of making decisions because I was so hung up on choosing something that made everyone happy. He didn't want to have to play motivational coach in our relationship, which is completely understandable. I've been strung along and treated like shit by a lot of people in the past (especially relationship-wise), and I can't help but think that has something to do with all of this.

I've always been a fairly self-deprecating person (in a way which I at least thought was funny), but this was kind of a rude awakening for me. People have always told me that I beat myself up way too much, and that I need to stop apologizing for things that are not my fault, but I never thought that it was really all that much of an issue until now. I guess that I don't really have that much self-confidence, and I want to change. I'd like to stop thinking that everyone hates me all the time, and that I constantly need to apologize for my day to day actions, and come to terms with the fact that not everyone in the world is going to think I'm awesome.

I know deep down that I'm very funny, attractive, and affectionate. People who aren't my parents tell me this often, usually with a "but" at the end! However, I'm still stuck in this rut of thinking that I'm not good enough and worrying that everything I do is going to piss someone off. I think that I want to be this super confident person whose actions make everyone happy, and I think that's kind of unrealistic, but who knows. I really just want someone to love me and think that I'm awesome.

Best,

Super Negative

Dear Super Negative,

You don't sound that negative, actually. You just need to stop whining softly in the corner, because people don't want to be reminded of your needs every few seconds. When you apologize profusely for something dumb, you're not serving other people. You're soothing your own insecurity. You're a dog who keeps jumping up on everyone in the room. They want you to leave them the fuck alone.

Sometimes the root cause of this behavior is just sensitivity. It's not that you're all that self-involved, it's just that you can see when people's faces change ever so slightly, and it makes you wonder if you did something wrong. It's also possible that a lot of your friends and acquaintances right now don't quite match you. When I moved to LA, I made some friendships that didn't suit me, and I'd get sort of wishy-washy and questioning around those people because I could see that they found me irritating. Their upbeat small talk made me so impatient that I felt I had to break in with some curmudgeonly naysaying just to set things right. This made me seem pretty negative. That was before I met an assertive group of mistfits that greeted outspokenness and skepticism like it was pure, clear water running straight out of a mountain spring.

Either way, your problem is solved by resisting the urge to take other people's temperature constantly. You have to try to stop noticing the second when people think you're a little off, and when you do notice, you have to step back instead of trying to do something to "fix" it. Whatever crazy strident opinions or verbal tics you might have, that's not the part that matters. What matters is that you don't see a neutral or indifferent or vaguely disapproving reaction, and then jump in with apologies or worse, questions ("Are you mad? Is that ok? Do you feel weird about me?"). Firing questions at people about yourself is like licking their teeth with your dying-fish-asshole tongue. Shut up and walk away.

Not everyone is going to love you. The "perfect" guy is not perfect if he can't say a thing about how he perceives you until he's out the door. Go out there and find the people who like you for who you are, and tolerate the rest of them. But don't insist that everyone adore you. Don't roll out some song and dance. Don't charm the pants off anyone. Don't win people over. Don't address every tiny mistake.

Like LW1, you need to step back and listen more. You might be better served by hanging out with someone who's mature enough to find insecurities and sensitivity to the feelings of others sort of endearing rather than flatly irritating. But that means you might have to tolerate a real person with insecurities of his own. Can you do that, or are insecure people as repellant to you as you sometimes are to yourself?

The more you can accept yourself as you are right now, with no pending improvements or upgrades, the more you'll find patient, understanding, flawed people are your ideal company.

Good luck!

Polly

Do you feel like a refugee from the island of misfit toys? Write to Polly and discuss!

Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl's existential advice columnist. She's also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses. First needy dog photo by Bruce Turner. Second needy dog photo by Tony Alter.

The post Ask Polly: I'm a Drunk And No One Likes Me! appeared first on The Awl.

Dear Polly,

I’m in my mid-20s, two years out of school, with a seemingly dreamy job at big fancy news organization, but I feel so stuck. I feel like a hamster spinning my wheel and going nowhere. I can’t figure out if this is a normal early-20s feeling.

For our entire lives up until we enter The Real World, we have classes and semesters: variety. Every couple months you have something new to work on, a new group of people to be around. But in The Real World, you have a job and you do it for years, the same thing day in and day out. And just two years into my job, I’m bored. I feel so unmotivated.

Is this a change I’m just going to have to deal with? Or is this a sign I need to start looking for something else to do with my life?

I didn’t originally plan on journalism. That was my backup plan—my extra, hey, what the heck? major. But of course, the recession wasn’t conducive to recent college graduates living out their dreams. Luckily, I found a really great internship that led to a really great job. (What does that tell you about my dream job if I couldn’t find work there but I could in the dying field of journalism?)

I miss the days of having concrete assignments, short-term goals to work for (midterms, finals, graduation, etc.), a constant variety and things I could check off my list. (And yes, I really did have lists. They were color-coded.) I spent my entire early life working hard at school, so that I could become the first person in my family to go to college, so I could get at least some scholarship money and go to not just any college—but to a fancy East Coast Private School, 1,200 miles away from home and my evil step-father (another story). Now I've completed that goal, and I feel lost.

I feel like I can’t leave my job. There are so many people who would kill for my job. Every day that I’m unhappy and bored, I feel ungrateful. I could be unhappy and bored at some reception desk, but instead I’m unhappy and bored at a top international publication. Life isn’t that bad, right? I’m so lucky to be where I am and do what I do. But I feel like a Martian for feeling so stuck so early in life and with such a seemingly great job.

I don’t want end up as one of those people who hate life because they don’t like their job, but I also don’t know if this is normal, something to adjust to. Also, I also have NO idea what else I’d want to do with my life. My original dream job seems increasingly unattainable, and I’m not so sure I wouldn’t end up bored there as well. Oh, and there is also the reality of student loans, which make me feel financially tied to my job as well. (Even though—as I’m sure you know—as a journalist, I make basically nothing).

Cheers,

Bored and Lacking Drive

Dear BALD,

When you say "top international publication" what I think is this: Fuck publications, and being on top. I'm a career bottom. They can take me however they want me, as long as they don't force me to move with purpose and authority. I'm too lazy for that shit.

Fuck stuff that's international, too, unless it smells good and you can eat it. And fuck the news cycle, too. Fuck those dipshits on "Newsroom" and their unbearable real-life counterparts. You know what I like? Small, pointless things. When someone says, "I work at a crappy little place that makes pet rocks. I literally glue eyeballs on chunks of gravel all day long," that makes my pulse race a little. Especially when it's run out of someone's laundry room that smells like cat piss, and the employees heat up Spaghettios in a microwave for lunch, and the boss comes downstairs to complain about his wife while they're eating.

Even more off-point: I just bought coffee from this kid who asked me if I had anything special planned for the day. The kid was maybe 19, had spikey hair, and had a dead look in his eyes when he asked me about my "special plans" like his special plan was to disembowel a few small animals after work. What the hell did he think a fortysomething like me might have planned that would be special? A little extra mayo in my tuna salad? A root canal? A colonoscopy?

I think my main point here is that jobs are what you make them. Your belief system matters a lot, as do your personal preferences about people, places, and top publication micro-cultures. For some insane reason, everyone agrees that things that are "top" and "publishing"-related and "international" are exciting—at least they seem to agree about this in major coastal cities, and on Twitter. And also, small-town folks will inform you that you've made the big-time, because you fiddle with words that are broadcast to the whole goddamn globe.

You're bored because you're smart and you know the globe doesn't give a shit about you and your dumb words. This other kid, though, at the coffee place? He's somehow adopted the corporate script without being tormented by it, possibly because he's being ironic (and hiding it completely, which, no) or possibly because he doesn't have too many neurons firing away in his pea brain. Or maybe he's the healthiest whippersnapper in the whole wide world, and if you plopped him down at TGIFriday's, he'd ask you "How is everything tasting?" in a way that made you feel like he just gently sodomized you with a fried mozzarella stick.

It's very normal to feel insanely, torturously dissatisfied when you're in your 20s. You've only been out there in the world, ripped from the fairytale womb of private college, for two years now. You're in shock, but it sometimes seems like the world still wants to know: What do you want to do with the rest of your life? Asking someone fresh out of the luxurious, grassy, boozy microcosm of a private university to map out their career plans is like asking a toddler to run a marathon while analyzing Lacan.

What you really need when you graduate from college is recovery time—time to look at the world around you and decide it's not hideous and awful. A good friend of mine moved to Prague for two years. These days, maybe she would've gone to Berlin. There aren't many other times in your life when you can drop everything and have an adventure. That said, your ambitious, color-coding ways probably aren't all that amenable to taking whatever work you can find in a city packed with drunk youngsters.

So here's the tough part: I don't think you should quit your job. You're too new at this to have any sense of which aspects of your situation you don't like. That's how slightly older people with more experience approach the working world: they discuss the specifics that make this or that career or job right or wrong for them. Maybe you'll figure out that you dislike offices and should work from home if you can. Maybe you hate the news cycle itself and therefore hate being wrapped up in the trivial urgencies therein. There are people, after all—interesting, smart, dynamic people (and also, pudwhackers)—who love that shit. Maybe you're not one of them. Or maybe you just don't like punching the clock. All of this talk of color-coded folders indicates to me that your detail-oriented, independent personality might be better suited to a career where you manage and dictate your daily work. Maybe there's a job for you that's still in the news, but it's more task-oriented rather than simply a matter of showing up and then being knocked over by a constant tidal wave of work that never ceases.

Personally, I like to cross shit off my list. I like to perform a task, feel proud of what I did, and then relax a little before I start the next task. Warming a chair, sitting through meetings, and waiting for the next wave of too-busy to hit? Torture. My writing suffers. I feel like I'm wasting my life. And personally, I hate to feel like the people around me (and above me, and below me) can't be bothered to distinguish between good work and shit. I hate to feel like I'm not doing enough simply because "enough" has just been redefined as "not enough" by some third party who isn't paying any attention to the quality of my work. I have a serious allergy to those Dilbert moments when you realize you're struggling to satisfy idiotic, inefficient, arbitrary notions of what's valuable and what isn't.

Maybe you agree with me on this front. Maybe every person alive does. Just don't talk about this shit openly with anyone but your cat. I can do it because I'm a professional shut-in, and I deliver clean copy, on time, without complaint*, and then money arrives in the mail and I spend it, like everyone else in LA, on water, electricity, and tequila.

When you're older and you've worked for a while, you know how to do things and you know what you can and can't live with. You also know that merely stating the obvious about how wildly dysfunctional and obnoxious and tedious and stupid most offices environments are, or merely outlining your desires and wishes in order to have healthy boundaries in a sea of boundaryless, passive-aggressive conflict, will get you pegged as a troublemaker. Offices don't want honest, proactive square pegs walking around, making noise about more efficient ways of doing things. They want passive-aggressive, bullshitty round pegs that will fit neatly into arbitrary, inefficient, "team-oriented" round-hole roles. They want people who will ask you about your special fucking plans for the day without the slightest trace of irony. They don't mind if those people sound like Charles Manson when they do it.

That said, though, if you can go with the flow and laugh off the Dilbertian dipshits around you, you could wind up with a really great job that you love in spite of inherent environmental stupidities.

But quitting your job right now, when you don't know why you feel the way you do, will probably only make you more depressed. Instead, make a timeline. One or two years of this, and then if you're still unhappy, you move on. By making a commitment to at least one more year at this job, you'll eliminate this daily feeling of "Should I quit or not?"—which only makes every second at your job feel like torture. Instead, you need to sit down and come up with a clear plan for what you want to gain from this year. Your life needs a feeling of forward motion that it lacks right now. Most lives need this. You need to get more information about your dream job, and investigate whether or not it would feel more engaging and satisfying to you. Do some research, talk to people, read about that industry, immerse yourself in it. Spend a half hour every day on that goal, and that alone will improve your outlook. You require a combination of commitment and optimism. If the dream job isn't for you, then write down 3 other possibilities and research those.

Don't just sit there and sulk. Get information. Force yourself to reach out to people who do these jobs. Get some sense of what kind of environment you want, what kinds of tasks make you happy, what sorts of jobs might offer the variety that you crave. (While you're at it, pay close attention to the stuff you love at your job, and the stuff you hate. Can you do more stuff you love and less you hate? Can you tweak your job responsibilities or hours so the job feels less oppressive?)

Above all, remember that life in your 20s can be pretty primitive. You work and you socialize and sometimes that's all there's time for. Maybe you haven't met the right friends yet, or you're not sure how you want to spend your free time, so you feel weird and depressed when you're at home in your apartment, and there's a clock ticking down until your next shitty work day.

That clock-ticking-down followed by clock-watching pattern drove me to work from home. I always have assignments hanging over my head, to be sure, but the variety, the flexibility, the task-oriented nature of my work, and the total lack of meetings in my life add up to what I'd consider a pretty great career. It took me years of working full-time from home, sometimes in a weird vacuum of human contact, to get to a place where I understood how to manage it well. I only bring this up because you're someone who loves variety and crossing off tasks one by one, and you might eventually consider a freelance or entrepreneurial path.

The bottom line is this: Careers are difficult, obnoxious, non-dreamy things when you're young. The words "dream" and "job" never actually go together unless you luck into something incredible or carefully fine-tune your career for about a decade. There are always compromises. And when you're very young, you just have no idea what level of boredom and angst is normal. I'm here to tell you that an enormous amount of boredom and angst are normal at first. I had a dream job when I was 26, writing obnoxious cartoons for a website, and I still felt oppressed. It's impossible not to be an ingrate when you're your age, so don't fault yourself for it.

Because it's not just your job that needs to evolve. Your whole life is just this rudimentary, misshapen thing right now. You don't know what you want, not at all. You just can't know yet. Try to resist the urge to beat yourself up over your boredom, and try to turn off your bad brain and tolerate the unknowns.

This is my very best advice for anyone with a habit of letting their Bad Head take over their day: Do not allow the same crappy thought patterns to wear the same terrible grooves in your brain over and over again. The less you do it, the easier it'll be to avoid in the future. Vow to push negative thoughts out of your head in the morning. Say to yourself, "I'm not waking up with a head full of shit anymore." And get up. Clear your mind. Exercise. Appreciate your coffee. Take in the scenery. Enjoy your bagel. Sit up straight and listen to some good music while you work.

After work, break out the color-coded folders and fill them with your dreams. That's your special plan for the day, every day. Just remember, there's no rush. You have time to proceed slowly and meticulously. Believe in what you're building, and form it into a kind of a religion. Use it to bring optimism into your life.

You don't have to achieve your dreams anytime soon. You just have to keep them in mind, and not let go of them. You're bored for a very good reason, trust me. Just stay positive, and keep facing forward. Things will get better and better, trust me. And one day you'll look back and say, "Well, I paid my dues. I'm glad I didn't quit. I learned a lot, and I would never have gotten here without being there first." This job will seem vaguely romantic to you fifteen years from now. I know that's hard to believe, but if Aaron Sorkin can work that magic, so can you.

Polly

Hi Polly,

I've been seriously depressed for the past few years, but have only realized it lately. I might even be manic depressive, as I have bouts of extreme happiness and really painful lows, but I'm unfortunately recently unemployed and unable to see a therapist for treatment due to how expensive it is (I'm 26, so I'm insurance-less).

This feeling could be situational, but I often find myself feeling sorry for myself and seeking validation from others to feel better about it—and then feeling even worse about myself for doing so. Here's my situation, by the way: in the past 3 years, my mom has died, my best friend was in a debilitating car accident that left her vegetative, my younger brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and, yes, I just lost my job (my company laid off almost everyone in my division).

But, again: people I know have gone through a lot worse and in general are in terrible situations, every single day, and they're doing just fine. Despite all of that, I'm healthy, I'm young, I have a family who loves me, and I've recently entered a relationship with someone who's kind, smart, and super supportive. All of these things are things people would kill to have, so I'm trying to be grateful (and most days, I am).

I'm really tired of feeling sorry for myself. Every time I get upset about things or cry about what's wrong, I feel like I'm showing signs of weakness or being ungrateful for what I have, and I want nothing more than to pick myself up, go find an awesome job, and start seeing a therapist so I can finally be OK. I want to feel confident and have a sense of direction and purpose. I also want to have the confidence to kick asshole friends to the curb who only fuel my negativity and self-consciousness.

The problem is, all of this melancholy "woe is me" bullshit is clouding my vision so much that I can't even start trying to find what that job is. My motivation is sapped. Even when I have job interviews, I'm so painfully self-conscious and anxious I end up blowing them because I want it so badly. And the rejection (which I know I shouldn't take personally, at all, ever) makes my mood even worse. I end up becoming so daunted by any sort of professional opportunity ("They'd never want to work with me") that I don't even try.

I've been a journalist before; I've been doing nebulous creative work over the past few years (social media, web & graphic design) to pay the bills. I get a lot of joy out of doing it to help people (I work pro bono for a few organizations in New York, where I live. I moved here so I didn't have to drive, BTW. See story about friend above.) I don't think I'm some creative genius, nor am I privileged millennial who's "special" and thus deserves special treatment. I'm not the "voice of this generation," I don't want to be someone famous. But I do think I'm worthy of doing something professionally fulfilling that makes me happy, like every person on the planet (if they're very, very lucky).

I have no idea what that is, and I don't know how to "fix" myself and find out (no one really does, right?). How did you get to where you are now, and do you have any advice for getting over this slump?

Trying

Dear Trying,

Death is the subject of countless pages of poetry, literature, philosophy, you name it. Death is a worldwide obsession. Why? Because we, as human beings, cannot fucking handle death. We can't grasp it, we can't make peace with it, we can't face it down, we can't accept it, we can't understand it. If you meet someone who says they accept the inevitability of death? If they're not terminally ill and they don't answer to the name "Dalai," they're full of it.

Three years is not a long time to deal with such enormous losses in your life. The first time I sat down with a therapist, I said I felt depressed and confused and then mentioned IN PASSING that my father had died two years earlier, but that shouldn't really be a factor anymore. My therapist laughed at that. Two years seemed like an eternity to me. But what had I been doing all that time? I spent two months at home, crying, and then I moved back to SF and I got really, really busy and refused to think about anything heavy for a long time.

But when I moved to LA two years later and I wasn't surrounded by friends and nightly drinks and a hectic job, I fell to pieces. I couldn't get motivated to do anything and I pushed everyone away and my life slowed ground to a halt. I would lay on my bed and listen to the birds chirping outside and there was no one to talk to about it and nothing to be done. I'd try to write a song and it would start well and then I'd wonder what the fuck the point was.

And at the time, I didn't have half of the challenges you're facing.

In the old days, who would you call when you felt this bad? I bet you'd call your best friend or your mom. Now they're both gone. Three years have gone by, and maybe you've been busy. Now you're not that busy anymore. Maybe, even though you say you're moping around all the time, maybe you haven't actually allowed yourself to experience the full impact those traumas. Maybe you hoped that your friend would recover a little more than she has. Maybe you had a ton of other shit going on when your mom died—you were a recent college graduate, or just graduating, or you were just moving to a new city and had a busy job. It doesn't matter. All that matters is: You have to back up and feel the crushing sadness of what you've lost. Your body and soul are telling you, "We aren't moving forward until you feel this."

That probably sounds a little morbid and unnecessary. But in blocking off the bad feeling, you're blocking off the good feeling, too. Mourning can be one of the most enriching, vivid things you ever do, if you lean into it fully. There's a feeling of joy that eventually arises, hand in hand with this hideously sick feeling of loss. You can feel devastated but also so thankful to be alive at the same time. But only when you're not trying to protect yourself from the full brunt of your loss.

In therapy, it might take months to arrive here. In some ways, writing this column is rough because I'm forced to speed things up and condense what should be a long process into a few paragraphs. But look: You need to give yourself permission to feel your fucking feelings. You called your feelings "woe is me melancholy bullshit," which is exactly how I would've described my feelings about my dad dying, back when I was trying to speed through the pain and accept it and move on. I was absolutely merciless with myself. I walked around all day thinking, "OH MY GOD GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER YOU SELF-PITYING LOSER."

You cannot surge forward and conquer the world when you have a coach in your head that sounds like a sadistic drill sergeant. You have to give yourself a break.

So here's what I'd do: First, go get health insurance with a high deductible. You must do this even when you're young, unemployed and broke. It's just mandatory. I know it's insanely expensive. You have to consider it a form of rent and deal with it. You must have a safety net if you get sick or have an accident.

Then, you have to get a therapist. The fact that you're living in a place where you don't have to drive because of what happened to your friend tells me that you're deeply traumatized and anxious over this loss. You MUST talk to someone about where you are right now and let it out. You need to discuss your fears and phobias and your anxiety. You need to stare into the inky blackness in the presence of a professional. You need to look closely at the ways you've shut down, retreated to safety, hidden from the world, in the wake of these giant traumas. It does not take a lot of initiative to do this. Just do it.

After a big trauma, it's common to make your world smaller and smaller, pushing people away, becoming more solitary—all without really noticing it. It may be that you want to feel safe, and feel loved, that is all. After my dad died, I didn't want anything else. When you're in hiding, it's really hard to bust out there and find a job. It's hard to wake up in the morning.

So give yourself a week off the job search, find a cheap therapist. Show yourself some compassion. Your body and soul are telling you: "Fuck no. I'm not moving. I don't want anything. I will not do work for you. I will not be ambitious. I will not be anything."

All you need to do that first week is exercise one hour a day, sleep 8 hours, and talk to your friends (not just your boyfriend) at least once a day. Be kind to yourself. Listen to the voice in your head. Does it tell you you're a lazy ungrateful loser who should be over all of this by now? You are now officially allowed to feel whatever you feel, whenever you feel it.

After your week off, I want you to look for a job you know that you can get, and I want you to get it. Not the ideal job, necessarily. Just a job. A temp job, if necessary. You need structure. Continue to see a therapist, exercise, talk to friends, feel things.

After a while, you can start to follow the advice I gave to LW1: Slowly examine what you want to do with your life. Research. Work hard. Write it out. Maybe you are the voice of your generation. Maybe you will be famous. Do not write off big dreams just because they make you sound foolish. Promise me right now you'll never, ever do that again.

It's not entitled and silly to have dreams. It's part of what makes life worth living.

It's not indulgent and sick to feel sad. It's part of what makes life worth living.

You are not a fucking robot. You are all energy and emotion and raw potential. You are a beautiful, divine being, full of incredible possibilities, full of promise, full of terror and pain. Don't be half a person. That's what all of this turmoil is telling you: Stop hiding. Stand up, and open your eyes wide, and see how much more you might gain, and how much more you might lose. Look straight into the unknown. You have to feel everything, the joy, the fear, the blinding heartbreak. Calm yourself, breathe in slowly, and open your eyes wide. You are still here.

Polly

You made it all the way to the bottom, huh? Are you procrastinating again? Write to Polly and let's discuss this.

Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl's existential advice columnist. She's also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses. Photo of Radio-Canada's Montréal newsroom by Jason Paris. San Juan graveyard photo by Timothy J Carroll.

The post Ask Polly: My Great Job At A Top International News Publication Sucks Ass! appeared first on The Awl.

Hi Polly,

Over the past several years, my best friend and I have remained close through some huge life changes. I made the decision to get a divorce from my abusive spouse and she was right there with me, offering me a place to stay and moral support. She experienced an unplanned but welcome pregnancy which resulted in the birth of her first child. She also got engaged to the love of her life. I am now heavily involved in plans for her wedding. I love her dearly. However, there is one major problem with our relationship.

Both her and her new fiancée are active members of an international Multi-level Marketing company that focuses on health and wellness. Fiancée is a notable and well-known success, due in large part to his family’s early involvement with the company. Best Friend has “recruited” her entire family into the business. They frequently attend company events, and most of their other friends are members. As for me, I cannot in good conscience participate in the business, and it is starting to cause a rift between us.

Some history: I was in poor health a few years ago. I struggled with depression, treatment-resistant acne, and GI issues. After my divorce, I made a lot of changes. I visited a dermatologist and endocrinologist, who both confirmed what I suspected: I am very sensitive to hormone imbalance. My derm specifically mentioned that consuming lots of soy as a possible cause of hormone imbalance. In general, I’ve found that avoiding soy and consuming a diet of mostly whole, unprocessed plant foods keeps my skin, mind, and guts happy. I am grateful to be in the position to follow this diet and am very pleased with my health these days.

So, the core product of Best Friend's MLM company is a "weight loss plan." The "plan" is basically just their low-cal meal replacement shakes (soy protein heavy) subbed for 2 out of 3 meals a day, then a combination of "supplements" full of caffeine and all the other vitamins you miss out on when you don't eat actual food. This is, in my opinion, nutritionally unsound and a starvation diet. A number of the other “energy” supplements rely on artificial sweeteners and non-FDA approved diet herbs. Even putting aside my belief that whole foods are the best sources of nutrition, I think that it is questionable to promote these products as quality sources of nutrition.

I also don’t agree with certain marketing and sales practices. Basically, they exploit people’s body insecurity for money. Fiancée actually has a button that reads "Lose Weight Now-Ask Me How." He wears it EVERYWHERE. I am not that close to him, so I haven’t said anything… but I’d really like to point out how gross that is without him going on the defensive.

In addition, the company frequently makes lofty promises of financial independence to lure in new members. They throw events and parties that showcase the best and brightest in the company… but minimize the massive amount of people involved in their success. It is a classic MLM—as in, the people at the top are making money due to the quantity of people at the bottom. In reality, very few actually make a living off of the sales of the products, let alone get rich. The prices of the supplements are also very inflated for the average consumer, and are only “discounted” if you sign up to be a sales representative (this of course, includes kickbacks and additional discounts for the person who “brought you in”).

Basically, all my experiences with the company and their products leave a literal and figurative bad taste in my mouth. They are not unethical or dangerous enough to warrant a “scam” label, but I disagree with what they do to the extent that I don’t want to be involved.

In the past, I’ve used avoidance and excuses to explain to Best Friend why I don’t want to be a part of the company. I say I’m an introvert, so I’m uncomfortable with direct sales and attending parties. I say that I have a soy sensitivity and can’t drink the shakes. I say that I get headaches from artificial sweeteners. But she still pressures me to join. Every excuse I have, Best Friend has a company-approved rebuttal. I also feel like I can’t talk about my finances or my health around her because it gives her an opening to “pitch” the company to me. It is really starting to make me uncomfortable. With her impending nuptials, I know I’ll be spending more time with her and her family. It is bound to keep coming up.

My question is, how can I effectively communicate that I do not want to join the company, without alienating or offending my friend and her family? I don’t want them to think I am being condescending toward their life’s work, as I realize that everyone is different. I respect that they should do what works for them. It’s just not for me.

Thanks for any guidance,

Friend on the Outside

Dear FOTO,

Americans are too polite. Sure, we shout and rage at each other on our superhighways and our cable TV channels. But when you put us at the same wedding shower, we're as meek and as mild as anesthetized kittens. This is what made Borat so brilliant—not his obnoxiousness, per se, but the reactions to it, the pervasive, pathological unwillingness to stand up and say, "Seriously, you need to stop." Borat could fall over drunk at a private dinner, talk openly about bedding a married woman in front of her husband, and all he encountered was shy tittering and a few awkward silences.

How in the world do you prevent yourself from condescending to someone who wears a “Lose Weight Now-Ask Me How” button everywhere he goes? I'm not sure that level of self-restraint is physically possible, let alone healthy. Your best friend not only had the gall to marry a character straight out of a Christopher Guest film, but now she's actively recruiting you to sell crappy fake food that she knows very well you hate? As Kanye would say, that shit is fucking ri-DICK-a-lus.

Why does it always have to be the cheesy Tupperware ladies and the water filter-peddling morons and the tone-deaf Mary Kay mob who come to the rescue emotionally when the shit hits the fan? Why can't your friend who loves Fellini and David Mamet and crocheted tops and Mac lipstick in Vamp swoop in for a change? Why do the young hipsters go all "No, YOU are the wound!" when you get dumped by your abusive husband, when out in the suburbs they're dropping off casseroles and walking your dog and watering your plants and pressing copies of Gone Girl into your sweaty palms? Hipster ladies need to put on their big girl Dickies and pull their heads out of their naturally-sourced, unbleached asses for long enough to support their lady loves.

Anyway, suffice it to say that I get it. This repugnant viral scourge in human form that you describe is also one of the most unthinkingly loyal, slavishly adoring friends you've ever had. Why shouldn't she be? She's our species' answer to the fungal infection. You're recovering from abuse, she has a room for you to stay in. Hmm. She reminds me a little of one of those people who run rescue dog shelters or organize the teen club at the local church: Salt of the earth, lovable, warm, loyal—and also total fucking bad news, passive-aggressive scary, stay away, Luke, It's a Trap! You are treated to unparalleled generosity for years, until it's time for the queen to lay her eggs in your corpse.

But that's just a wild guess, and she might be a loving but slightly insensitive person with not very good taste. I have no way of proving that she is wretched and rotten to the core, beyond her perverse interest in having semi-regular sexual relations with someone who may or may not be wearing an “Lose Weight Now-Ask Me How” button on his person at the time. Mostly I think she'd make a really good character in one of ABC's slightly dark suburban dramedies. I'm not saying dump her as a friend. I just want you to know that you should never, ever feel even a tiny bit guilty about those reoccurring impulses to, say, kick her in the shins and tell her she's a fake-food peddling fuck.

But don't do that. Here's what you should do instead: Prepare to smile and eat huge, steaming platters of shit. Actually, anyone who's about to see a friend through a wedding, or even attend your run-of-the-mill extended family vacation, should prepare for the same thing. Eating a lot of shit dished out by your family without drinking too much, overturning the Monopoly board and/or loudly proclaiming each family member's DSM-V diagnosis basically ushers you into the realm of mature adulthood.

When the Soylent Green peddlers start doing their thing, though, I want you to look the peddler in question straight in the eye for 3-4 seconds (it's a long time) before speaking. Then I want you to say, in a calm tone, "I love that [Name of Friend] is happy, but this business is not for me." When they protest, you say, with a small smile, "I've heard every pitch, but trust me, it's really not for me." Then look them straight in the eye. Let them apologize, or move on. If they stay on the subject, politely excuse yourself and go to the bathroom.

To your friend, you say, "I love you, but no, and that answer won't change." That's all. If she revisits it, look her in the eyes and say, "Are you hearing what I'm telling you? Please respect my feelings on this front." It's not a question of you respecting her choices. You don't have to say a thing about what she wants and needs. All you have to say is, "I don't want that for myself." The end.

I would avoid specifics. I would memorize three "No thank you" lines and I would prepare to say them over and over again, punctuated by uncomfortable silence. As long as you don't start talking and explaining and apologizing and discussing her choice to become a pox upon the face of the earth, you're safe. Just be a woman of few words in this arena. And for fuck's sake, don't get drunk. Don't loosen up and start blabbing about the wrong thing. Your first line of defense is silence. Your second line of defense is one or two scripted, polite refusals. Your third line of defense is more silence.

We women always want to explain everything. More words! Surely more words will solve this problem! Men know better. When people ask most men to commit to something they don’t want to commit to, or to discuss something they don't want to discuss, they fucking sit there and say nothing. They never explain shit, those smug rats! They never throw good words after bad when they can choose to remain vaguely disapproving and enigmatic instead.

And they never get blamed for anything that way! We get blamed and blamed and blamed, because we can't shut up. We try to make stuff better by apologizing, analyzing, comparing, and along the way we nail ourselves to the wall like specimens. No!

So now you know better. You know just what to do, and you know that you're not bad just because you sort of sometimes dislike this lovable superfreak you call a friend. As for your future with this lady, well, that's up to you. You might want to gently nudge her in the direction of the human race over time, but otherwise, I give you my blessing to tolerate her crappy choices indefinitely. As unsavory as she might be, it's absolutely true that not every human alive will take you in after you leave your abusive husband, just as not every human empties out the extra bedrooms in their house and fills them up with one-eyed Chihuahuas. Old friendships really are worth hanging onto, even when there are some one-eyed dogs and button-wearing asshats in the mix.

Polly

Hi Polly.

I've been reading your advice about flinchy boyfriend for years. You've pretty much nailed the guys I fell in love with in my late 20s and early 30s—big charming personalities, fascinating people who were completely fascinated by me and would make huge romantic gestures until I actually agreed to date them, at which point they turned into the person who would never go to my house, I had to go their house. The person who wouldn't come with me to weddings. The coworkers who would introduce me to their family but wouldn't acknowledge our relationship at work. And, eventually, the person who was just kind of bored by whatever I had to say—and on top of it, they just didn't know what love was anymore. And I would spend the final two-thirds of the relationship trying to get back what we'd had at the start, reluctant to let go of this amazing person that I'd had such a connection with, even if we'd hit a rough patch right now.

Lucky me, I finally dumped my last loser boyfriend and declined to meet or date the guy from online who was in the process of getting a divorce but just hadn't moved out yet… and a few months later, I met my kind and normal husband. We've now been together almost five years, married for three, and working on babies. We're each other's best friend, but not suffocatingly so—there's space built into the relationship for individual interests and time apart. The biggest regular fight we have is about what level of clean is acceptable in the kitchen. (For the record, the choices are clean, or uber-clean.) So, yay.

But I've noticed something I'd like your advice on. What got me through my years of flinchy boyfriends were my friends—deep soul friends, people who would go out to brunch or on hikes or blackberry-picking with me and spend seven hours talking through our respective relationships, what was working, what wasn't, what was missing. I mostly had intense, individual friendships, rather than traveling in groups. When I married my husband, I moved several states away, but the friendships continued, through e-mail, Facebook, and the occasional visit.

Which brings me to why I'm writing. One of my very closest friends from that time in my life just visited, and the visit was… strange. She came during the workweek so that we could both work during the day and then hang out at night. But the visit had the strangest dynamic. On certain days, there were things I had to do—pick up medication across town, go to the grocery store so I could make dinner later—and she said she was happy to tag along, we could talk while we drove, etc.

But after we had agreed on a plan—let's leave the house at 4 so I can get to my doctor's office before it closes; let's go the grocery store right after work so I can start cooking—I could just not get her to execute on it. What's more, it actually started to seem like she was purposefully undermining every plan we made. We'd agree to leave the house at 4; at 4:05 she'd be walking down the hall in a towel. We'd agree to eat lunch at 2; then one thing after another would happen and we wouldn't eat until 6. By the time she left, I was so frustrated and angry, almost out of proportion to the actual events. I just felt like she had spent the visit agreeing to things and then passive-aggressively rebelling against those things… to what end, I don't even know, because who cares if she got in the car now or 20 minutes from now. Same car trip. What's the difference? And if she didn't want to go, why not just say that?

Anyway, I don't even really know what my question is, except that, having attracted flinchy boyfriends for so many years, it's probably likely, isn't it, that I had flinchy friends, too—especially the closest and most charismatic? The people I think of most fondly. People whose actions are actually indicating, in every way possible: Don't count on me for what you need. Take that nonsense somewhere else!

And then I wonder: Are the rules about flinchy friends the same as they are for boyfriends? Is it more of a drain to have those people in your life than to not? And when I think, oh, but I hate to toss away all those years of deep conversation and closeness over something so minor as a scheduling issue; I hate to throw out someone I know so well, just because she doesn't organize her time well… am I just deluding myself that there's a relationship to hang on to, as opposed to a pattern of accommodating someone else's needs without my own being acknowledged in return? Or am I just blowing a small scheduling issue out of proportion, because I like to be on time.

I'd be very curious to know your thoughts—thank you!

Not Flinching

Dear NF,

I don't think your friend was passive-aggressively rebelling. I think she was on vacation and she was losing track of time over and over again. When I'm visiting someone's house, it's incredibly difficult for me to adhere to a schedule. Being on vacation turns my brain to jelly. On top of that, I work from home, I never run errands on any kind of a schedule, and the words "We have to leave by 4 if we're going to…" only trigger a response in my brain when they're followed by "avoid missing the first scene of the movie" or "keep this kid from throwing a tantrum" or "get there before the free drinks and appetizers run out." I'm not perpetually late to everything. No way. But if it's me and one other friend, and my friend has a concrete schedule in mind, and that schedule seems a little restrictive and arbitrary to me? It doesn't stick in my brain. It falls out, onto the floor, and then I go take a shower and come back and someone is glaring at me and I'm all, "Oh! Right. Sorry! I'll hurry."

So maybe that means I'm fucked up, too. Even so, if that's the only complaint you have with your friend, you should consider yourself extremely lucky. Old, intense friendships are always a little bit taxing in one way or another. Here's a more typical old-friendship scenario: You're going through something tough, and your old friend says "Whoa, that sounds hard," and then has to run because her cat looks unhappy. The next day, you listen to her repetitive, circular thoughts for two hours straight, during which she casts aspersions on your choices and hints that you might be happier if you did things the way she does them (which you'd only do if you were FUCKING INSANE but that's a story for another time) and you want to say something, but now she has to run because she's getting ready for a really exciting event you know all about but aren't invited to.

Let's just state the obvious and admit that maintaining close relationships with smart, interesting humans with lives of their own (let alone lives of their own thousands of miles away) can be taxing. Old friends can seem hopelessly selfish when they're acting exactly the same way you act in a different arena. Her insensitivity to your schedule corresponds to some equal and opposite insensitivity in you, trust me. You are flawed and so is she. You're two very different people who don't see each other all that often.

Few of us work on our old friendships the way we work on our marriages. Few of us tolerate old friends the way we tolerate our parents or our children or our siblings. But you have to do a little of each: Work on your friendship, try to talk through your personal differences, and, if all else fails, grin and bear it for the sake of a lifelong friend. People without crazy old friends tend to be rigid, controlling types who eventually end up whittling down their personalities to match their spouse's. You don't want that kind of a life, with or without the profitable pyramid scheme built in.

Polly

Is your friend a million times more taxing than the one this woman just described? Write to Polly and tell her about it!

Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl's existential advice columnist. She's also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses. Pyramids photo by Wilhelm Joys Andersen. Clock photo by Matthew Frederickson.

The post Ask Polly: My Best Friend Keeps Recruiting Me To Join Her Multi-Level Marketing Scheme! appeared first on The Awl.

Dear Polly,

I'm a 32-year-old single woman. I love my life—my friends, my job, the city in which I live. I have a creative outlet and I exercise and I have a lot of passion for living. But inside I have a problem with bitterness. I feel bitter every single day. I can't stop thinking about the men who have hurt me, and I think about at least two or three of them every day (not always the same ones), sometimes during the day, but mostly at night when I'm trying to fall asleep. I think about when things were good, and then how they hurt me, and I wonder why they didn't love me, and I imagine what I would say to them if I saw them again, and then I tumble into a stony feeling of grit, of wanting to be invulnerable. I have a physical response to these emotions—my chest hurts, my stomach hurts, and the pain stretches out to my fingertips. I lose my breath in the pain. I sometimes wonder if in some way I actually enjoy this awful feeling, just because it's feeling something in my heart. But I fear that it will make me sick in the long run. I feel like it's gonna give me cancer or ulcers just to think these sad, echoing thoughts every day.

I don't want to be bitter, and I don't want to be that friend everyone feels sorry for because she's perpetually single, but that's what I'm turning into. When things do go well with a guy, I am able to forget about my past pain and let myself believe in a future with someone I like, if cautiously. But it never works out, and I don't know why. I'm not clingy or high-maintenance; I like who I am and what I'm doing with my life; I have my own life but I want to share it with someone, and I just keep getting hurt. With the last two guys I dated, I actually felt that elusive "click" of feeling connected to someone and like I could be myself with them and being able to see myself with them for a long time, which hasn't happened in ages, but it turned out that neither of them were interested in trying a long-term relationship with me. And I don't know how many instances of the death of hope I can take, or how many men will fit in my Rolodex of Men Who've Made Me Bitter.

It's getting really, really hard to keep getting out there and trying, and to stay positive and open about myself and about men. I'm sick of convincing/allowing myself to let go and be vulnerable and then being crushed in the end, and I'm sick of feeling this nightly blank emptiness punctuated by the stabbing emotional pain of bitterness. I haven't had a real boyfriend in over five years. I'm tired and I'm lonely and I'm beginning to feel like a ghost. How can I stop obsessing over the people who have hurt me, and how can I move forward in my romantic life without fear, or worse, apathy? Thanks for your help.

Signed,

Alone Again, Naturally

Dear AAN,
The first thing you need to know—understand, believe, breathe in—is that there is nothing wrong with you. There. Is. Nothing. Wrong. With. You. The guys who hurt you, the guys who don't want to date you: These people are irrelevant. They are not your mother. They are not your father or your sister or your best friend. Compared to your parents, your friends, they are nothing—flies in the room, cockroaches in the cupboard. Nothing. Fixating on them is like fixating on marrying George Clooney. They are irrelevant.

So why do they feel relevant to you? Because you BELIEVE that there's something wrong with you, and you're trying to figure out what it is. That belief is what's wrong with you.

Every night you pray to the gods of rejection. Your prayer ritual involves replaying the past, loading one reel after another, footage of men who broke your heart, as if that's romantic or special, getting your heart broken. Meanwhile, those guys—like so many—were probably just allergic to emotion or seriousness of purpose or vulnerability. I'm not being a dick about it—ask any man and he'll back me up. Maybe they simply weren't mature enough to handle your or anyone else. And yet, the reel footage seems dramatic, the mystery seems compelling. How did you screw it all up? What did you do to turn them away? The problem lies somewhere in you, not in them. They were rational, intelligent beings whose rejections said something important about what's screwed up about you. If only you could figure out what it was!

Cobbling together a string of rejections by men and trying to make sense of them is like trying to read tea leaves. Why? Because single men have many, many allergies.

Most single men are gluten-sensitive, lactose-intolerant, asthmatic mutants. They can't tolerate wheat or soy or fleeting glimpses of heaviness. When they sense substance, regrets, high stakes, potential long-term entanglements, concern, interest, a pulse, they flee in terror like neurotic dogs in the presence of teetering lamps. The smallest change in weather, the tiniest shift in cabin pressure, the most minuscule adjustment in tone or mood sends them running.

It's not personal. It's not even interesting. It's certainly not the stuff of mystery, nothing to build a lifelong religion around. YOU ARE CURRENTLY PRAYING AT THE ALTAR OF THE MOST TEDIOUS RELIGION IN THE UNIVERSE. (I'm not shaming you! Sweet Christ in high heaven almighty NO, I understand. Every single woman reading this understands!) Go ask a man what he thinks about another man having rejected you. He'll snort like even contemplating it for half a second demeans both of you. If you push it, he'll say maybe the guy met someone on the subway, or maybe he had a bad reaction to some mussels and then he didn't feel like explaining it, or maybe he was bored. Guys assume that other guys are indifferent unless they have explicit proof otherwise.

So should you.

Instead of digging into the reasons for this state of affairs, instead treating it as your personal fucking responsibility to root out the problem and eradicate it, instead of redoubling your efforts to be more lovable and better, always approaching some infinite ideal of the whip-smart but easy-going professional with a body like a fuck doll, you need to take a good look at yourself and accept what you see. When it comes to love, at least, you must try to stop being or seeming "BETTER." You need to accept exactly who you are and stop wishing it would change, that you'd be more palatable to the masses. "I am a reasonably good-looking woman with a tendency to cry at the drop of a hat." "I am opinionated and impatient and I have a bad habit of fixating on stuff I don't understand." "I am bored by most people, and I wish I had the money and the space to own llamas."

When I finally decided to stop seeming cooler and more easy-going than I actually was, when I finally stopped pretending that nothing bothered me, that I didn't need to talk about heavy stuff or express my emotions, when I finally stopped seeing tears as a weakness (being utterly unable to cry is a pretty blatant weakness if you ask me), that’s when I realized that I was trying to truss up my weird in a shiny conventional package. Guys always thought I was a Lil' Debbie Snack Cake, but then they'd open the package and find anchovies and feel disappointed. Instead of questioning why I was spending time with guys who only craved fluff and sugar, I grew ashamed of my oily, salty nature. I tried to act sweeter, snackier, Lil'-er.

Anchovies don't have the easiest time imitating Ho-Hos. If you ever want to go insane, try behaving like something you're not. At my lowest points, I was (unconsciously) committed to repressing all ME-ness and approximating what I saw as my current boyfriend's ideal woman. Needless to say, I was not convincing at this charade. But I didn't even know that I was acting! I thought I was just trying to be less WRONG, less BAD, less CRAZY.

Why did I believe these things about myself? Because I often went out with men who liked me because I was semi-attractive and smart and funny. I often attracted these men by pouring on the charm, appearing nonchalant, appearing devil-may-care. My goal was to mask the fact that I was an extremely emotional, thoughtful, moody, obnoxious, demanding anchovy. These boyfriends wanted to make it work because they wanted a semi-attractive, smart, funny girlfriend, not because they wanted ME.

As long as you aim to please men, you don't. The second you decide to please yourself, guess what? Everybody wants a slice of that action. I'll never forget, right after I vowed to stop settling for mediocre, half-interested men (even if it meant becoming a dog lady, which suddenly seemed sort of appealing), I went to this wedding and I was mobbed by guys. I could finally see clearly that half of them just wanted to sleep with me, and weren't looking for anything serious. The other half was deluded into thinking I was super fun and easy going around the clock (um, no) and that seemed like a great kind of a girlfriend to have. Maybe one of them was actually into me, but he was wrong in thinking that we'd be good together. I could see that. It was like that moment where the kid who's never heard a single sound before fires up his Cochlear implant for the first time. My sudden ability to see attraction and rejection as a mere matter of appetite and taste and misinformation transformed my view of the world.

Strangely, everything started to pulsate with possibility! You'd think that marching around saying, "Oh, we wouldn't work. I'm way too bossy for you" might feel a little pessimistic, but instead it felt liberating. I was curious but detached until I could get more information. I wanted to fall in love with someone. That was my goal, and I wasn't shy about saying so. But I needed to see a real hunger for anchovies, to the point where nothing else would do.

So first, you have to break your bad nightly habit. But you MUST be totally committed to cutting this shitty religion of yours off at the knees. Before you go to bed at night, I want you to write down at least three things you're grateful for. They could be people, or places, or experiences. If you think of more, write those down, too. Then I want you to write down at least two things you did that day that you're proud of. If you didn't do anything that impressive, just write down something you did that was really just pure YOU. Maybe you made up a song about armpits, or ate two cronuts in one sitting, or ran four miles and then watched a really stupid episode of "CSI: Barcelona." Notice that you get credit for doing the so-called "wrong" thing, like napping, or eating butter bombs, or crying over a really good performance on "So You Think You Can Dance."

You are going to fall in love with what you have, and fall in love with who you are. Do not take the so-called BAD or WRONG things about you, that boyfriends or men or even women have told you, and try to "get rid" of those things. Put that stuff on the list right next to the stuff you're proud of. "Cried after hearing the 'Hugs are Fun' song on 'Yo Gabba Gabba.'" "Slipped on the stairs and wondered if my landlord thought I was drunk, then craved a drink." "Bailed on the dinner party and made mac and cheese out of a box instead, and it was awesome."

Your bitterness is caused by the notion that these men form one all-powerful, critical OZ that thinks you're not good enough. Everything you do during the day backs this up. You are rejectable. Look at how you fuck things up. Look how not-cute-enough you are. Look how grumpy. Look how not attractive your attitude can be.

You have to quiet the bad OZ voices, during the day and at night. Stop pushing back against a phantom. You are not a ghost, this creation of yours is. Maybe it's an echo of something from your childhood. Maybe it's just a bad cognitive habit you've had for a while. If it helps to map out a life alone—what could make that look better, look ok?—then do it. For me, I needed to think that, if I didn't find the right man, I'd definitely be pouring my time into crazy interesting things. I would learn to sew my own clothes and paint. I would adopt 15 dogs. I would write poetry on the walls of my dining room. Instead of being afraid of getting "weird" and "lonely," I needed to believe that I would engage with the world, create things, reveal myself to others as a serious freak without shame, and just generally throw myself into the world with abandon.

But I also respect your interest in sharing your life. Most of us feel the same way.

But you MUST stop fucking yourself over with this lazy, self-destructive nightly habit of yours. Do the things you need to do (show up to work, exercise, be good to your friends) and otherwise, give yourself exactly what you need to be happy, and do not punish yourself for a second. Give yourself love and attention and respect. Treat your thoughts and feelings like the precious gems that they are. Respect yourself enough to allow yourself to be stubborn, shy, recalcitrant, angry, confused. Forgive yourself for this Bitter Era, but proclaim that it's over.

Today, it ends. Buy a pretty notebook for your gratitude and your self-acceptance, and put it by the bed. Dare to believe that this could change you. Don't be cynical. Don't go through the motions with this. The Bitter Era is done. You are celebrating yourself now, who you are RIGHT NOW, not a week from now, not a year from now. You are looking for someone with a taste for you, and nothing less will do. Believe that there is someone who fits that description. Believe that you deserve it, you deserve to be loved. It's all going to work out just fine.

And when you finally find the right person for you, it will feel effortless. It will feel right. It won't be perfect, but it will still be worlds apart from these other relationships you've had. But you know what? You won't be surprised. Because once you build your own religion around gratitude and pride in who you are, at your best AND at your worst, you'll feel better than you ever have before. It will only seem natural for people to want to be closer to you.

Look around you, the way you're living now. Commit it to memory. Because everything is about to change.

Polly

Polly,

I just started reading your memoir and it gave me an existential jolt already.

"They were young and opinionated and stubborn and overwhelmed by violent emotions."

I am a man and I just turned 30. I definitely want to have kids, just not with the (31-year-old) woman I'm dating. I'm no longer young-young, have lost a lot of my opinionatedness, and my emotions have definitely mellowed. I'm still quite stubborn, though.

At what age should a person have kids? Should I dump my girlfriend (who also wants to have kids, but I just couldn't with her for a whole 'nother email's worth of reasons)?

Please help or advise,

Keenly Inquiring Disaster-Unprepared Sir

Dear KIDS,

If you know you want kids, and your life feels reasonably stable, and you don't feel like missing the occasional late-night party is going to break your heart, I'm an advocate for having kids in the first half of your 30s. You're still young enough that you won't be retiring just as your kids head off to college, and you're old enough that you won't be a selfish, temperamental, short-sighted parent (most of the time, anyway).

You and your girlfriend are still young and have some time. But if you know you don't want to have kids with her, you should do her a big favor and break up with her right now. Lots of women do themselves a huge disservice by playing it cool about kids and then they discover that their boyfriend has been ambivalent about them for years. Getting dumped at age 38 and feeling like you have to rush around and find the right guy immediately if you want kids? That sucks. I even knew a guy who dated his girlfriend for a decade, then married her, and then dumped her after she started doing IVF in her mid-40s. Of course she should've pushed the issue before then, but Jesus, what was he thinking? Once he gave her the heave-ho, he immediately met and married a 15-year-younger woman. Now that's a scenario that justifies a pretty big dollop of bitterness.

Why bide your time with your current girlfriend if you know she's not the one? What's the point? Having a pleasant life with someone who's vaguely ok really doesn't touch having an amazing life with someone you adore. Gently say goodbye to this woman and move on. When you live an honest life, and stand up for what's right, and try to do what's best for the people around you? That will make you a happier person—and a damn good parent, too.

Polly

Are you still pretty sure there's something really wrong with you? Write to Polly and she'll be happy to guess at what it is!

Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl's existential advice columnist. She's also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses. Beautiful little girl picture by Alan Turkus. Photo of perfectionist weirdo jerk by David Amsler.

The post Ask Polly: I Feel Bitter About All Of My Exes And I Can't Get Over It! appeared first on The Awl.

Polly,

I’m part of a three-way best friendship between two ladies who complete me. B is a fastidious, engaging, honest lunatic and L is a messy, cuddly, gregarious, drunken, motherly lunatic. I’m a mix of the two maybe? (Definitely also a lunatic.) We fit together and have for the past 15 years. Over those years we’ve traded boyfriends, towns, apartments, clothes; we’ve stayed up countless nights together; we’ve seen each other through petty and epic break-ups. I mean, we were all in our 20s together: it’s been crazy. B & L are my sisters.

Currently, I’m being driven a little crazy by a situation with B that I can’t seem to get over.

Several years ago when my then-boyfriend/now-husband and I were in the middle of a hard-fought reconciliation, B threw a party with her then-boyfriend/now-husband, E. There were drugs, loud music, strobing lights, alcohol and a smoke machine. That night E kissed me in the doorway and as soon as I felt his tongue I sprang back like I was bitten. No way did I want any part of that, I didn’t even want to kiss him in the first place but there was mistletoe hanging in the doorframe and I’ve been bred to be polite to men and acquiesce so I did. Anyway, the next night, B said she saw me kiss E. But not briefly in the doorway. She saw me on the floor, making out with him, like, hardcore. I denied it; she waved me off. I had done it, that was the end. I asked her if she was going to talk to E about it, she said no and, anyway, she had made out with his bff that night. I went to bed reeling. I was trying to reconcile with the love of my life and I did not remember kissing E AT ALL. I felt like she was gaslighting me so that it would be “okay” that she made out with his friend.

Anyway, fast forward a few years, we’re all married, I’m pregnant and E Facebooks me that I’m so sexy and awesome and it’s super uncomfy. I tell our third BFF, L, and we both kvetch for a minute and I decide it’s not worth the drama to tell B because it felt like it was tied somehow to that Christmas years ago and I was scared to have everything upended. Last holiday, we all get into a 3-way fight thanks to L who admits she’s not herself around us, not really, because we shame her and L heavily hints that none of us are really that honest anymore. Hint, hint. (L and I had talked recently about how B makes us feel like children and I brought up the making out accusation.)

Okay, so there’s the big drama. There’s also lots of little/big things that maybe are normal in such a long relationship. Like, I don’t feel like my feelings are very respected. For instance, B has only ever apologized to me once for that time that she literally stole my boyfriend though that’s as much his fault as hers and I didn’t much want him, anyway. She can be rude and insensitive and brittle so every few years, I lose my shit and write some long-winded email about how I’m struggling under her reign and basically she waves it off like I’m just being crazy.

This past spring I emailed about my NOT making out with E and how I felt gaslighted and how he hit on me via Facebook and we all got upset and didn’t talk for a day. She stuck to her story about absolutely seeing me make out with her husband (ugh) and confronted E about the email (he said he was trying to make me feel better because I’d gotten really fat while pregnant and was super insecure about it). I hated he knew anything about me, which is another issue: I feel like she doesn’t respect my privacy. Anyway, after 3 tense days, we all just sort of let it go. Had to. (I guess E is saying he remembers making out with me? I don’t really know how that works.) Then a few months later we got together and she asked some weirdly worded, sort of bullying questions about when I was going to wean my toddler (which I’m sensitive about) and I got upset and told her she was being rude and she… waved me off again.

So, look, I could go on and on and on about the good and the bad. On one hand, she is my soul-sister, my biggest support. I admire her and I love her. I’m godmother to her first-born son whom I adore. Cutting her out of my life doesn’t feel like an option I can live with but when I’m not on anti-anxiety meds, I can get all worked up about how all of this is friendship-ending shit. I’ve dropped the whole husband-making out conversation twice because I felt as though I would have to walk away from this friendship if I didn’t. I had to take my finger off the trigger or lose my best friend, the person who got me through my father’s death, me and my youngest brother’s current estrangement, sleepless nights as a new mother, etc. Obviously, it’s up to me to put this to rest but I'm struggling.

I always say the trick to a long relationship is a short memory but ACK. I’m haunted by everything that’s wrong about this relationship even though I value it so very much. How the fuck do I let this (and everything else) go?

Sincerely,

C (Obviously, the long-winded one)

Dear C,

I know that you love your friend and your intentions are good. You want to get everything out in the open. You want to clear the air. You want everyone to be honest with each other. You want to let this go.

If I had the tiniest bit of evidence that you've exercised self-restraint, listened to other people's feelings, opened your mind to the fact that two people can remember the same event in different ways, given others the benefit of the doubt, put yourself in your friends' shoes, and, above all, taken personal responsibility for your actions, then my advice to you would be very different.

Instead, here you are, waiting for an apology from B. But if I'm B, I'm still waiting for you to apologize for kissing my boyfriend/husband instead of writing long, attacking emails, repeatedly bringing up what I was doing that night (which is a separate issue since it didn't involve you or your boyfriend at the time), and casting aspersions on my marriage by gossiping to our mutual friend that my husband "hit on" you, when he says he only wanted to make you feel better about your weight. Instead, I have to eat shit for talking to my husband about my friends? And I have to tolerate your insistence that my memories are inaccurate?

I know that there's a lot of water under the bridge, and you guys have been friends for a long, long time. Those conditions make it very challenging to stop and take the other person's perspective. You have this long history that allows you to simply write B off as someone who thinks whatever she wants to think. You say that you're all lunatics, but you're sort of invested in the notion that she's worse. You firmly believe that you've put up with far more shit than she has.

But you're wrong. Dead wrong.

You know what B is doing when she waves you off? She's practicing restraint. Your refusal to listen to her side of the story makes her crazy.

So what if E really is hot for you? I'm not sure I buy it, based on the evidence at hand, but let's suppose it's the case. How do you think that feels for B? Should you maybe cut her a little slack for feeling some antipathy towards you over the years, considering your history of kissing her husband, regardless of whether or not you were on the floor? You're not even factoring in her possible lingering envy or jealousy or nagging notion that he once thought you were worth a drunken pass? And instead, she needs to apologize to you?

Basically, you're behaving like the immature twentysomething you were when you met these two friends. You need to grow up and start taking a hard look at the way you deal with the people who matter the most to you.

First, though, a word about long-winded, attacking emails: Don’t write them, ever. Don't write short attacking emails. Don't write short, mildly aggressive emails. Friendship troubles are not solved via email, period. Unless you are apologizing, don't write. Here's your friend, walking around, trying to be cool about the fact that her husband thought you were hot at one point (clearly B mentioned your weight gain and insecurity to him PRECISELY BECAUSE that kiss still weighs on her mind). At some point, you should've recognized her emotions about this and told her, "Look, we'll never agree on exactly what happened, but I'm so sorry that ANYTHING happened. Because nothing should've happened, period. I made a big mistake, plain and simple."

Instead, though, she has to walk around feeling vaguely haunted by this event, and then she has to field a long email from you in which you 1) insist on setting the record straight once and for all, 2) paint yourself as the victim of her "gaslighting," instead of acknowledging her feelings, and to top it all off 3) accuse her husband of hitting on you RECENTLY. If I were her, I'd definitely be doing more than just grumbling and casting aspersions on your breastfeeding choices.

She's rude to you because you refuse to apologize or take responsibility for yourself. Even if you've apologized before, you should do it again. You should demonstrate that you understand that she still has strong feelings about the kiss/ make out, and that it still bothers her. You wonder why she isn't over it. You know what I wonder? Why are you such a fucking stickler about being right about a crazy, drunken shared memory like that one, when it's a memory that hurts her, not you? What skin do you have in this game? She needs to understand that you didn't want anything to happen with him, right? That you aren't a bad friend at heart? She wants you to help her get over the feeling that he once had a thing for you? But every single time you bring it up, you insist on your version of events, you re-accuse her of invented crimes, AND you suggest that he's STILL into you?

Dude. YOU are the wound.

Now, I know you don't believe me. I'm sure I've gotten some detail wrong that justifies ignoring my entire response, because that's how you seem to operate. And look, I'm sure I AM wrong about something in this picture. But I'm not wrong about your inability to own up to your own missteps and mistakes and fuck-ups. If you don't believe anything else that I've told you, believe this one thing: You need to take a close look at how you move through the world, because you're stepping on people's toes left and right.

Do not send any more long, angry emails, ever. Pick up the phone and call your friend and start with an apology, then listen. Do it when you're in a good mood and have an open heart. If you have an urge to argue, set things straight, prove that you're right, just don't do it. It's her turn to tell you the truth about what she's been through with you.

Finally, you must see a therapist on a weekly basis. Tell her or him that you really want to look closely at your behavior without fear and defensiveness, so you can grow up and be a good friend, wife and parent.

I'm sure you're incredibly charming and wonderful otherwise. You long-winded types usually are. I bet you're worth every bit of the bullshit you put your friends through. Maybe you're not getting enough love and understanding right now, plus you've got a little kid who's clinging to you around the clock, and you're afraid to say no. Your fear of saying no, though, is what gets you into trouble. You think "How could I be a bad person making bad choices? All I ever want is to make other people happy!" But that's where bad choices come from, don't you see? They come from slavishly trying to make other people happy, then resenting them for it secretly (or not-so-secretly).

You need to see a therapist and learn to take care of yourself a little better. You need to learn to say no. Once you start to say no when you really don't want something, that's when you'll be flexible enough to look at the past and say, "Fuck, I handled that wrong." This kiss with E isn't about the kiss itself anymore. It's about how badly you handled it, then and now. You haven't stopped handling it badly. Because you're incredibly defensive. Because you're worried that you're crazy.

You ARE crazy, because you're so afraid of being crazy that you can't admit when you're wrong. That's the definition of nuts: not being able to admit when you fuck up. The second you take an unforgiving look at what you've done in the past, and how you handle things now, and how it must feel to be on the receiving end of your diatribes, and how it must feel to have your close friend claim that your husband is hitting on her? In that second, you will be a million times more evolved than you are now. You just have to make the choice to be wrong—really, truly wrong, thoroughly mistaken—for once in your life.

You are wrong about a lot of things. Admitting that can actually be liberating. You'd be amazed at how good it feels. It makes everything much easier and more relaxing. And people want to be around you a hell of a lot more, too.

Good luck.

Polly

Dear Polly,

I’ve a problem with my best friend.

You see, we are pretty tight, me and her—Thelma and Louise, talk-for-ages-on-the-phone-despite-the-fact-that-we-hung-out-the-same-day, really-truly-understand each other type tight. I'm very happy and lucky to have her, and—my immediate family excluded—she is definitely the most important person in my life.

However, of all the things we really truly understand about each other, there's one thing about her that I don't understand, and it's been bugging me forever: despite us knowing each other for over 15 years and being BFFs for over 10 of those, and how well she treats me in all other aspects, I've come to see that I'll always, always come second to whoever it is that she's dating at the moment.

I should elaborate. Me and her, we have distinctly different romantic lives and ways of approaching that whole aspect of our existence: while she got her first boyfriend at 16 and has practically never been single since [she has dated a lot of people, but most of those were pretty serious relationships], I have only dated one guy that was really close to me—for about 2 years, and only after I turned 22; while she barely talks about anything else, and cannot even imagine life without a significant other, I tend to put romantic interests pretty high on my priorities list, but definitely not higher than everything else, including my friendship with her. We are vastly different, and I respect that.

Thing is, I’ve come to realize she'd still value even the guy she's been dating for two months [for example] over me—despite us having been much closer, for much longer, and the fact that as always, I’ll be the one standing next to her when their relationship falls apart and she needs support. I've always been very careful not to put her in a position where she'd have to choose between me and her current beau; it'd put unnecessary tension on our friendship, and it would make her uncomfortable. But sometimes it's unavoidable, or she’d make it unintentionally obvious—and I've come to understand it with a painful clarity: while I believe in friendship as the purest, more valuable of human relationships, and always put her first, she'd always prefer her boyfriends, or sometimes just guys in general, regardless of how serious her relationship to them is.
[I’m talking stuff like paying more attention or spending free time only with them if she has limited amounts of it at the moment, guy emergencies always taking priority over best friend emergencies, or willing to put me in relatively uncomfortable positions to get guys to like her, etc.]

I tried talking to her about it a bit—and she agreed and then shrugged it off, telling me that's just the way she is and she can't help it.

Now I realize how rare a good friendship is, and would definitely hate to lose her, for any reason; I also know that no one’s perfect, and I probably tick her off in some ways, myself. Thirdly, I know that trying to change anyone is a huge no-no—both because they probably won't, or even can't, and because people should be loved for who they are instead of being turned into hobby projects.

That being said… is there any way to make her see that years and years of support and understanding are more important than the mere existence of a Y chromosome? Am I even right in thinking that? Or am I simply being egocentric—or a naïve girl, brainwashed by too many examples of the 'friends over guys!'-type chick pop culture?

And even if I am right, is that even a serious enough problem for me to be concerned?

Thank you so much for your help in advance.

Fighter For Friendship

Dear FFF,

I know exactly how you feel, but I think you need to be patient. Women who place their boyfriends/partners/husbands over their girlfriends do so for a lot of very personal reasons, not all of which amount to immaturity. It's tough to say why your friend is the way she is, but I don't really think you'll have any success in trying to change this aspect of her personality. You could sit her down and say, "I wish you could see things the way I do, because you and I will always be friends while men come and go. I wish you could see how important we'll always be to each other."

Maybe that's worth saying. But as long as she's generally good to you, I wouldn't expect her to change her ways dramatically.

This is my guess: She wants to find the right guy. It's high on her priority list. When this phase ends—either when she finds someone, or gets over this as her central obsession—she's likely to value you a lot more. Love and emotional security are something she craves so much that she just can't manage to think about much else. She doesn't realize that when a woman is careful to give a lot to her female friends, to trust in them and rely on them, it strengthens her ability to stand up for herself and confidently develop trusting relationships with men, too.

It's true that your friend could end up disappearing into a marriage and becoming even more remote. I don't really think she'll do that, based on what you've said. I think that she'll become more secure and less obsessed with men, and that will allow her to see how precious your friendship is.

If situations come up where she's discounting your feelings for the sake of a man, you have to address that when it happens, and be very clear about the behavior you expect to see from a close friend.

If she's being a good friend in general, though, you just need to accept that you two are very different. Tell her you love her and want her to see how crucial and important female friendships are. Encourage her to reshuffle her priorities, if you can do it gently. But be respectful of how she feels about this. You're not wrong to believe in female friendships, not at all. But she's not wrong to believe in love, either.

Polly

Who's bugging the shit out of you today? Tell Polly right now!

Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl's existential advice columnist. She's also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses. Top photo by faith_lee. Illustration published by Auchincloss & Bro., from the Boston Public Library.

The post Ask Polly: My Best Friend Is A Lunatic Who Owes Me An Apology! appeared first on The Awl.

Dear Polly,

My ex and I broke up nearly a year ago, after five years together. It was mutual, yet for different reasons: he was depressed with and questioning his life choices, which our relationship was tied to (living a vagabond life at artist residencies, being stupidly unemployed artists and putting that above all else). I realized that I had been questioning our relationship, and my lack of desire for him, for some time; I was finally offered a way out. I’m not sure if I would have gone through with the break-up if it wasn’t something he wanted as well. It was sad but amicable, and we remained in intermittent contact.

Several months later, he came to me and said he “chose clarity.” He wanted to get married, or get whatever-it-was-I-wanted-if-marriage-scared-me. It was out of the blue, though not entirely unexpected. But I was not in that same emotional place. I love him, but my questions about that love (i.e. Is this the type of love that I want in my life, is it the love he deserves) haven’t changed. So I said, “I don’t know.” And he said, “Okay, I’ll wait until you know.”

We weren’t sure what that waiting would look like. I told him that waiting for me was his choice, not mine, but I didn’t tell him not to wait. Finally, after a four months (of what in retrospect was probably me “stringing him along” but at the time did not feel that way), I said no.

He still wants me to fight for him. A big part of me wants to, or perhaps wants to want to.

I don’t trust myself and have been having a very difficult time accessing what it is I want and feel. I was certainly afraid to say “I don’t love you enough.” And I’m equally afraid to say “I love you enough to try to love you enough.” The questions that have paralyzed me: was this a slump before a rise, or a symptom of an unfulfilling relationship? Were our bickering and our opposing views of the world a behavioral pattern that could be worked on in therapy, or did they reflect a fundamental divide we’d never cross? There is a hardness to him that I see him working against now (for him and for me), but is it truly workable? Many times I felt mistreated in this, spoken to in a way I never want to be spoken to. I know I want someone who will allow me to experience the world the way I experience it, without philosopher-attacking me at every move, someone who will listen softly, but I also want to be challenged. We have a deep respect for each other, though sometimes there was a lack of surface, simpler respect. We have mutual life/career goals, though I don’t know yet if I want children and he probably does.

I have been of two minds about this for so long, and I’m so tired. I feel violently ambivalent: I feel thrilled about and terrified by both scenarios (a life with him and a life without him). I’ve said no to put us both out of our misery, but now am terribly frightened I’ll regret it. I appreciate the way you’ve talked about your own marriage, how you know. But what if that’s just not the case with everyone? What if, for the rest of us less lucky fools, there is no knowing ever? What if at the five-year mark in every relationship, I get bored of sex with that person, and I start questioning everything else? (Our relationship started off without intensity, but my only “intense” experiences in love have been fleeting, not sustainable.) What if all my flaws surface in the same ways in other partnerships and I just don’t know the difference of when to work on something and when to quit? What if I’m simply afraid of commitment or making choices at all? I’m trying to meditate, to be quiet around this, and calm the head-chatter and thought-loops, to get at what’s subtle. When I am able to step away from all this questioning, I feel good and self-sufficient, and confident about myself in the world when visualizing either situation.

I’m sure the way I’m writing this story out to you (thanks for a place to do so, and being you and reading letters) is very telling. Maybe I’m trying to come up with excuses for him, or maybe this is me trying to “defend my relationship in a court of law,” as you stated in an old letter, which I feel I could do. (I admit I was trying to find a letter to you that was exactly parallel to my situation so I didn’t have to write this!) I’ve had to defend my relationship to my friends who don’t think he’s "right" for me or treats me well, and defend myself to friends who love both of us and us together. And it all makes me feel exhausted. (Not to mention guilt that comes with thoughts like: There are more important things/problems in the world I could be spending this energy on.) I'd love to hear any advice on quieting the hell down, what to do, or just how to BE.

Thank you for your time!

Sincerely,

Noncommittal Nancy

Dear NN,

It sounds to me like you want to convince yourself to feel things that you don't feel. You're trying to come to some logical conclusion about your relationship, but logic has nothing to do with it. Your gut won't let you move forward with him. Your thoughts are trying to override your gut, but your gut is saying "No fucking way."

Your thoughts are telling you that no one is perfect, and leaving this man behind might be a big mistake. They're telling you that not everyone has the luxury of holding out for True Love. But you didn't even have intense feelings at the very start of this relationship! That alone is a big deal. You've already spent 5 years with someone you're pretty wishy washy about. The only reason you're even considering this guy is because a) you're attached to him after all this time and b) you've lost sight of the fact that love can feel so much stronger and better than this—intense, exciting AND comfortable.

The amount of thinking that's in the mix here, at the expense of feeling, is a great big red flag. You just took a page and a half to spell out your ambivalence in abstract terms. This appears to be his approach as well, based on his very clinical resolution to "choose clarity." You listen to your head-chatter and your thought-loops, and he engages in philosopher-attacking—which, by the way, sucks. Here you are, trying to overcome an overthinker's circular thought patterns, and everything you say is deconstructed philosophically? In my experience, that approach not only isn't remotely helpful, it's also not a sign of smarts so much as a sign of someone who is afraid of emotions and compulsively seeks to defuse them with a flood of theoretical nonsense.

The only whiff of emotion I can find in your letter relates to 1) the fact that there's a hardness to him, and you don't feel well-treated, and 2) the feeling of satisfaction you get when you're able to step back and see the future objectively. I don't need to ask if he's there when you feel that way, because it's obvious that he isn't.

This guy doesn't bring you peace or comfort. That doesn't mean he's shitty, it just means he's not right for you. You feel confused about a future with him in part because you feel traumatized by the times he's been careless with you. He says that he loves you, but something tells you that he also has contempt for you, so you can't trust his love completely. You have felt attacked and not heard. On top of that, you're bored with him sexually. Why? Because it doesn't feel like he's guarding your heart, or respecting who you are emotionally, underneath all of the statements of mutual respect.

I have a hunch that this boyfriend of yours is all about making statements, choosing clarity, choosing commitment, being resolute, but it never feels all that spontaneous or natural. He's trying to lend structure to the chaos swirling around inside of him.

Fuck that. You want to be in love. You want to feel safe. You want to know that you've chosen the right person. And yes, if this were right, you would know it already. It's not right.

In fact, I don’t know if I've ever had a stronger reaction from any "I'm on the fence about this guy" letter (that didn't include abusive or wildly dysfunctional details). You think that you've just told me why you should be with him, but all you really did was leak out a flood of reasons why he feels wrong for you. That wasn't your intention, but that's how it came out.

Based on what you've written here, I see you with someone who knows he loves you at a gut level, someone who doesn't hide behind long-winded, detached, vaguely condescending stances (that I'm willing to bet aren't grounded in smarts so much as fear). I see you with a guy who wouldn't dream of making you feel threatened or sad. I don't think you have a commitment problem at all. I think you'll be very, very good at committing to the right guy. You understand commitment. You know how to work hard. You know how to accept a reasonable number of flaws. And when you find a guy who is a little softer and sweeter and kinder to you, who loves you for your weaknesses AND your strengths (and yes, guys like that do exist), you will thank your lucky stars that you didn't settle for your ex.

You need someone who can be still with you and appreciate the moment. You need a calming influence. You need someone who is passionate but pragmatic, loving but not overly critical.

You have lots of talent and a great big brain and you need a partner who can give you lots of love and warmth and space to grow. You don't have that now. You have someone who takes up all of the space, who makes you jumpy and neurotic and confused and angry.

Life is way to short to settle for the wrong person. You know that if you stay with this guy, you'll not only be settling, but you'll also be dealing with lots of harshness and frustration and loneliness. Screw that. You should hold out for a great match. And until you find it, you can enjoy the relative solitude and thrilling independence of being alone, of finally not being held back or twisted in knots by someone who WANTS to choose clarity but isn't there yet.

You aren't noncommittal. Resolve not to settle for less than you deserve from now on. Set those thought-loops aside and follow your heart.

Polly

Dear Polly,

I'm not sure I love my wife, which probably means I don't—I doubt it's love if you have to wonder about it. (Both of us are in our mid-forties, married for twelve years.) If I could go back in time, I wouldn't marry her. So, there's the final nail in the question of love, I guess.

She loves me, but treats me like a punching bag. If that's love, I don't want to love anyone. Ferocious temper: quick to anger, slow to forgive, loath to apologize when it turns out she was in the wrong. I never know what's going to set her off, and her explanations are hard to follow. My offenses seem minor relative to the rage they cause. I've just never fucked up that bad. She's not mad because I, whatever, offered her a napkin; it's that I interrupted her, or was about to interrupt her, or wasn't listening, or won't admit that I was about to interrupt, or I have a bad attitude. Other people seem to like me, so it's hard to reconcile that with my wife's insistence that I am a uniquely exasperating person.

Sometimes, when everything is perfect, I see the funny, caring, kind person she would be if she weren't with me. Perfection is hard to maintain, though. A few years ago, I took a hard look at my artistic career and realized that I didn't have the commitment, working environment, or (ahem) talent to reproduce the minor success that I'd found in my home country. So, I'm not just annoying, I'm an annoying failure.

I play the role of the thick-skinned, patient husband to the ball-of-fire wife—"Sure, she's a handful, but you know, it's worth it." (The last part is secretly not true. (I also have no one to talk to about this.)) What can I do? Being treated like this hurts, and pretending it doesn't is taking years off my life. Occasional attempts to stand up for myself have not gone well. She's more willing than I will ever be to make scenes, miss flights, go nuclear. What I am supposed to do—put her in a headlock?

We both love where we live, and she could never afford it on her own. I pay the rent, and have managed to keep a roof over our head even when I was nearly unemployed. She is awesomely frugal and has amassed enough savings to find a place on her own, but I know it would break her heart to leave. I do a lot of my work here. It would let down my business partner and employees if I had to leave, and I couldn't afford to keep my wife here in any case. If she left, she'd move back home and beat up on her mother the way she does me now.

We have talked about marriage counseling in the past. I've suggested that her anger is ruining her life too, and that she would benefit from therapy. Of course, I know it would do me good as well, but I'm not sure I could go through with it—I feel like I'm cheating just writing this.

I've told her before that I can't continue, and we've agreed to pull the plug more than once. I've told her, too, that my unhappiness stems from her unwillingness to control her anger.

For my wife, it's my behavior that's the problem. What we need to work on, then, is identifying the things I do that annoy and upset her and stop doing those things. Having grown up in a family of alcoholics, I am very familiar with this kind of thinking (though to be clear, my wife is absolutely not addicted to anything). Anyway, she'd rather get divorced than live with someone who can't accept her for who she is, is her answer to suggestions that she change. Maybe I should move in with her mother—in a way, we're each other's only ally.

Anyway, this is my problem. I've never been happily married (irrationally thinking that marrying my angry girlfriend would settle her down). Divorce would leave a negative net balance of happiness in the universe, since my wife's unhappiness (and that of the people she'd take it out on) would outweigh whatever happiness I'd gain. I think sometimes I could ride out the rest of my life like this, but other times I get tied up in knots thinking, what if we'd had kids? What if we had a sex life? Is this even fair to her? If she really thinks that we have a happy, fulfilling life together, how can I take that away from her? I hate to think that she's happy to be married to a voodoo doll to stick pins in and take her anger out on. Our problems are nothing in the scheme of things. I'm lonely, but not sure loneliness is really the worst thing in the world. Is happiness worth it? What would you do if you were me?

Could be worse

Dear CBW,

If I were you, I would find a therapist and I'd talk to that therapist about my low self-esteem, my overwhelming guilt, my inability to say no to people even when I know they're taking advantage of me, and my habit of taking responsibility for other people as if they're my pets or my children.

If I were you, I would probably also leave my (critical, won't budge, doesn't want couples' therapy, thinks the problem is you) wife. Yes, happiness is BEYOND worth it.

It sounds to me like your wife is an overgrown child who needs to be alone in order to grow up. She doesn't respect you because you don't stand up to her. She is taking advantage of your weakness by controlling you and bending you completely to her will. Worrying about how she'll fare without you is commendable, but that's what's kept you locked into this for too long already. You can be supportive and kind and gentle and try to split up without having it get contentious. But you should not keep yourself from leaving in a misguided attempt to protect her from the truth about herself. You've propped her up for long enough, and now it's time for her to learn to stand on her own two feet. In my opinion, you'll both be happier if you break up. From what I can tell, she's as unhappy with you as you are with her.

So that's what I would do: guide her gently toward an amicable split, no blame, no shouting, no nastiness. Be kind and patient with her. But insist that it's over. Then I would slowly set about rebuilding my life. Yes, you will miss her. You will wish you weren't alone. You'll wonder if this decision makes you a horrible asshole. That's just how it'll feel. Don't be discouraged. You are making a bold choice to give yourself the things you need, maybe for the first time ever.

You can be happy. You have to believe that. You need to rebuild your life from the ground up. You need to learn to be a different kind of a person in the world. I bet you'll find a great little apartment that you love, and you'll start feeling really good, unexpectedly good. I bet you'll make some new friends and have some exciting new experiences and maybe you'll even fall in love.

You've only wasted the first half of your adult life with a woman who's been brutally harsh to you. Don't waste the second half.

Best of luck,

Polly

Are you also wasting the first half of your adult life? Write to Polly and find out!

Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl's existential advice columnist. She's also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses.

Confusion Hill picture by Amit Patel; divorce cake photo by Wee Lakeo.

The post Ask Polly: I Feel Violently Ambivalent About My Boyfriend… So Should We Get Married? appeared first on The Awl.

Dear Polly,

When is it too soon for an ultimatum? What is a good sign to leave something that's showing complications?

Although it is early, I have been seeing this guy for around 5 weeks. He lives down the road from me (1 block) but we ironically met online.

He is a 21-year-old bachelor, a major player who has never had a real relationship, not to mention he has been with more girls than my fingers and toes, doubled. He is a guy living with guys who has moved out of home less than 12 months ago. He is extremely passionate about his job, to the point it gives him anxiety. He knows he has to settle his bachelor ways down if he wants to do well and gain a respectful name in the industry he is in. He is Italian and very good looking and by all means has everything going for him.

Myself, 21, I moved away from a small town on the other side of the country to a major city just under 12 months ago. I have travelled to Europe and done countless things on my own. I have grown and my career and life is just beginning to blossom and I am at the point that I am ready to find someone to at least enjoy spending time and being young with. Commitment maybe on the cards but not until I am comfortable and it's at least reciprocated.

He and I first off exchanged numbers on the online dating website, then began talking—at the time I was seeing other people, nothing serious but I felt the need to meet new guys and explore my surroundings. He stuck around and even if it was a text a week, I would still hear from him. We got to the point where we decided we should meet, I suggested we have a coffee and he admitted he was socially shy and that the thought of having a coffee on a first meeting scared him. I reassured him and said I had done it a million times before. Leading up closer to our meeting, we exchanged photos of us and he called me gorgeous, etc. The D day came and I never heard from him. I mean, not even a blow off text. I didn't hear from him until Monday the following afternoon when his "phone apparently screwed up." Although I knew it was a lie, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and asked did he want to meet that night. He accepted and came over.

I reaffirmed to him that if he were to come over, he wouldn't be "getting lucky." He said he didn't have that in mind. He was just happy to get to know someone new. We talked and got to know each other. He was quiet and wouldn't look at me and I thought he wasn't interested until he locked eyes with me and we kissed. He told me about him wanting to settle and have a relationship, that he wasn't one to kiss and tell and he wasn't the most perfect of guys. None of which bothered me as I know plenty of imperfect men. We hit it off really well. I received a message from him the following day, "I felt I got extremely lucky albeit you saying I wouldn't get lucky when I came over."

We met up at my house two days later and the same thing followed. I would say that the sexual tension was building up from there.

The following week we had sex. That became a regular pattern, hanging at my place. I felt like a convenient booty call. He did say he felt lucky because I was like the girl next door. The following week, I house-sat for my friend and we were supposed to see a movie but his work got in the way. Later in the week, his family was another excuse. All apologies were lengthy text messages, but I couldn't help but feel a little skeptical. Then he came over after dinner with his family the last night I was house-sitting and stayed the night. We slept, talked and cuddled all night and he left midday the next day.

Then he became inconsistent with his texts, saying he has been busy with work etc. We caught up last Wednesday and went for a walk to the park, where we talked and cuddled. Having not been physical for three weeks, there was a lot of sexual tension and with his housemate waiting for him in the car out front, we sneaked into his house for a thrilling quickie (my first time at his house). After that we made plans to see a movie Sunday night.

Sunday comes, and I had not heard from him for almost 3 days. He texts me at 6 p.m., telling me he had been out with his brothers, out of cell reach and that he was with his parents but might be able to come over later. I advised him I wouldn't be available and maybe another time.

He texts me the following day, asking to catch up, I had a free night after dinner with a friend and he came over. I decided to pop my sexy night wear on and give him a little surprise as I was in high spirits after a bottle of wine at dinner. We have sex, we kiss, talk, spoon. After a couple of hours he leaves. He cuddles me and kisses me saying I'll text you sometime in the week.

By then, I was fed up…

I messaged him this:

First text:

Hey. How was your day?

Last night was so much fun and I am genuinely enjoying getting to know and spending time with (and being cheeky with) you. I was wondering though if we could possibly try something different outside my four walls next time we hang out? What do you think?
Sent at 4pm

Second text:

I just want to make it clear, I am not asking for a date; it would just be nice to have a drink or a coffee with you because right now I just feel like a booty call for whenever it is convenient for you. I want to make it clear that this is not what I am after and before I begin to really care about you, I think I should save myself the heartache and maybe let you find a girl who is just more suited for what you're after right now.
Sent at 8:16pm

Third text:

I am sorry. I just wanted to express how I feel as I would much rather not get hurt and I would rather be open and honest with you.
9:50pm

I have heard nothing. Now all the signs are pretty clear he's playing me big time, but did I do the right thing in giving him an ultimatum?

Sincerely,

Square Pegs, Round Holes

Dear SPRH,

The term "ultimatum" doesn't really apply here, but you certainly did the right thing in asking "Can we see each other during the day, in public, or are you a vampire?"

Moving forward, though, you have a very specific sort of a problem. Your problem is that you're a very attractive woman with an easy-going nature and a great phone for tapping out very long texts. This combination of factors is going to bring you a whole hell of a lot of agony if you're not careful.

Before we delve into how you're going to avoid said agony, listen to me very closely: We're going to talk about some of your missteps, but that doesn't mean you should feel bad about them. Almost every woman alive has made the exact same mistakes fifty million times. You shrugged off his initial blow-off. (Cue giant memory reel.) You encouraged him to meet you at your place instead of out in the world somewhere. (Cue larger, X-rated reel.) You proceeded to meet him in private repeatedly, never insisting that you two hang out in public like someone he actually takes seriously or gives a shit about. (Cue firing of old familiar insecurity synapses.) And then, horror of horrors, you asked for more from him, but via text! And you kept explaining yourself, via text! (Cue sound of nails being hammered into coffin.)

Dudettes of the universe, listen to me. Never ever fucking explain anything, ever. Cue up "Hush Now, Don't Explain" as sung by Billie Holiday. Make that your goddamn jam for life, people.

But, Round Hole, you're doing the universe of Dudettes a giant service by submitting to us your actual texts for close critical examination. Right now I want to zoom in on a particularly interesting passage in Ill-fated Text #2:

"I just want to make it clear, I am not asking for a date."

Q: What is wrong with this statement? A: THIS STATEMENT IS FALSE. Unless by "Let's try something different outside my four walls" you actually meant wrestle wild boars or make mud pies in your back yard, what you're asking for is, in fact, a date. You want a date.

So what happens when you ask for a date but then you back up and claim that's not what you're asking for? 1. You sound crazy. 2. You sound like a liar. 3. You sound like someone who doesn't know how to stand up for what she wants. 4. You sound like someone who settles for less than what she really wants, then gets crazy and lies when settling for less starts to fail you. 5. You sound like someone he could very easily take advantage of, in private, indefinitely. Easy in every sense of the word, but not in an exciting sort of a way. (Not that he matters, mind you, because he's not your guy. He is yesterday's bad news.)

Now, keep in mind, I'm not saying you did something outrageously fucked that none of the rest of us single women and former single women haven't done so many times it makes our feet itch just contemplating it. No! You did something very, very normal. Everyone has a stint as little miss "It's not like I want a boyfriend or anything" and "Dating? What's that? That sounds silly, tee hee!" When you make the words coming out of your mouth sound cool and casual like a Liz Phair song? OK, fine, a Ke$ha song? You pay.

Instead, tell people exactly what you want. Here's my revision to text #1: "Last night was fun. Let's go have dinner on Wednesday. Are you free?" Message received. Outcome in this case? No different. But—bonus!—you don't have to feel like a sea slug on the bottom of the ocean floor over it, because you didn't sound needy or liary or crazy, and you didn't leave the tiniest door open for someone to slide their piece-of-shit Square Peg back into your Round Hole again.

You know what "I'm not asking for a date" does, though? It encourages neighbor guy to PUNISH you for requesting a date by avoiding you for a few days or weeks, but it also guarantees that the next time Dipshit gets horny, he's back at your door (after he's done having fun somewhere else with people he doesn't mind seeing during daylight hours) (like, um, his actual girlfriend?). Don't think for a second that this thing is over in his mind. Once you make it clear that your Round Hole is open for business 24-7, you'll never shake off the nervous pussy hounds of the world.

You're in danger of being used over and over, and feeling like you're nuts and the problem is you. You, of all people in the world, must pay very close attention to how much a guy actually likes you. Yes, I know you long for sex just as much as any guy. We all do. But do you truly want to be giving it up, then sending needy texts and then claiming you don't want anything, JUST PLEASE TEXT ME BACK ALREADY? Do you really want to feel like the hot slut down the block who's never met his friends?

Even if you take the attitude of "I'm in control of this. I don't care what guys think, I want sex and I'll get it whenever I want it"? You've still got to assume that guys think you're a piece of ass. Which absolutely wouldn't matter if their perspective hadn't been used to make women feel like second-class sub-human half-persons for several centuries running. But these things do not occur in a cultural vacuum. If you're treating him like a piece, and he's treating you like a piece, and you tell your friends, "He's kind of a snore, but great in the sack " and he tells his friends, "She bores me, but she sucks a mean cock," well, in theory, that should work just fine. On the planet Earth, in the country United States, though, you're the one with a problem. He overhears you objectifying him? He feels proud. You overhear him talking about how you polish the family jewels like a pro? You want to kick his teeth out AND you feel like a dirty little Hoover who doesn’t even deserve a real-live boyfriend. Sorry, but you do feel that way and you know it, and if you didn't you'd be some kind of an alien life form who doesn't feel real feelings.

OK, fine. If you NEVER EVER feel demeaned by such talk, and you REALLY TRULY DO NOT WANT A BOYFRIEND OR A DATE, then that's a whole different story. Clearly, I have no personal beef with promiscuous women. The world is packed full of proud current and former sluts. We keep the wheels of modern industry turning, as a matter of fact. (Can we please reclaim just that one word, slut? Please? Don't make me give it up.) Because sluts' dreams really do come true. Believe it. To loosely paraphrase a wise man from "Deadwood," those who seek to denigrate us suck cock by choice.

Nonetheless, if you want a boyfriend, or just a date? Never, ever pretend not to. There's no shame in asking, flat out, to be treated like a human being and not a secret, hidden stash of late-night ass. (And no shame in BEING a secret, hidden stash of late-night ass, if that's your dream. Many of us dreamed that dream in time gone by. Hopes weren't the only thing that were high, either, me mateys!)

So here's what you have to do, Round Hole:

1. Resolve to never, ever meet someone for the first time at your place, OR to spend time with a guy who asks to meet you at your place instead of out in public. It's not even SAFE to meet some creep at your place for the first time. Go out on at least three dates in public without sleeping with him. Get to know him. Listen to what he says about himself. Pay attention to how closely he listens to you when you talk. If he's in the least bit distracted, make it 4 dates. On the fourth date, please ask yourself, "Is this guy even interesting? Is it worth my time to sleep with him and get all attached to him, when I'll have to listen to him speak like this, on and on and on about shit I actually don't consider all that interesting?" These are questions that plague his brain within seconds of meeting you. The least you could do is ask yourself the same questions eventually.

Now, I'm not saying that every woman alive should wait for date #3 to sleep with a guy. But those of us who have trouble waiting? And then we wonder why guys treat us with vague indifference, like we're a half-eaten bag of chips that fell in their lap and they weren't even sure if they were hungry in the first place? We need to cut the "I'm too awesome not to do whatever the fuck I want!" routine and start protecting ourselves from ourselves a little.

This especially applies to you women who like to drink a lot, play pool, watch random bullshit on TV, shoot the shit, play videogames for hours on end, tease, insult, hit the bong, go with the flow, etc. You're in as much danger as Round Hole here, because men are going to want to have you around for both the good hang AND the bonus sex. BUT: That doesn't mean they actually love who you really are deep down inside. Know what I mean? I think you do. Let this be your mantra: THREE DATES. Three really good dates. If you want to fuck around occasionally, fine, but you've been warned.

2. Resolve to never send more than two short texts in a row without a response, and never, ever send long Big Important Question texts. (This is to protect your emotional state, not his.)

While we're at it…

3. Do not seek answers. If you know the guy is super flinchy, why bother? You can simply ask for what you want. Don't ask how he feels. He's either going to step up and show you how he feels, or he's going to skank around looking for round holes elsewhere. You don't need to add extra-demeaning rejection and IGNORE on top of the ignore you're already getting. Protect yourself. Don't hang yourself out to dry. That's you being mean to you. You're worth more than that.

4. Don't explain yourself in elaborate detail. God, if I could take back my long, long emails about everything my heart ever desired! Oof. Half the time, all I needed was to say, "Do you want to get together Friday? Because this is starting to seem half-hearted, and I'm not all that interested in half-hearted, half-assed dalliances at the moment. I have other candidates waiting for your spot." Ok, that last part could, in some cases, be a lie, but it's a lie that says, "Of course I'm in demand, dummy." So it's worth it.

And you know what? Other candidates ARE waiting for his spot. Maybe those other candidates don't know it yet, but they will, once you reinstate your online profile and you start to make it crystal clear that you are not interested in any screwing around, half-assed, round hole routine. Instead, stick with having coffee.

But put on your skeptic's cap. It's not just about "Is this guy a player?" It's about "Does this guy actually like to listen to ME when my mouth is moving? Does he want to know all about ME? Is he anxious to know if I'm dating anyone else? Does he want to do things together during the day? Does he find me singularly interesting and special?"

And even if he does like you, don't dive right in immediately. Spend time together. See how you feel. Maybe you want to jump his bones, but does he really seem like a good guy? Does he have any friends? Does he like to talk about emotions at all? Is he someone your friends would like?

Enough with the vampires. You don't need ultimatums, you need hard and fast rules for yourself, to keep from getting entangled with bullshitters. The world is filled with them. You should hold out for better. And when you don't, you should at least know better. Because once you walk down the path to Booty Call, you can't just text your way into a different category.

So that happened. It sometimes does. But now let's try this a different way.

Polly

Are you in a relationship that grew out of a booty call and you wonder if he or she was ever really in love to begin with? Then write to Polly already.

Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl's existential advice columnist. She's also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses.

The post Ask Polly: Am I Just A Booty Call? appeared first on The Awl.

Dear Polly,

I am a 23-year-old queer girl who has spent the last yearish in a polyamorous relationship that recently turned long-distance. When we first started sleeping together both she and I were involved with other people, it was pretty casual, we were good friends who cared about each other and were attracted to each other, so we figured why not, right? Anyway, time went on and while we were still both seeing other people (she had a few regular sweeties in other cities, I was seeing one guy who turned out to be seriously allergic to his feelings, as you would say, and having some random one-night stands in the mix), things grew more serious between us. In the build-up to her moving halfway across the country to a city where she doesn't really know anyone, we started calling it LOVE and getting all misty-eyed and hand-clutchy. Shortly thereafter, I ended things with Guy and went through a Big Lonely Sad Month during which we Facebook chatted and Skyped several times a week. I started to feel like it was important to my mental health to cut this out a bit because, while I still care about her a great deal, I felt that I needed to ground myself in the city I live in and start moving on. Which I did. Boy, did I. I went right out and fell in love with somebody else.

It's still new, like irresponsibly so. We are so ahead of ourselves and carried away, and normally I would be dead set against it, but this person is everything I have been waiting for in a partner. When I broke up with the other guy, it was a bit of a revelation as far as recognizing that I really do want a serious relationship, someone to share a life with. I think this might be it. And he does too. Full disclosure: he is a full ten years older than me and recently separated from a pretty short-lived marriage. His age isn't an issue to me, but I do worry sometimes about the implications of his getting so mixed up with me so recently after his marriage fell apart. We've talked about this, though, as we talk about everything, at length and with complete honesty, our bullshit sensors working, and I really do trust him when he says this isn't a rebound, he wasn't expecting it, yes the timing is odd but he really wants to be with me. And I really want to be with him. It's amazing. We already have many mutual friends all of whom approve and applaud our relationship. This is the first time that I've ever felt comfortable with the idea of settling into a monogamous partnership with someone.

So I'm over the moon, obviously, and wanting to spend all of my time with this wonderful new guy. It's perfect, except for the fact that I have this dear old friend who happens to be in love with me languishing in a far-away city. I mean, I was in love with her too, right? I felt things, it felt real. It felt real the same way this does, but the fact was that we both knew we could never make monogamy work. We're really incompatible in many ways, besides the fact that she now lives thousands of miles away. This guy, it could happen. And we both want to try. So I have to break her heart, right? I mean, am I deluding myself that this brand-new potential relationship is worth it? Am I just looking for something to throw myself into so my days aren't empty? Am I a terrible person for even considering throwing her under the bus like this? To complicate matters, she is going to be visiting my city in less than a month and we are going on a short tour together. Breaking up now could result in some pretty awkward long bus rides, and what if I change my mind when I finally see her in the flesh? My guy isn't giving me any ultimatums (yet) but whenever we've discussed having an open relationship, it just doesn't feel right for either of us.

WHAT DO I DOOOOO????

Selling Out/Settling Down

Dear SOSD,

At first glance, your situation seems pretty clear cut. You were never that into the long-distance girl. From the start, it was a what-the-hell kind of a thing: "It was pretty casual…. we figured why not, right?" Things only got more serious as her move to another city approached. Then you both got lonely, started talking about love, and started to collaborate on a story about how you were lonely mostly because you couldn't be with each other. This is why long-distance relationships so often become an enormous waste of emotional energy: It's easy to make them bigger and more special than they really are when you're alone and looking for solace, and it's also easier to ignore them when you're hunting for fresh… flesh? (Why do I want to use the word "Pootytang" here so very badly? Is this a self-destructive impulse?)

But enough about long-distance lover girls. Let's throw that bathwater out with the queer, polyamorous baby, because it sounds like you're fully in love with this new guy, straight, monogamous style. Welcome to dullsville, population: lots of 'em.

Just kidding, I really do like it here. It's comfy and quaint. Anyway: Your guy is recently separated. He's ten years older. At your age, that might be a concern. But you already have mutual friends (huh?) and they think that you two make a great pair. You talk about everything, you're honest with each other, you're comfortable, and you've always wanted a relationship like this. Committing doesn't even seem scary with him. So, you're in love and you're happy and you're excited about the future. Why am I even talking to you about this again?

Oh yeah. Here's what bothers me. Just when I'm starting to drift on in my mind to the letter writer with the five cats that she worries will someday eat her face off when she dies alone, you ask, "Am I just looking for something to throw myself into so my days aren't empty?" Now, granted, this is a question we might all do well to ask ourselves a few times a day, in order to prevent excessive masturbation, excessive ego-driven reloading of the "Connect" page on Twitter, excessive speculating about who will slowly and quietly and awkwardly murder whom on the "Breaking Bad" finale.

But in your current Over The Moon circumstances, this question—"Am I just looking for a distraction?"—is either disingenuous, i.e. you're merely trying to anticipate potential criticism (from me or from the wider, razor-sharp Awl audience), or you TRULY can't tell the difference between falling madly in love and filling up your time. In either case, I'm starting to worry about you.

Next, we have this: "Am I a terrible person for even considering throwing her under the bus like this?" Again, this sounds like you're either anticipating criticism and addressing it proactively, or you TRULY believing that breaking up with someone who you've never been that into, who you've only been seeing exclusively for a brief, brief time, who lives across the country from you, is an evil fucking thing to do. You also refer to "selling out"—is this somehow related to queer/ polyamorous labels vs. straight/ dullsville labels? Do you feel guilty for leaving a woman for a man because you've identified as queer for a long time? Do people say "queer" and then mention sleeping with two different men these days? Am I the unfrozen caveman advice columnist from a land that time forgot? Do you imagine me sitting here in giant shoulder pads, pursing my coral lips over your newfangled situation while puffing on a Virginia Slim menthol cigarette that threatens to set alight my Final Net-lacquered bangs? Do I spend most of my day typing "Where's the beef?" and then erasing it, over and over and over again?

These mysteries we leave to the universe. Other mysteries, like the mystery of why you already have mutual friends with this new guy, but you haven't so much as called long-distance lady to warn her of the shifting tides, we tackle right now. So what gives? I mean, how many weeks are you going to let this woman look forward to your "tour" without letting her know it's dunzo?

I had a long-distance boyfriend once—strangely enough, he was ALSO a friend of mine before that. Mutual attraction led to "Why not?" led to "I miss you, does that mean we're star-crossed?" in a similar fashion. But I always suspected we were collaborating on an overly embellished bit of fantasy, and the second I started feeling attracted to someone else, I called to break up with my sort-of boyfriend. (He thought I should've purchased a round-trip plane ticket and showed up at his doorstep and THEN broken up with him, by the way, and he hasn't spoken to me since, even though we only dated casually for a few months, and we were friends for years before that. So there's your WHY NOT, people!) My point is, these "Why not?" things rarely end well no matter what you do, but my personal feeling is that if you know conditions have shifted dramatically, YOU SAY THAT ASAFP. (That's As Soon As Fucking Possible, see? Do you kids use that abbreviation? Do these Hammer pants make my ass look fat?)

So you have loads of guilt over things that aren't really your responsibility (being in a not-very-serious long-distance relationship and then falling in love with someone in your town) and you don't have much guilt over something that's nuts (allowing a wide circle of humans to cheer on your new love match while your long-distance lady remains none the wiser and texts, emails, colors, waxes, etc. in anticipation of her upcoming visit).

This state of affairs leads me to believe that you struggle with guilt and people-pleasing to such an extent that you apologize for things that aren't your fault while simultaneously committing other crimes that you don't even recognize. Do you have trouble trusting your own instincts? Do you feel terrible whenever you don't have a partner? Because suddenly this hopping from stone to stone thing you're doing—and that your new guy is doing, too—is starting to seem a little more suspect, given your wobbly notions of yourself, your rights, your culpability, etc.

Oh boy. And now I'm starting to think that maybe you wanted to wait and see if it worked out with the new guy BEFORE you burned any bridges with your lady! And didn't you also ask "What if I change my mind when I finally see her in the flesh?" Are you over the goddamn moon or aren't you, motherfucker?

Now the room is spinning, and not just because I bought the Virginia Slims 100s instead of my regular Ultra Lights! Is "polyamorous" sometimes just another way of saying Really Fucking Indecisive, or am I just a crusty old slice of aging Solid Gold dancer? Either way, I'm going to have to back it on up and say that you really sound uncertain about what you want from life, and also a little bit overly focused on other people's opinions of you.

So now I've got to warn you that this is a pretty dangerous time for you to be committing to a guy who's ten years older, who will naturally want to guide you, be the mature one, reassure you, etc. I'm not saying you should dump him flat out. But if you see the slightest sign that what he really, really loves about you is your malleability, need for approval, need to be reassured, need, need need? And he calls you baby a lot and calls himself "Daddy" (It's a joke! Really!) and talks about how your body is sooo much better than his ex's body? (Which, who says that? What sick old Chester The Molester segment of my brain did that even spring from?) And he sort of seems to believe that his way of doing things is the absolute best way for everyone, and part of the problem with his bitch ex is that she could never just go with the flow—HIS flow? But you, you are so perfect and adorable and here's how I like my coffee and here's how I like my cock sucked, etc.?

OK, fine, I have a little experience with feeling needy and lost, and wanting someone older, with a job and a house and a life, to give me all of those things at a time when it seemed like everything was so impermanent and loose and sad and scary, and everyone was moving to other cities far away and no one just stayed in the same place and the concept of "community" belonged to old people in Hammer pants. Like my exboyfriend. Who wore Hammer pants.

I'm not actually saying your guy is the guy I just described. No, not remotely. The fact that other friends love you two together? (You're sure they're telling the truth, right?) That's somewhat reassuring, if they're not just being polite. He has friends, you have friends, they all became friends, they're all approving and applauding? I still can't believe these villages are forming and everyone is celebrating en masse and your girl doesn't know a thing about any of it. But OK, theoretically, outside parties approve.

But listen: IF you are a little wobbly and shaky and scared and needy right now AND he is a little controlling and he seems to think you're going to neatly fold your life into his and everything will be wonderful? And you should move to his side of town, into his house, and do things the way he does them? If all of that is true, and if the "honest" talks you have are actually him subtly herding your feelings and thoughts in tight little circles? Then I would be wary. And if he drinks too much, or smokes a ton of pot, and is maybe something of an escapist? That would make me wary, too.

But let's just assume he's awesome and sensitive and you never, ever feel like you're the easy answer to his life falling apart.

Here's what you still need to do: Call long-distance lady. Yes, you should feel guilty that you didn't do that a long time ago. That wasn't cool. Do it now. Tell her the tour seems like a bad idea (if that's possible) and you can't do that anymore. Tell her things have changed drastically, and you're sorry. Tell her now.

And then, well, I would find a therapist. Do you have a job you care about? Do you have close female friends? Do you have a full, happy life? Don't disappear into this new guy until you know that you're not hiding from your own life. Focus on your life first, and keep him in the wings a little. (As in, maybe you could see him 2x a week and otherwise do your own thing?) If he's mature, he'll be fine with some space.

And you know what? If he is on the rebound, he will FREAK OUT about you spending less time with him. He will freak out and you'll really have to wonder if you want to hitch your wagon to his… stallion. Or his gently used engine.

I am a fan of divorced men, for the record. I married one. He's 7 years older than me, and he is awesome. We talk about everything, and it's what I wanted for a long time. But if I'd met him before I had a career, lots of close female friends, a few years of therapy and a clear sense of who I was, I would've driven that ship straight into the rocky shore. And that's not just me sitting here in my bad perm, surrounded by full ashtrays, humming "Dog and Butterfly." If you weren't second-guessing up a storm, I would not see trouble brewing.

But I remember the olden days, through this haze of mentholated smoke, when I didn't know myself and I didn't want to know myself, I just wanted to feel better. I wanted someone or some thing outside of me to swoop in and fix everything. Sometimes I felt so crazy with indecision that I would break out the Magic 8 Ball. (No, that's not my little term for a giant bag of high-grade cocaine. I mean the toy! The toy that tells you what the fuck to do with your life!). Or I would stick my finger into the middle of Bartlett's. (No, Bartlett isn't a little man-whore I hired in the old days. That's a book, made out of paper and stuff!) Wherever my finger was resting, that passage held the key to my destiny.

Hey, let's do that right now! Let's type in "love" and "familiar quotations" and see what we find on the internet. Here we go:

"It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power." – Alan Cohen

Well, hey. That works. But wait, there's another quote right under that one:

"The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom." – H.L. Mencken

Well, there's your answer right there. Don't listen to me! Do what you feel.

Best,

Polly

Do you have a critical voice in your head that sounds just like Nina Garcia? Write to Polly and she'll blow mentholated smoke in your face!

Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl's existential advice columnist. She's also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses. Photo by Casey Fleser.

The post Ask Polly: I'm Dating A Girl, But I'm Falling In Love With a Man! appeared first on The Awl.

1. Birth: Anticlimactic. Suspense building for nine months, and for what? A dark, messy and not all that joyful resolution. And who really believes that the "Husband" would suddenly shift from indifferent, absent spouse to soothing, expectant dad? The introduction of the epidural minimized dramatic impact, and lowered the stakes significantly. From that point forward, I was disengaged. The emergency C-section twist held promise, but it was at once too gory and too detached. How is that even possible? The only thing that redeemed this train wreck was the baby (me!) who gave a heroic performance. Tough to pull that off when you're covered in white gunk.

2. First Step: Obviously "First Potty Trip" was the hands-down best episode of the season, if not the whole series. By comparison, "First Step" was hugely disappointing. So much wasted potential here. Despite an incredible performance by our star (me!), particularly under such adverse circumstances, the feeling just wasn't there. When "Mom" exits the room to charge the camera battery, the forward momentum of the narrative dips precipitously. Lacking direction, our star continues, wobbly, hopeful, but "Dad" is looking at something on his phone. Twitter. He's tweeting something. Is this intended as a dark comedy? Are we being punked?

3. First Kiss Where do I even begin? The two leads have no chemistry whatsoever, the acting is atrocious, the "8th grade dance" set-up is unoriginal, hackneyed. Do we really need so many extreme close-ups? Can someone get make-up in here? Why is the soundtrack still playing Hall and Oates? The endless awkward pauses and indie hand-held camera just make the whole thing more painful. And the next scene where the "love interest" giggles to friends in the girls' bathroom only demeans her in our hero's eyes. All in all, this episode was a real stinker.

4. Wedding Pretty clichéd. The "Bride" was not "glowing" as intensely as expected, if at all. "Best Friend" was utterly unconvincing in the role of presiding Universal Life Church minister, and he said "um" way too much. (There's no such thing as a mumblecore romantic dramedy for a reason, people.) That cake-smearing scene was intended as comedy, but it felt forced, and not nearly light-hearted enough. The "Bride" character actually looked pissed. (Is she pissy like that all the time?) "Mother of the groom's" speech needed a rewrite, inappropriately intimate yet not all that touching. And speaking of touching, the wedding night itself was devoid of sexual electricity. Who puts rose petals on a bed, anyway? How do you get away with lighting so many goddamn candles in a hotel room? Isn't that a fire hazard? What is this, a John Hughes film? Does an overwhelming, smothering taint of lavender make our hero aroused, or just nauseated? Two thumbs down, way down.

5. Middle age Let's talk for a minute about rising action. The challenges an antagonist ("Boss") places before our hero (me!) should always seem insurmountable without actually being insurmountable. Watching this complex, multi-layered lead character struggle valiantly around the clock to impress his boss is certainly compelling, but only if he actually gets rewarded for his efforts. A flabby gut, an upside-down mortgage, bratty children: These are not "rewards" and don't constitute a gratifying turn in our story. We don't require a Hollywood ending, just something with some teeth. (Should an extended bout of constipation really get its own subplot?) It's also becoming clear that "Wife" is all wrong for her role, and seems to be mouthing her lines without conviction. Should've considered an actress at least 15 years younger. A roundly disappointing season from start to finish, but at least it'll be interesting to see how our showrunner backs out of this narrative dead-end with next season's premiere.

6. Death I don't think there's ever been a finale that dragged on more than this one. The wretching, the jaundice, the far-away eyes: So dark it almost feels comical. (Is that the intention?) Instead of a clear narrative trajectory, our story is constantly interrupted by an indifferent nurse who can't put in an IV line properly. The "Wife" and the various unidentifiable "children" are really terrible at improv. Where's the script supervisor? Shouldn't some words go here? Shouldn't some of these extras be holding hands and talking about how much they love our hero (me!) and how important he has always been to their happiness, or something? Shouldn't the music be swelling at this point? What's that terrible smell? Why isn't anyone crying? Why did we fade to black out of nowhere? What kind of an ending is that?

7. Hell You call these clouds? Why aren't they white and puffy? Why are they so incredibly… warm? Where's God and Aunt Martha and Rex and who's the asshole with the Fu Manchu? This Heaven place is total bullshit. Is this a denouement? This part feels superfluous, tacked on. Did we really need it, narratively speaking? I would've done it all differently, especially the ending. That finale was a huge disappointment, and anyone who disagrees with me is a moron. I won't say specifically what I would change, I just know it could've been way better. In my hands, every single scene would've been gratifying and special and tonally consistent. I really would've hit it out of the park. Too bad. Excuse me for a second, but there's something—ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. —> Infinity.

On Wednesdays, Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl's existential advice columnist. She's also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses.

The post Customers Who Didn't Buy The "Breaking Bad" Finale Also Didn't Buy… appeared first on The Awl.

Dear Polly,

My boyfriend's longtime friend, who is also my friend, is getting married to a woman we dislike. And by dislike, I mean, good Lord we think he's getting himself into a world of hurt and abuse, and we don't know the best way to address it to him.

Our friend is a caring, thoughtful, capable man in his early 30s. He's from a middle class American family, but he's far from home and not wealthy himself so we usually hang out in cheap dive bars and hole in the wall restaurants (until he met his fiancée). He's kind of shy and a little awkward around women. He can be a push-over and keeps his emotions hidden. He hasn't had many relationships and the ones he's had sound kind of abusive from what my boyfriend tells me. The girls would walk all over him and he'd just take it. He also gets these jobs in which he works very long hours with low pay and tries to convince us he's fine with being undervalued. So he's had a history of not standing up for himself, and is quite stubborn about taking advice, but we think he's getting into something… devious this time.

The fiancée is in her late 20s, from Italy, and needs a green card to stay here (see what I'm getting at?). We can tell she's from wealth from how much diamond/expensive jewelry she wears and how she frequents expensive restaurants despite her only "job" being a no-pay, volunteering gig at an art gallery. She is usually an optimistic, high spirited, fun individual. But some of her behaviors are very irritating and she is definitely manipulative. For example, every time we eat out, she picks the restaurant. It HAS to be Italian. These restaurants usually have no entrées under $20 and she usually send things back or complains extensively to the server at least once a meal. She also likes to pressure/guilt trip everyone into drinking alcohol, and makes me feel like I'm being impolite when I pass. At first my boyfriend just thought she was needy because she has a disability—years ago she had a terrible motorcycle accident that left her lower half paralyzed, so she needs a wheelchair to get around. Over time, however, my boyfriend realized she's just difficult—it's totally understandable to make sure a place is wheelchair accessible, but to send back a drink 3 times because it didn't meet her standards while everyone watches awkwardly?

One night, we flaked on them. The time they set to meet was late, we were tired and didn't want to travel an hour to see them only to leave an hour later. I know it's never nice to flake, but we figured it's no big deal since we didn't have any reservations or even a place in mind. That caused her to cry over the phone! She accused us of "never" hanging out with them, even though we did a couple nights prior! My boyfriend said fine, he'll go see them two days later. He came back complaining about her taking up all his friend's time and energy, and how his friend is being an idiot.

Also, we recently found out she's been driving his other friends away. A while back, he shared an apartment with a female friend with a one-year lease. The fiancée was jealous, so she convinced him to break the lease after 4 months to live with her in a far more expensive apartment that we don't even know how he affords. The ex-roommate couldn't afford the old place with the lease and couldn't find someone else, so she borrowed a lot of money from our friend and hasn't been able to pay it back. Now the fiancée uses this as an excuse to keep the ex-roommate from going to their wedding, even though we all know the ex-roommate and she's a very sweet girl who just hit a rough patch with her job around the same time our friend ditched her.

So we keep wanting to ask our friend, you know, "HEY! What are you doing?" But the fiancée has such a hold on him, we literally never see him without her any more. Once, my boyfriend convinced him to hang out alone with the ol' "boy's night out" request. They only got a couple of beers in before this woman just shows up! My boyfriend cut out after he realized she wasn't going to leave, and has never been able to get his buddy alone again, despite many requests.

We know our friend is a people-pleaser. We know he enjoys being so helpful to this woman, whom he loves. We know he's been lonely. But their relationship feels more like ownership. When we're in a group, we constantly hear him apologizing to her about how a tiny detail isn't right. "Sorry I didn't properly say hi to someone you know; Sorry I didn't give my friends things they didn't even need but you think they do; Sorry I don't complain about my food to the server like you wanted me to; Sorry I grabbed your lighter for you when you demanded SOMEONE ELSE grab it for you (WTF!); SORRY YOU HAVE TO PEEL YOUR OWN CRAB WITH YOUR HANDS YOU DAINTY FUCK!" (Last one was me actually.) It's tiring! Hanging out with them is expensive and full of guilt trips. Most nice things I do for her are usually returned with criticism about how some detail is wrong. She's like the harsh mother I've never had and our friend is like her boy-nurse-assistant who is still expected to perform the traditional Italian patriarchal role in the relationship by paying for things. I mean, when I asked her about gays in Italy, she said there are none there. Talk about traditional gender role expectations!

Of course, this is all besides the fact that she might kick him to the curb in 2 years after she gets her green card. The official "reason" he gave us for the engagement was he "didn't want to move to Italy."

I don't think she's a terrible person. In fact, we do have a good time on occasion. I also admire her tenacity despite being bound to a wheelchair. She can beat most women and men I know in arm wrestling and I think that's really cool! But she's also annoyingly spoiled, and clearly insecure about herself, and thinks nobody likes her (i.e., crying when we cancel for ONE night). She's extremely high maintenance and her discomfort is usually presented as everyone's discomfort. I'm sick of it.

I do get the feeling this is kind of not really my business. But it's frustrating to see our friend willingly enslave himself. My boyfriend has run out of ideas of how to get him alone to smack some sense into him, and he's even more afraid to push his friend away by suggesting he reconsiders the engagement. I am fantasizing about the day when I finally get so fed up that I openly tell her I don't give a shit about her feelings because she's a selfish bitch. But our friend will be there, because he's always there, and he's sensitive and will probably get super defensive. I don't want him to hate me.

Bah! So what you think Polly? Both my boyfriend and I don't want to lose our friend, but is it already too late? Is it just out of our hands? Or maybe we read this all wrong and they are going to be fine in such an arrangement? It just won't leave any room for us? Am I stupid for suggesting our friend is better off lonely? Am I being over-protective? Worse, am I being selfish and/or insensitive?? Maybe she really loves him? But will she in 2 years?

Sincerely,

Just Want the Italian Princess to Go Away

Dear JWTIPTGQ,

Ah, yes. The world is her personal concierge! And those who displease her are merely malfunctioning apps that need to be reprogrammed to suit her tastes.

But what do you think you'll gain by speaking to your friend about her? You said yourself that he rarely takes advice about anything. Certainly I would never, ever recommend that you, the girlfriend of his friend, say a single word about her to him. I also wouldn't recommend walking around grumbling about her Dainty Fuck ways to other people, as difficult as that might seem. If your mutual friends are having conversations about what a nightmare she is, your stance should be that of an amused observer. Do you hear what I'm telling you? Do. Not. Lead. The. Charge.

I speak from experience here. Back in the days when I struggled every second to keep what was in my head from flying out of my mouth, I ran into a similar situation. My boyfriend and his friend had developed a habit of unpacking the behavior of their friend's exceptionally high-maintenance girlfriend. And even though the girlfriend was pretty sour and controlling and not all that pleasant, even though I saw a life of subservience and misery ahead for our friend, even though I suspected that plenty of mutual friends agreed with me, the whole thing had nothing to do with me. This woman was my boyfriend's friend's girlfriend. I found her mildly annoying but rarely had to deal with her directly. I wouldn't have given her a second thought, if not for the fact that hating on her had become a kind of sport for my boyfriend and his friend.

Having marinated in a few weeks of detailed complaints from my boyfriend, I was talking to another friend of the guy's (not his girlfriend's friend) and I let slip the verbal equivalent of an eye roll. She started asking questions: What do YOU think? Boy, was I stupid back then. I was powerless to "What do YOU think?" Being asked to say more was my personal El Guapo. I could not resist. I tiptoed around the subject, but still managed to say way, way too much.

This instantly ballooned into a nuclear detonation. Forget everyone else who quietly worried for our friend's future. I alone became the face of evil.

And look, I deserved it. I was truly an idiot. Not just an idiot, but really an awful example of woman-on-woman crime. And why? I didn't know her and had no skin in the game whatsoever. Even if I could see clearly that he was going to be her handservant forever and ever—which any casual observer could see—how exactly was that my business?

Here's what I finally started to notice: When ensconced in groups not of my personal choosing, while dating men who, although charming, aren't exactly my style, I get weird and lash out randomly at the universe. Instead of identifying the problem ("Who are these strange people and how did I get here?") and then quietly folding into the background until I can escape, I have, historically, tended to make a spectacle of myself in one way or another. Thanks to my big mouth and maybe a self-destructive streak or two, I have more than once been the freak that gets chased out of town at the end of a pitchfork.

But let's look at the bigger picture: Should an outspoken, opinionated woman take it upon herself to lead the charge when a very passive group develops a problem in the form of a person? THE ANSWER IS NO.

This is going to sound a little retro, but it's actually just practical advice: If you're a confident, outspoken woman, people are going to dislike you before you even open your mouth. Maybe you're a little harsh and a little obnoxious and a little offensive, like I am. Or maybe you're just too unbearably sure of yourself. Either way, you're a little quieter than usual, and they're still suspicious. Now imagine how much they'll hate you once you start speaking. I'm not saying never speak. I'm just saying, recognize the lay of the land, and be aware that if anyone's going to get scapegoated for something, it's you.

Now I want you, Driving Miss Dainty, to picture yourself saying something to your friend about his girlfriend. I want you to picture yourself rallying the group to stand up against her. I want you to imagine yourself spurring your boyfriend to action, and having him say to his friend, "You know, (your name here) is really the one who notices this stuff. She just thinks your lady is awful. She wouldn't leave me alone until I said something." Then picture your friend, who's pretty goddamn weak and also very attached to his fiancée and has probably been coached to tell her EVERYTHING ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING THAT ANYONE EVER SAYS ABOUT HER, EVER tells his lady this tidbit, and now you basically have an evil queen with a magic mirror and a loyal huntsman, waging an all-out war against you.

Do you know what that's like? Let me break it down for you: You will be the identified problem. Not your boyfriend. Not the 53,000 other people who dislike this woman. Just you. You will be asked to eat shit, apologize, etc, and there she'll be, your evil queen—absurd, comically imperious—serving it up. And then, out of the blue, you're OUT—banned from all social settings. And when the evil queen and the remaining friends get together for fancy crab dinners at overpriced restaurants, they will agree, resoundingly, that YOU ARE THE BAD SEED. Not the one with the faintly purple skin and the evil red lips, cackling, and the long pointy black gloves, gesturing demonically. No. You.

You think that's impossible? Trust me, it's possible. Likely, even.

And once you're the bad seed, they'll decide that your issues with her aren't really about her behavior. No. Your issues relate to your personal impatience with/insensitivity to people with disabilities. How smart are these people? How well do they know you? Because that's what dumb people do. They analyze stuff and come up with the answer that's at once the most obvious and the most patently idiotic.

But while we're on the subject: People probably ARE an asshole to this woman because of her disabilities. It's easy to imagine getting angry and borderline abusive when people have to be circling you, helping you with a lot of shit you'd rather do yourself. And also not helping you. And also treating you like a second-class citizen. I get that she's a nightmare, but objectively speaking, THIS is the person you want to lead a big charge against?

And that's without even factoring in how your boyfriend reacts if there's a giant wave of "Oh shit, she's making trouble!" that’s focused on you. You'll definitely learn something about his loyalty if that happens, but it might not be good news.

All of these apocalyptic visions could, in fact, come to pass if she ever sniffs out the slightest hint of contempt coming from you. Do you really want to be the target of this woman's ire? This is the irony of truly awful people: You raise your voice against them, and you are going down, hard.

Can't you stomach a few less-than-optimal social occasions? Yes, you can. You can smile and grit your teeth and say nothing. Trust me, it's possible, and it will make you stronger and wiser to show such self-restraint.

Your boyfriend, on the other hand, needs to make his own call about whether or not to talk to his friend. If the guy looks poised to have kids with her, your boyfriend might want to say something. Or not. It depends on his relationship with his friend. If he does choose to talk to him, he should take pains to be supportive and he should probably even act like he really likes the woman, he's just worried that his friend could find himself in a tough corner if he molds his entire life around her. You should tell him not to say a word about you and your feelings.

And let's be honest: This guy is just going to do what he wants to do. Unless she becomes physically abusive, he's going to serve her. Maybe he's a masochist. Who knows? But it's not your call. Don't throw yourself on that knife.

Disparaging other women hurts women in general. We all get disparaged around the clock, just for being regular, flawed human beings, while some seriously fucked male behavior goes without comment. I'm not saying there aren't times when it's necessary to speak out. But in general, if you have a strong personality, it's best not to attempt to speak for a group, or put into words things that passive members of the group don't seem capable of saying themselves. Even though their passivity makes you crazy, your aggression will make you a pariah.

And for what? Let your friend make his own mistakes, and keep your mouth shut. Peel your own crab with your own non-dainty hands and stay the fuck away from everyone else's crabs. If you do otherwise, you stand to gain very little and lose a whole hell of a lot.

Polly

Dear Polly,

I think I am caught in a love triangle that I don't think I want to be a part of.

I am a 27-year-old single woman. I ended a long-term relationship about a year ago, and I am still a little afraid of dating, so I asked my friends if they had anyone they could set me up with. My best friend set me up with Guy. Guy is a great guy—handsome, funny, intelligent, and very kind. The set up didn't really go anywhere, but Guy and I became friends and I was happy with that. Around the same time I started to build a friendship with Guy, my best friend (Friend) decided she missed having a male friend in her life, and wanted Guy to now be that friend. This resulted in some awkward situations between us, where I started to feel like she was jealous of me talking to Guy or flirting with Guy, due to the fact that she would make passive aggressive statements about how much time I talked to him or that he liked me more than her, followed by her bragging about how close they were (that's what it felt like to me, anyways). Any time I asked Friend about this, she would say she was jealous of the time I was spending with Guy (i.e., she wanted my friendship to herself), or that she was mad at him for not dating me. Friend also significantly increased the time she spent talking to Guy, so that they now text each other nearly every day, sometimes most of the day. Sometimes when I see Guy, he is very flirtatious and touchy-feely with me. Sometimes when I see Guy, he is very flirtatious and touchy-feely with Friend. I realized at some point Guy has poor boundaries with women, and this is something he does with them (myself included).

All of this would probably be pretty standard fare, except that Friend is engaged. And I get really uncomfortable watching Friend be so flirtatious with Guy. Sometimes, on days when Guy has decided Friend is the person he is going to be all over that day, it can feel like no one else exists or is in the room anymore except the two of them. (Once, when I confronted her about this, she told me she would never speak to Guy again when we were all together. I told her that was crazy, and I didn't want to be the reason she broke off a friendship.) It's this intimacy between them that feels so uncomfortable for me. Recently, at a social gathering, several of my friends asked if Guy and Friend were a couple, due to the way they were acting, which was extra uncomfortable due to the fact that Friend was there with her fiancé. I used this as a way of confronting my friend (I was too afraid to confront her using my own feelings), and her response was that she and Guy are friends and that is how she is with friends. To be fair, she is a cuddly person. However, I have only ever seen her act this way with one other person: another male friends of hers, whom she spoke to every day, and who she told me she had a thing for and almost dumped her current fiancé for. (Instead, he told her he was making a commitment to another woman, and she broke off her friendship with him.) She has told me her fiancé thinks Guy has a crush on her and that he thinks Guy and she would be together if Friend and her fiancé weren't already together. I suspect that if Guy were to ever make a move on her, she would jump at it. On top of all of this, she and her fiancé recently set a date for their wedding. When she talks about the wedding, she has absolutely no enthusiasm, no excitement to her. Again, other people have made comments to me about this lack of interest in her own wedding. She's made comments to me recently about how she is so lucky, because no one else would put up with her or date her. When I confront her about this ("that's great, but it's not a reason to marry someone") she gets very defensive, and I back off.

So, here's the point: I'm afraid she believes her fiancé is the best thing she can get, and is afraid to let him go. I'm afraid she is trying to feel validated and desirable through these relationships with these other men, and she isn't realizing how they might be hurting her current relationship. I'm afraid her relationship is going to implode, and I'm in the blast area. I want to be a supportive and good friend, but it's difficult to stand on the edge of the ship and watch it go down, and do nothing about it.

As for Guy, I have a slight case of feelings for him, but ultimately, I know deep down that I am awesome, and that I deserve someone who loves the awesomeness that is me, and he is not that guy. But I also connect with him so well and value his friendship, so I would prefer to keep him in my life. Sometimes I wonder, though, if the situation would improve if I took him out of this equation, at least on my end of it.

So Polly: what do I do? I'm afraid that if I confront her directly—say something like, "I think you have feelings for Guy, and it worries me" that it will end our friendship. Any time I've confronted her about these things, she gets defensive and angry, or she dismisses and denies anything that I say. It's not that I'm afraid she'll be mad at me—well, I am afraid, but I think I could handle it—it's that her friendship is important to me, and I don't want to lose her. I realize that some of this may be my own jealousy, and the fact that I would prefer Guy to flirt with me only, and that makes it hard for me to suss out what part is my own stuff I need to get over. I also love Friend, and I want to be a good friend to her. But I'm not very good at hiding how I feel, or being disingenuous about how I feel and what's going on with me. After this last confrontation, she has upped how much she talks to me and checks in on me, and I'm not sure if I should take that as a sign of her feeling guilty, or that, despite my best efforts, I'm showing my fatigue at the situation. Should I just get over it and let her do what she wants? Do I try to confront her? Do I stop being friends with Guy? What do I do?

Sincerely,

Tired and Confused

Dear Tired and Confused,

This is not a love triangle. You're obsessed with Guy and you're envious of Friend. The triangle is a figment of your imagination.

You don't have to stop being friends with Guy, but you should spend less time with him. He's not interested in you, and while he's more than willing to soak up your adoration, that's not a role that's all that great for your sense of yourself, or your friendship with Friend, or your peace of mind. It's time to move on and expend your time and energy on something more interesting, productive, reciprocal, etc.

Meanwhile, you're envious of Friend because Guy likes her. That's understandable—we've all been there—but you need to let it go. Let Friend do what she wants. You've voiced your concerns about her engagement and she got angry. She has her flirtations and she says they're harmless. Whether or not that's true, it's up to her to decide. But even if she came to you and said, "I have cold feet about my wedding," you'd want to be supportive, not accusatory. If she were careless with you or your friendship, that would be one thing. But she's offered not to talk to Guy and she checks in with you a lot because she cares about you.

Being envious is normal. Try to recognize that the kinds of men who love your friend probably aren't well-equipped to understand and appreciate you. Trust me, eventually you'll find someone who's crazy about you and thinks Friend is just so-so. In the meantime, appreciate the fact that you have a good friend who cares about you. Maybe she's confused and maybe she's just an effusive person. Either way, you should try to support her through this big change in her life. At the very least, stop inserting yourself into the middle of her drama. Step back and start focusing on stuff that actually makes you feel happy, not competitive and needy.

Good luck.

Polly

Are you imagining things? Write to Polly and tell her very specifically what you're imagining.

Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl's existential advice columnist. She's also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses.
Evil queen photo by "mydisneyadventures"; three-way of birds by Ripton Scott.

The post Ask Polly: Help, Our Friend Is Marrying An Evil Harpy! appeared first on The Awl.

Polly,

I'm a 26 year-old woman living in a big city.

I've been in 3 serious relationships. The last one—the big one, the one that broke my heart and my soul and almost made me give up on love and all that junk—ended over a year ago. I'd been in love with him for about 2 years before we started dating. Once we did, it was a whirlwind of love and romantic weekends (we were long distance for most of the time). I felt that he was the one. I KNEW he was the one. He was smart and funny and honest with this biting pessimistic (and yet painfully accurate) sarcasm. He wasn't always so good at being part of the world. And while, on the one hand, I liked that he was different, you know, a 'rule breaker,' 'not just your average everyday accountant,' a 'critical thinker,' etc., it was also pretty annoying that he had a hard time making dinner plans more than an hour in advance or that he didn't have too many qualms about leaving a social situation on his own terms. He would just suddenly 'not feel like' something anymore, and that was that. He also very possibly suffered (or still suffers) from depression.

I know, you might be like 'hmmm, this guy doesn't sound so awesome.' You're Polly—you're perceptive like that. But to me, at the time, I just didn't care about his Asperger-like social tendencies. I was head over heels. My eyes had turned to stars! Our GChat conversations were the highlight of my work days. We debated. We theorized. We analyzed. I worked to convince him that the world wasn't SUCH a horrible place. A more astute person (or therapist) might also say that I enjoyed the idea of myself as the optimistic fairy princess who saved him.

Except, as it turns out, he didn't want to be saved. After the honeymoon period of our first months together faded away, he just wanted to be alone. I learned this the hard way, when he broke up with me a month after I moved to his city.

It took a while, but I'm over it. Had my mourning period. Had my 'focusing on myself' months. Now I'm ready to move on! Strapping on those dating boots!

So why am I writing you?

Because, okay. Here I am. Dating again. Except most of the guys I meet (in person, and on OK Cupid) are so so MEH to me. So boring. Sure, we might have a mildly interesting conversation, maybe. But most guys don't like to debate about theoretical things. Or they're amused by me, but then they'd rather talk about movies. In essence—I'm bored by them. I don't give a flip if they text or don't text ever again. I don't give a flip if they try to kiss me or not. Maybe I'll kiss them back, but I won't give a flip about the kissing either. I'll just be bored.

Obviously I haven't tried every single guy out there, but it's starting to worry me that the only guys I really find myself attracted to are the tortured intellectual types. Like my ex. Or, in their own ways, like my other exes before him. Every guy I've seriously liked has been incredibly head-smart and heart-dumb, and, more often than not, has some mild psychological issues to boot (more like depression that sociopathy, but still).

I know I should just fall in love with someone more… normal (I know, no one is actually "normal," but hopefully you know what I mean). These guys aren't good for me! They're usually too self-involved to seriously commit to a long-term relationship. And my friends never like them (the world "asshole" has been used a time or two). I realize that I shouldn't date someone that I'm trying to "save" or "change." Trust me, I will never again try to change a guy! But is there something wrong with the way I'm seeing men here? Or maybe all the smart-but-not-damaged ones are taken?

Why is dating so hard, Polly? And why am I into the wrong ones?

Thanks,

Turned on by Intellectual Assholes

Dear TOBIA,

Hello, mineral-rich soil of a letter, begging to be plowed and planted and watered and mountain-top-mined for every ounce of wealth you offer. But where do I start, TOBIA? So many paths to follow here! Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can't take it, and my heart is just going to cave in.

That last part is a quote by Ricky Fitts, the weird kid next door in American Beauty. He's talking about the footage he shot of a plastic bag, floating around in the air. I mean, ungh, who doesn't love that haunted little theorist boy. He's a greasy morsel of perfection. He's the moody dream boy of every smart girl's high-def fantasy. Beautiful eyes, tortured family life, a tiny bit creepy, pretty depressed. Wes Bentley, yes indeedy.

But let's flash ahead to fifteen years later in our story, shall we? Having fallen madly in love, Jane (played by Thora Birch!) and Ricky now share a little apartment in the big city, and Jane is working nights as a registered nurse because Ricky went to NYU film school and then spent a year making a short film. Then he spent a few years working as a grip, but he finally decided that the industry was total fucking bullshit. So now he's getting a PhD in philosophy, theoretically. Except mostly he just smokes pot and speaks in abstractions. And theorizes. And analyzes. And Jane is 33 and would like to have a kid in spite of the traumas of her past. But Ricky says he needs to be in a very, very different place in his life before he even CONSIDERS such a wild and crazy far-away fantasy world.

In other words, Ricky is as pragmatic and future-focused as a squid out of water, lolling about on a linoleum floor. He's a human throw pillow. He's a plastic bag that floats around in advance of a snowstorm for fifteen minutes straight, and then just sits on the ground getting soggy the rest of the time. He does look really beautiful, floating around. But still.

For Ricky, floating started out as a way of finding himself. It was still sexy then! But now floating is just a giant excuse for not really living yet. It's an excuse to leave a party—OR a relationship—the very first second you feel vaguely dissatisfied.

Hey, to each his own. Seriously. Go forth and do you, sweet cheeks.

We're not talking to Ricky, though. We're talking to you, Jane/TOBIA. Could your ex foresee dumping you before you relocated your entire life to be with him? Fuck no, he could not. He required those sinking feelings that came along with you making practical plans in his midst, and then he needed one full month of the two of you, not just fucking and being dreamily perfect together. There you were, messing up all of his floating by requiring him to show up places and do things. Motherfucking doing things! So overrated!

Just imagine all of the other shit that might've turned out to be completely beyond his control, over the course of a few more years. You dodged a bullet.

But don't tell me "You're Polly, you're perceptive." I was pretty perceptive twenty years ago, but I still did all kinds of crazy stupid stuff. I look back on my boyfriends over the years, and Jesus, they were different from each other. Even so, most of them were squid boys, throw pillow guys, flying plastic bag men. But not on the surface! On the surface, they seemed pretty productive and normal. But underneath, they couldn't deal. How did that happen? Why did I end up with that kind of flailing, future-avoidant, convention-eschewing guy?

Here's why—PAY ATTENTION! Because when you meet a plastic-bag man, you can immediately see how you'll fit into his life. And that's exciting. It doesn't mean he seems needy, or that he even likes you all that much. But somehow, you can see the holes that need filling. You can fill them. You're good at filling holes! Really good!

Example: The recently dumped oldish guy with the really depressed dog. This dog needs a walk! This oldish guy needs a (younger) lady who's sweet and kind, who'll never leave him! The pull of that vision on you, in his life, fixing everything, is strong indeed, overpowering all of the other stuff that should be repelling you, like the fact that his ex seems perfectly ok and she hates his fucking guts.

This vision is so strong that, when you go for a walk with the dog for the first time, and he shows you how to pick up the dog's shit? You are appalled, but you don't immediately smile politely, say goodbye, get in your car, and get the fuck out of there. (Yeah! Go get some doughnuts! Rent a movie! Celebrate!) You stay. But did you indicate the slightest interest in his dog's shits? That should have been a blaring red alarm. Did you heed it? No, you told yourself, "Look how serious he is. He sees a future for us, together, picking up lots of shit."

Heh, there's the other thing. When a guy is serious and intense, that can feel so refreshing. After a series of encounters with casual whatever fuckwadery, that intensity can be tough to resist. He looks you in the eyes? Incredible! And he says heavy shit, and analyzes and theorizes? And not just about Federer's tactical failings?

Seriousness and a hunger for analysis, that's lady catnip. But it's also, sometimes, a sign that your guy knows his target demographic pretty goddamn well. Or that he's depressed. Or that he's a tedious self-centered overly analytical slithering self-adoring sea monster.

Now, let's move from the intriguing, serious, heavy ones to boring, light, dull ones. You put on your dating boots, then fall asleep in them. Here's something to keep in mind: Some guys who talk about dull stuff, politely, without a lot of frisson or passion? They're just trying to act normal on a fucking date. They're trying not to trot out the full-bore crazy immediately. They know from experience that not every woman alive loves analysis, and theorizing, and debate. See? THEY'RE SANE ENOUGH TO HIDE SOME OF THEIR CRAZY. And the older you are, the more you understand that that's about as sane as it gets, folks. Sane enough to seem sane? That's pretty goddamn sane, actually.

Now no one is endorsing the guy who talks about sports and televised entertainments, endlessly, on your first date. No one is saying that's your guy.

But a guy who talks about his job, and it's kind of dull, and he talks about his favorite cable drama, and that's a little boring, and he talks about moutain biking or surfing or some romanticized take on moving around outdoors, and that's sort of a snooze? And he touches on a past relationship, demonstrates that he has a brain and some emotions, but doesn't go into it, and doesn't make it into an interesting story? Maybe he's casual, easy come easy go, and seems not all that attached to seeing you again? Or worse, he seems interested, but maybe because you're the most interesting thing he's encountered in a while? Because he attracts boring stuff to him like lint? Because he's just regular, doesn't seem to need you, and who cares how his dull story winds up anyway? Seems to be functioning alright? And maybe he can't tell the difference between fabulous you and some dull Betty with half as many ideas in her head?

We've just described a regular, healthy human being, that's all. Do we know what it's like to spend lots of time with him? We don't know a thing about that—BUT THAT'S WHAT WE CARE ABOUT. Not his creepy eyes. Not his haunted soliloquies. No. Is he relaxing to be around? Does he listen really closely to you, plus he's hilariously funny when he doesn't feel put on the spot, plus he's sexy when you're not sitting in hard chairs, talking about your careers, for fuck's sake?

Maybe your conversations will become richer and richer. Maybe he has complex thoughts about lots of stuff, you just don't know it yet. Maybe not, but maybe.

Keep in mind: The good guys generally don't present all that well. They usually seem boring at first. They are not intense, they don't need you, they don't insult you, they don’t stare deeply into your eyes, they don't say provocative insane shit that confuses you. Why? BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT INSANE.

My husband, for example, is the single worst storyteller in the history of the world. It's incredible, listening to him tell a story, how clueless he is about keeping people interested. He will give you deep background information on minor characters in his story, as if his goal is to put you into a trance. He will back up and tell you which (totally irrelevant) events brought him to this (also totally trivial) tale. Here's my husband, recalling his experiences selling encyclopedias door to door (that's the internet, stuffed into some books. They used to sell that shit to suckers). Keep in mind, he's talking to A ROOM FULL OF PEOPLE AT A PARTY:

Husband: So I knocked. This woman answers the door, and she says, "No thanks, not interested." So, go to the next house. I knock. A guy comes to the door and he says, "No thanks." So I go to the next house and knock.

Guess what happens next? Someone else says no thanks. It's actually a little bit like performance art, what he does. And it's transfixing, watching people's faces transform from engaged and interested to glazed over, like human lava lamps.

But let's be honest. People still like my husband way better than me, with my lightning-fast awesome stories. He's less repugnant and repellent than me, of course. Who isn't? And he's very interesting to speak to, as long as he's not telling a story. In conversation, he theorizes, analyzes, debates. He thinks things over and responds. And he talks about his day, and it's generally interesting, as long as no part of his brain says "HEY THIS IS A STORY I'M TELLING A STORY NOW."

I think my big point here is that ALL men are kind of weird mutant life forms who have giant blind spots somewhere, or they just flat out can't function at all. You need to look out for a guy who CAN function reasonably well, is maybe just SOMETIMES depressed (Because, hello, who's not depressed ever? Dumb people, and dumb animals. Even smart animals are depressed a lot of the time). Your ideal guy will be wonderful in almost every way, and a little screwy in one or two ways that don't prevent him from, say, making a fucking plan a few days in advance, or staying at a party past the point where it's 100% optimal for him to be there.

How will you find your guy? By suspending your disbelief a little longer. By going on second dates. By keeping an open mind.

I'm trying to tell you that intellectual does not have to mean tortured. If you find someone smart enough, that in and of itself is a gift that keeps on giving. He doesn't have to be insane or intense or even wildly romantic. He just needs to be capable of intelligent discourse. Listen, think, respond intelligently. It sounds so simple, but CHRIST ALMIGHTY there are lots of dopes who don't understand simple conversational language. And there are there lots of guys squidding around out there, spewing out inky vagaries, matching their surroundings perfectly but never fucking listening for half a second! Talk about boring.

Now, sure, your guy will need to be sensitive, with some possible emotional neglect in his past. It's like salt: A little neglect, but not too much! It's true though that a sliver of damage makes men more interesting. Without any damage or any sensitivity or any depressy or anxious tendencies, even smart men can sound like dumb animals.

You can take or leave a small bit of damage-spice. Overall, though, you are on the lookout for robust mental health, which often looks really boring at the outset. Likewise, men who look shiny and exciting from the very first moment are often pretty fucked and scary in the long run.

Ladies of the universe, heed me: Robust mental health and brains, paired with a great sense of humor, lots of ideas and opinions, and an ability to listen, all rolled into the form of a productive member of society? It might look dull at first because it has a bad haircut and doesn't know how to dress, but THAT is still what you want. You don't need slouchy romantic thinkers, OK? Those guys feel like they deserve to have an affair. They feel like they should take a year off to travel, even though the baby is still young. They feel like you're holding them back, making things all dreary and lame in their lives. "Why can't you happier?" they'll ask you, sounding very unhappy themselves.

At the very least, when you encounter a squid boy, a throw pillow guy, a plastic bag man, don't listen to his critiques of you. Just put down the throw pillow (don't throw it!) and move on. When you believe that he's right, that there's something missing IN YOU, that YOU are the wound? You stay obsessed with him, and you can't move on. TOBIA, do you still suspect that Mr. Plastic Bag had you pegged? That he's somehow better than you because he rejected you? Because you'll be ignoring great guys forever and ever if you truly believe that.

Look very closely at the stories you tell yourself about yourself. Then resolve to tell better stories. You ARE an optimistic fairy princess. It's time to give some of these so-called frogs a fighting chance.

Polly

Do you ever feel like a plastic bag drifting through the wind, want to start again? Write to Polly and tell her all about it, Katy.

Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl's existential advice columnist. She's also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses. Image from a photo by James Alby.

The post Ask Polly: These Tortured Intellectual Boys Are Torturing Me! appeared first on The Awl.

by Heather Havrilesky

We all want confident children, but research indicates that effusive parental praise can backfire. In one study, 80% of kids describe their parents' compliments as "not really true," "overblown" or "completely full of shit." Does this mean we're doomed to raise a generation of children who doubt themselves? Not if we stop praising them unnecessarily. Instead, parents should give their children truly daunting challenges that actually do warrant a flood of praise. For example:

1. Teach your child to do the Heimlich maneuver. Then, pretend that you're choking on a chicken bone. When your child "saves" you, thank him profusely, through tears. Be sure to tell everyone in the neighborhood about your little "hero."

2. Show your child how to use a fire extinguisher. Then, leave something flammable on the stove for too long. Your child will feel so proud when she successfully puts out the fire and "saves" everyone in the house! Don't forget to tell all of the firemen who arrive at the scene about your "brave little firefighter."

3. Teach your child where to find the number for the poison control center. Then take an overdose of medication, but don't tell your kid what you took. He'll have so much fun trying to "solve" the mystery of what's making you turn blue and foam at the mouth! Be sure to leave the empty bottle somewhere—kids just love looking for clues. Your little sleuth will feel so proud when he "saves" you from certain death!

4. Tell your child that you're dying of a mysterious degenerative disease and that she'll need to learn how to keep the household running as you slowly lose control of your body and mind. Kids derive so much joy from taking on "big boy" or "big girl" responsibilities! Once your child is scrubbing the toilets, making dinner, and filing as head of household on your yearly tax returns, her self-esteem is sure to skyrocket. Just don't start taking over "her" jobs or you'll see an immediate dip in her confidence.

5. Explain to your child that he is the only "real" human being alive, and the rest of us are actually just figments of his imagination, created by the gods to "test" whether or not he's fit to usher a new generation into the future. Tell him that when other kids or teachers challenge him, it's crucial to explain to such "heretics" (who aren't even real in the first place!) that Zambulon, the ancient god of fire, has decreed that thwarting his initiatives amounts to threatening the human race with certain extinction. Once your child sees that he's the only person on the entire planet who matters, he'll be so confident that you'll hardly even recognize him!

Now, be forewarned that any effort to substantially boost your child's confidence is going to come with some cost, whether it's a house burned to the ground, a pumped stomach, or a sudden expulsion from school. But once your child's self-esteem soars sky-high, she won't remotely mind being hated by all of the adults and children around her. And then you can finally rest easy, knowing that you did your part to ensure that the next generation of children might grow up to become some of the most tenacious, myopic, self-interested individuals ever to have lived. Why, just think of all of the amazing art and poetry and literature that will get incinerated when they start lobbing nuclear bombs at each other!

Heather Havrilesky is also The Awl's existential advice columnist. She's also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses. Adorable child photographed by Lance Shields.

The post 5 Quick & Easy Ways to Boost Your Child's Self-Esteem appeared first on The Awl.

Polly,

My question is a simple and boring one: How do I find love? And, more importantly, how to I cultivate self-esteem? I'm in my late 20's, and I tend to get into relationships with dudes that are only half interested in me, and then I badger them to death about their half-assed interest until the relationship slowly dies. What I want most, MOST, in the world is a happy family. Children that I feel joy with. A genuinely happy marriage that lasts until I kick the goddamn bucket. I grew up with very unhappy, miserable parents that immigrated to the states, and I don't even know what to look for in a partner or a relationship. I feel like if a guy is "nice," (i.e. doesn't hit me or call me names and has generally good character), then I should just quit whining and wondering about why they're not crazy about me, why they never pursue me, why they are always so goddamn tepid.

I want a big, passionate, happy, funny, fun love. I am afraid I will never find it. I think I am as likable as the next person, but I'm not sure how to make myself attractive to men. I guess I just feel ugly and unlovable, and I would like to stop.

I love your advice. (Is straight-up "I love you" too much? Probably, but still: I do!) I've been reading your stuff for a couple years on Rabbit Blog, and now I stalk you on The Awl.

Thanks,

A Reader

Dear Reader,

I love you, too, mostly because 1) you love me already, 2) you've put in a little effort to follow me here, 3) I can relate to wanting to tear my hair out over tepid motherfuckers for years, and 4) when you ask me this very simple question, I feel like a mathematical genius or a historian whose thoughts separate into layers and then keep expanding to infinity, so that I don't know where to start because there are just so many possibilities, all of them rich and exciting. And even though a regular person who didn't love me and didn't follow me here and isn't frustrated over tepid motherfuckers will read that and say, "Jesus, lady, you're an advice columnist, not a fucking math genius or historian, and if even if you have fifty million approaches to this woman's totally mundane heteronormative fixations, that hardly qualifies you as one of today's great minds. I'm sure she creeps men out because she's boring or her ass is enormous, and you're creepy, too, because you're fucking old and you're still dedicating all of this time to twentysomething girl trouble when you could maybe be doing something vaguely worthwhile with your life, if you weren't so smug about your pathetic little interwebs hobby."

See how it works? You dig me, you put in effort, you aren't remotely tepid, we can relate to each other, and you make me feel like the things that are patently fucked about me are actually thrilling and vital and they somehow matter. (And I know you're exciting and I love your juicy booty, but that's not the point.)

Now imagine for a second that someone writes to me and says, "Look, you're just ok and you're old and you're wasting your time on this bullshit." (Um, no one does that, because this isn't Salon.) But imagine that someone does tell me that. And imagine that I spend several hours of my time explaining why I'm awesome and my work here is incredibly significant to the health of the planet, and I fucking matter and I have great ideas, brilliant fucking ideas, I'm a genius, and seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you? Suddenly this tepid bit of flotsam is taking up my time, and instead of turning away from it, I'm making claims that my work is deeply important (which, well, is a highly subjective stance).

I'm starting to sound just like Kanye.

I love Kanye, and he sounds the way he sounds on Jimmy Kimmel for a very good reason. He sounds that way because he's an artist with great ideas who not only lives in a racist world (Go read this awesome essay by Cord Jefferson on the subject) but who also lives in a world that isn't all that appreciative of someone who delivers a passionate, angry response to his critics. He lives in a world that devalues free-flowing, emotional discourse from a black man unless it's packaged very neatly into a rap. (Please note: this world also devalues free-flowing, emotional discourse from a woman unless she's also funny AND sexy. If you're not super fucking hot and funny first, you can go fuck yourself, ladies.)

Kanye isn't perfect, but you pretty much either love him and think he's a genius and then he makes some sense to you, or you don't get it and he seems crazy. Maybe you don't love him because you don't love his music or some of the mistakes he's made in the past, or maybe you don't love him because you're a racist, but those two responses actually look the same to him, and why shouldn't they? Because the world is, verifiably, filled with racist motherfuckers, this is not a confused response. It's an emotional one. He doesn't love you either way. Maybe it's a mistake for him to keep talking about it. Or maybe he's helping everyone by being the symbol of a kind of anger that people are vexed by and afraid of. All I know is, I feel for him. Because lots of people don't understand what he's doing, so they belittle him. And he's right, they DO just want to meet him, leech off him, take photos of him, point at him, get him to sign some deal to do this or that, kiss his ass and laugh behind his back. To which he says, "Fuck you AND your Hampton house, I'll fuck your Hampton spouse, came on her Hampton blouse," etc.

I know, misogyny, added to my ass objectification. Look, I have to be my brutal self, too. This is the texture of the world we live in, and stepping around it politely makes me feel crazy.

So here's where we land: You need to tell tepid to fuck right off, Kanye-style. If you vow right now that the second you see tepid, you're going to back up and say "No fucking thanks," and move on without looking back, then your self-esteem will immediately bounce back from years of abuse. That means retiring the soliloquy about how great you are. That means no more badgering. Replace the badgering with a rap. Write it down, file it away, move the fuck on. (Fuck you AND your futon. I'll fuck your best friend Sean. I'll fuck him 'til the dawn. I'll make your man my pawn. Fuck having late-night drinks. Fuck playing tiddly winks. Fuck all your tepid kinks. Your half-assed shit still stinks.)

And you know what? OK, I'm stretching this Kanye metaphor beyond the breaking point, but bear with me. We live in some crazy fucking times. Sexism is everywhere and we're not even confused by it anymore, we're just drinking it down like water without thinking. How can we make enemies of people we want to get dirty with, and get love from, and make babies with?

And men are great, let's be honest. Those filthy, simple-minded, government-bungling ball-scratchers. We love those dicks. Love. Sincerely, desperately, quietly, devotedly. I have one in my own home, in my bed, of all places. Who let him in here? But he's great, really, much more honorable and kinder than me, as a matter of fact. Sharp as a tack and best all around.

But here's a little anecdote for you: I went out to a bar the other night with some women, and it was late at night (this is rare for me) and there were some men there, regular guys, reasonably ok looking, flirtatious high-fiving types? And they started shooting the shit with us. And we women were polite. Some were nice and others ignored them. Well, I like a high-fiver. You don't believe me, but I spent years around this species and I appreciate them. That said, though, I don't want to follow their meandering bullshit wherever it leads, and I don't want to flirt, and I don’t want to feed their egos. I want to engage in a give and take conversation while occasionally calling them on their shit.

But you know what? It's an accident of fate that I ever hung out with high fivers in my entire life. Because those guys HATE me. Hate. They find me physically repellent. I'm not saying I'm hot, and I'm not saying I'm disgusting, all I know is that to them, I am dipped in shit. Usually, this starts after I open my mouth, but maybe not? Maybe I'm just gross? It's hard to tell.

These particular guys, I couldn't care less about. But that's the soup I've been in, without knowing it, since I was really young and single. Most guys I met preferred my flirty lady friends to me. Now sometimes slightly weird guys, slightly smarter, stranger, maybe more damaged or maybe just more sensitive guys (or both), they were a little intrigued by my not-buying-it face and my assertive here's-what-I-fucking-think fat mouth, or maybe they just liked my ass, which truly was a force of nature for a time. So what was it, my ass or my big personality? My almost-pretty face, or my almost-smart words? I never knew. UNTIL THE BITCHES GOT TEPID. And by then we were already sleeping together, and hanging out around the clock.

But did I say to myself, "Oh. He doesn't like me. He likes my ass. A lot. Enough to put up with my bullshit for a while."? No. I didn't say that. I can look back now and see the truth. "That dude didn't even like me." Or: "That dude didn't even like women all that much." Or: "He liked my personality enough to date me, but he would've liked me a lot (A LOT!) more if I were about half as smart and half as talkative."

And remember about Kanye? Remember your badgering? When you suspect that a guy doesn't like you? YOU TALK TOO GODDAMN MUCH. Instead, you should be saying, "Fuck you AND your Hampton house." Yes, your first priority should be to keep an open mind, to listen, to observe men with a clear, uncluttered perspective. Your second priority should be to never, ever waste a minute of your time on a guy who's tepid.

Because tepid is everywhere. Tepid is the air we breathe. Listen to me: We can't do anything right. We can't say what we mean, we can't be ourselves, we can't age, we can't talk about feelings, we can't fuck up. This is how it feels to be a woman, motherfucker. The world is filled with human beings who want us to shut up and shake our asses, point blank, the end. Can you fucking imagine if we had our own Kanye? For her to have Kanye's power, and get invited on Kimmel, of course she'd have to be a mega-hot, funny as shit woman who walked around looking exactly like the chick in the short skirt who eats giant hamburgers on those Carl Jr. ads, but instead of eating a hamburger she'd be saying FUCK YOU, YOU ARE A SEXIST FUCK. I mean, sure, we have our women who look mortal and say this. Are they on TV? Rachel Maddow, she's on TV. How many people in that bar would even know who the fuck she is? Who listens closely to Lena Dunham, who is gorgeous by the way? No, she's not shaped right to listen to, right? She's too full of herself? She's too annoying?

Let's not fall down that rabbit hole. All I'm saying is, here we are in a fucked up world. And even when you find your species, or at least your genus, you still are sometimes just a piece of ass to the best of them. Not even because they're incredibly sexist—maybe they're just pragmatic, or ambivalent in this case. They don't happen to love you, is all. They don't think you're a math genius or a historian, and they're gonna call bullshit. They think that when you talk, you're wasting their time a little. That doesn't mean that they're bad. Sure, you want those guys and their futons and their best friends Sean to go fuck themselves, but that doesn’t mean they're evil. But once they don't love you, who the fuck cares about them? Were those dudes in the bar sexist, or did they just think I'm sort of bossy and repellent? Who the fuck cares?

You're hunting a very small group, that's all. Your target demographic, it's small. There's more than one of them, but they're not everywhere.

That doesn't mean your odds are bad! You will find love. Believe me. But in order to find it, I think you have to prepare yourself for a life alone, and be at peace with that. It's a real tightrope walk. I get that. But you won't tell tepid to fuck off if you don't believe in your heart that you will rock it out one way or another.

In order to tell tepid to fuck off once and for all, you MUST recognize that life among those who don't appreciate or understand you is bullshit. You don't want to live that way. You don't want to be badgery and lonely while you're with someone. You'd rather be alone.

What will make ALONE look good to you? You have to work on that. Because single life needs to look really, really good, you have to believe in it, if you're going to hold out for that rare guy who makes you feel like all of your ideas start rapidly expanding and approaching infinity when you talk to him. You need to have a vision of life alone, stretching into the future, and you need to think about how to make that vision rich and full and pretty. You have to put on an artist's mindset and get creative and paint some portrait of yourself alone that's breathtaking. You have to bring the full force of who you are and what you love to that project.

And then you go out into the world with an open heart, and you let people into your life, and you listen, and you embrace them for who they are. You make new friends. You do new things that make you feel more like the strong single woman who owns the world that's in your vision. And you don't sleep with anyone until things are much warmer than lukewarm. And you accept that, if things are lukewarm AFTER that, you will be forced to kick a motherfucker to the curb, with kindness, with forgiveness.

You have to do a lot. And you have to do it all against a backdrop of indifference that, as you get older, curdles into a kind of disgust. But you know what? We have each other. We have worlds within us, you and me. This mean, mean planet still rewards those who can see the depth and beauty of what they carry around inside of themselves. This indifferent landscape will rise up and give you love if you share what you have inside, if you dare to believe in your potential even as people tell you it's a mirage, if you ignore the ones who are allergic to free-flowing, emotional discourse from YOU. They are everywhere, and they don't matter. God bless them. Come on their Hampton blouse, and move on.

Polly

"So long, so long, so long! You cannot survive. And I'm not dying. And I can't lose, I can't lose, no, I can't lose. Cause I can't leave it to you." Write to Polly and let's get too high again.

Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl's existential advice columnist. She's also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses. Photo of Mr. West by Jason Lander.

The post Ask Polly: How Do I Find True Love And Stop Dating Half-Assed Men? appeared first on The Awl.

Hi Polly,

So, I was dating someone long distance (YES I KNOW). Though I thought it was going well, he ended it—and now I’m not sure if it’s good for me to be friends with him (YES I KNOW JUST HOLD ON).

I’m a 40-year-old gay guy who’s never dated anyone longer than 9 months. This year I finally felt ready to settle down (not immediately! this takes work!), though I know that may not be possible at this point. I’m smart and ambitious, but with some major problems I’m finally working on (sorting out issues from my college-era drug use, always had difficulty maintaining friendships). Though I’ve always made life choices based on career opportunity, they haven’t always panned out, and there have been a couple spans of lean years. (For context, the men in my family follow this same life arc: troubled youth, then settling down. Maybe some behavioral genetics are playing out here.)

If you’re not married by 40, there are usually a few possible things Wrong With You: you’re unattractive (nope, healthy self-image), you’re crazy (under control I guess?), or you bail on good things. I used to run from relationships; now I’m patient and let them play out. But I have insanely high standards, so good things rarely come along.

When I was a little boy I was really lonely: one older brother who bullied me, and the only other kid in the gifted program who moved away, leaving me to become poorly socialized with boys I saw as below me. I was subtly encouraged to avoid friendships with girls, though I found those in college. But I never recovered from losing the one guy like me, and as an adult I’ve been an isolator.

So I’ve always felt like I lacked my guy-geek best friend, my Lego co-builder, my brother-in-code. I have a family-shaped hole in my heart, but kids are basically off the table now (no nieces/nephews either), and all I want to do as the clock ticks on down is keep the old friends I have somehow held onto, and keep the new people in my life who make it worth living.

You’re supposed to be happy with someone who’s, say, 75% of what you want, right? This guy was 90% (except for living a short, cheap flight away). He’s handsome, my physical type, with a lush and gorgeous beard, age-appropriate, a complete match in the bedroom, sweet and sensitive, grew up in a similar kind of dysfunctional family, never judged my problems, only supported them, and, maybe most important, a socially-competent math whiz (BONERBONERBONER). We programmed together, cooked amazing meals, traveled to places whimsical and mystical. It felt like I was finally building something. I can honestly say that though I’ve dated and fucked a zillion guys by now, I’ve never met anyone like him. I thought he felt the same way; after getting to know each other a little, he declared, over one of those romantic dinners I never seem to get: “You’re so much of what I want.”

But after a few months of weekend visits, and a span of a few weeks on vacation, it turns out a relationship wasn’t what he wanted—but no word on what he did want. As you said, Polly, sometimes guys sense any change in cabin pressure and they just run for the hills, and we never get to know why, there is no why, he just runs from good things and that’s not your fault, stop torturing yourself already!

I stopped trying to figure out why, and have just been letting the reality wash over me, accepting it, trying to feel the shape of what my heart looks like now. He’s getting tenure in his city where Nobody Walks, and I’m in love with my city where Everybody Bikes. I was open to the idea of dating for a year first, but if anything had gotten serious, I’d have had a hard time leaving, even though the dating pool is small and most hookup opportunities are with already-taken guys in open relationships (ugh).

But he keeps texting to say hi. I know he’s never met anyone like me before either, but I’ve given up on the idea of us turning it around. Now I can’t tell if maintaining contact is going to turn him into the lifelong buddy I’ve always craved, or whether it’s picking at a wound I need to just let heal.

And with my history, tendencies, and standards, am I even likely to find anyone, or do I just get the cats and the garden, dress up as Santa for the local orphanage every year, and start work on the conversation-bot that will keep me from feeling lonely when I'm senile and need to pretend someone is still texting me? I mean, all that *does* sound like it'd make me happier than I am now.

Signed,

Old Man-Maid

Dear OMM,

So there you were, swept away by this 90%, almost-true love, when your man disappeared. Should you stay friends and risk great pain? Or would you rather ignore his texts and allow him to take on the mythical status of The Gifted Boy Who Moved Away, serving as both lost love and lost Lego co-builder, symbolizing your one shot at happiness on every front?

At least you have a romantic vision of the future to guide you: "All I want to do as the clock ticks on down is keep the old friends I have somehow held onto, and keep the new people in my life who make it worth living." Whoa, now! You're flying pretty close to the sun, there, captain!

Of course, there's always plan B: Cats, garden, Santa Claus, conversation 'bot. But will they even let you adopt a cat, what with your "history, tendencies and standards"? You do know that playing Santa Claus at the orphanage is a pretty coveted role, right? Plus, if you create this conversation 'bot in your image, making it just as cautious and self-protective as you are, unwilling to speak to anyone who is less than 90% right for it, who says it will even deign to speak to the likes of you?

Do you know why cats and gardens and Santa Claus outfits sound kind of good to you? Because those are the sorts of flawed, messy compromises that your life lacks right now. When you imagine giving up on your story completely ("the boy who got away and never came back, no one is good enough, I'm not good enough") and you strip out the efforts to "keep people in your life" (which sounds arbitrary and sterile for a reason: because you're not good enough and they're not good enough), then you have to stuff something else into the empty space. Then you're free from your own absurdly high standards.

So let's try to disable your onboard superiority complex, with its unmatched level of statistical accuracy that keeps you safe from all human foibles. Let's power down your motherboard once and for all. (I can just hear you now: "Technically you don't 'power down' a motherboard, Polly, but I think I see your point.")

Because once we cut off this very logical, alienating processor of yours, that's when you're free to start living in an entirely new way, whether that means adopting cats or growing a garden that you struggle to keep alive or building a conversation 'bot, simply because YOU want to. And you might even give time to some orphans, with whom you secretly identify.

This circles back to my comments last week about creating a beautiful vision of your future as a single person, so that you know you'll have a great life with or without your imaginary dream mate. It also circles back to times I've urged letter writers to lean into their vulnerability (a few people have asked me what the fuck that means, in fact).

The beautiful vision and the vulnerability go hand in hand.

Your first challenge is that you lack a compelling vision of your future. You would never dare to dream of something so grand as meeting the most amazing man ever, falling in love, and having kids. Your history, tendencies and standards, added into your chronological age, render this pursuit statistically impossible. According to you, you will be lucky to meet a guy in an open relationship, or a guy who's great but isn't looking for the Lego co-builder of his dreams. You will be lucky just to hold onto the friends you haven't alienated yet. You will be lucky to bide your time as the clock ticks on down.

WRONG. You need a beautiful vision. Go buy a really nice journal and write down exactly what you want from the next 10 years of your life. Go nuts. Approach this work with a spirit of optimism and gratitude. If that requires a little extra coffee, so be it. Go to some mountain top in Bicycle Town with a triple latte and write write write. Be romantic. Get wild. Fly close to the sun for once, goddamn it!

But before you set pen to paper, hear me: YOU are the gifted boy who moved away. You have been here the whole time, waiting for kindness, waiting to stop being bullied or ignored. It's time to stop bullying yourself, to stop telling stories about family-shaped holes. You are not damaged beyond repair, your history and tendencies and standards are not deal-breakers. It's time to give yourself the right to want a lot. You deserve a lot. You are good enough right now, to have everything you've always secretly wanted.

So that's the first part: Sketching out your beautiful vision of your life, alone or with another person. It's a fantastical portrait of what you could be, if you applied yourself a little. For example: "I have a gorgeous mansion by the sea, just like Gatsby except I genuinely love all of my beautiful shirts, and I would never throw them all over the place, because they really do complete me!"

There's a kind of overachiever's ball in play here. But it's also about counteracting your compulsion to lower your expectations because you're not good enough and don't really deserve much. Behind every superiority complex, there's an intensely insecure person who just wants to be loved, truly madly deeply loved. 40 is not that old. Why not dare to dream?

The second part of your vision—and maybe the most important part, for you—is about cultivating your own vulnerability and openness. That's the Santa-at-the-orphanage, cats & garden part. Because what lots of overachievers don't realize is that understanding your life in the absence of success is just as important as understanding your goals.

Some people settle for too little, strangely enough, because they're afraid to be vulnerable. We women are much more likely to say "Hmm, this dumpy asshole will do, because he really seems like the kind of dumpy asshole who'll never leave me for his secretary." We don't even know we're compromising, because the message that we should always be humble and grateful is flashing in our faces. Our culture asks: WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, BAR REFAELI? BROOKLYN FUCKING DECKER?

(The irony, of course, is that the dumpy asshole is even MORE likely to dump you for his secretary than the other guy, because you two aren't a good match in the first place.)

The bottom line: Stop playing it safe. That doesn't work. You're not engaged with the world around you, and the scary thing is that you actually believe that that's YOUR DESTINY. Because you're Not Good Enough.

If I were you, I would call this bearded mathematician and tell him you are in love with him and you want the two of you to be together, somehow, some way. He will say "No." FANTASTIC! Now you know he's just texting you because he likes fucking you and wants to try to hit it the next time he's in town. It's time to come on that Hampton blouse, and move on. Don't befriend him, don't fuck him, and don't keep him in the nowhere zone of BIG IMPORTANT SYMBOL, like the mythical Boy Who Moved Away. Move. On.

There's also danger in treating yourself like a mythical symbol of something better than who you actually are. I'm not trying to be mean. I feel thankful for how vividly you've painted your portrait here. I mean this is a first act that practically writes itself. And in the romantic comedy of your life, this would be the point where THE HERO HEARS THE CALL. You'd probably be chugging along, As Good As It Gets-style, all controlling and lonely, and some sloppy loud-ass mess of a man, a mere 20% of what you want, would bust into the picture and kiss you passionately then wipe his big dirty body on all your linens and make you claustrophobic, and you'd kick him out and roll your eyes and then you'd pull your china doll down from a high shelf and cry and cry and cry and smash it against the wall and then weep and snot and moan and… This isn't a very good movie, is it?

But then the sloppy guy would come back. He'd say something like "I love your uptight, not-good-enough ways. And I love your history, tendencies and standards."

OK, hold on. That's not quite right. That won't happen, because no one loves history, tendencies and standards. You know what they love? They love naughty cats and untamed not very perfect gardens, and Santa Claus outfits that hang lovingly in the hall closet all year instead of getting packed away in moth balls, which would be more sensible. Sloppy, lovable, passionate guys love lonely men with half-built conversation 'bots that will barely speak to them. They love Old Man-Maids with friends who aren't just being kept around as the clock ticks on down, but friends with names and their own problems, who are being heard and appreciated and showered with dorky little Old Man-Maid gestures—slightly wilty flowers from the garden, baked bread that maybe isn't as good as the last batch.

So, after you sketch out your beautiful, fantastical vision of the future, I want you to write down what will happen if you fail, here and there. What will you do instead? How will you manage to be happy anyway? What's weird is, this vulnerable vision sometimes seems even better than the beautiful one, once you work on it for a while. Personally, I used to picture being alone and adopting lots of dogs and dressing like a serious freak. I don't know why I found that comforting, but I did. You need to cultivate your crumpled, compromised vision of the future, too. At the center of that vision is you, our vulnerable, flawed hero. You know that everyone loves a vulnerable, flawed hero, right? This is why Seth Rogen has a career in the first place.

Vulnerability is your key to feeling your way to a brighter future. Calling the guy in the other city and telling him your feelings. Deigning to date random dudes who are maybe only 40% right and can't balance their stupid checkbooks. Holding out for good chemistry, sure, but waiting and seeing if you might be attracted to someone unexpected. Making new friends simply because you're curious about them. Daring to get hurt, and accepting the messiness of life.

Vulnerability means getting up in the morning and saying, "It's ok to FEEL not good enough. But I am good enough." Vulnerability means daring to contradict yourself, and daring to want some things that it's illogical to want, like kids or ANOTHER beautiful bearded man who maybe isn't exactly like you this time.

Children with superiority complexes want to find someone who matches them perfectly. "This mirror person who is just like me (and lovable) proves that I am lovable, too."

Healthy adults can love someone who is different. You are already lovable, Old Man-Maid. You want to fall in love. Wear it on your sleeve. The people who own that desire are the ones who find love. You think it's pathetic because you think that most things are pathetic. You are still pretty flippant and caustic.

So am I, by the way. But when I stick my neck out, good things come to me. The more I let other people be who they are, the happier I am.

How much fucking time do we have to feed our egos, as the clock ticks on down? Fuck ego. I like dogs and weirdos and funny women and smart men and also less funny women and less smart men. I don't like people who want me to get the point really fast, or who think I'm wearing the wrong shoes. (I am.) There's a kind of LA person who talks like he's in the car, running late, and his head is on fire. I keep those people out of my life if possible.

Let's close with a dumb story! Once this very successful acquaintance called me out of the blue, and he thought I was Heather Graham, because my name was right next to Heather Graham's in his fucking cell phone. ROLLER GIRL AND ME, RIGHT THERE, TOGETHER! First he left me this ridiculous message, "Hey, we're outside your apartment actually wondering if you're around, we're about to grab some drinks down the block." I'm thinking: Whose apartment? Drinks where? Then he calls me a few days later, and he's chatting in this spirited, trying-to-impress way (but his head is still on fire, of course) and finally he figures it out: I'm not Heather Graham.

So then he's scraping for something to say, and all he comes up with is, "So, are you still doing the TV critic thing? Are you just going to… do that for a while?" AM I JUST GOING TO DO THAT FOR A WHILE. The implication being that I should be, I don't know, strapping on roller skates and fucking Mark Wahlberg?

Are you just going to… do that for a while?

So after I put down the phone, I got a little wilty. "Being a TV critic IS pretty lame," I thought. Shouldn't I be doing something glamorous that this dude would respect? Shouldn't I look much more like a fuck doll? Then I moved on to I'm Not Good Enough. WHO DO I THINK I AM, ANYWAY, HEATHER GRAHAM?

Finally I thought: That guy is a fucking tool.

The people who wonder if you're wasting your time (the snobs, the pretty boys, the mega-uber hipsters) are usually wondering the same thing about themselves. What's with this voice in your head, Old Man-Maid, who says your history will always trump who you are now, who says you're too old to have kids, who says you'll be senile soon and you'll never find anyone who loves you for you?

All of the joy you've ever dreamed of feeling is within you already. The people who care about how much they matter are not the people who matter. The people who want things, who want beauty, who want to seem brilliant FIRST? The people who respond to you sticking your neck out by stepping on it? These are the bullies, or maybe they're just distracted and they were really calling for someone else. Forgive them, but do not allow them to become symbols of anything.

You want love from that guy. You don't really want friendship from him, and settling for friendship from him is really just a way of torturing yourself with his rejection of you. That probably feels natural to you. It's time for longing to stop feeling so natural.

If you give your love, admit your flaws, open yourself up to whatever the world wants to give you, the world will open up to you. If you accept who you are right now and proclaim that this is a person who deserves love, who matters a lot, warts and worries and history and all? If you start to give yourself some of the things you really want, that are just for you? You will draw men with lush, thick beards straight to you. You will be become a Middle-Aged Man Magnet, not an Old Man-Maid.

Stop telling yourself stories about the things you can no longer expect and never deserved. Go fall in love and have babies and live your life. You are special, but you are no better than anyone else. You are just you, a gifted boy with a giant heart. Who do you think you are? It's time to find out. This is only the beginning.

Polly

What do you think you deserve? Tell Polly!

Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl's existential advice columnist. She's also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses. Photo by "istolethetv."

The post Ask Polly: I'm 40 And No Man Would Want Me Now! appeared first on The Awl.

Dear Polly,

I'm at a point in my life (24 years and a month, to be exact) where I'm finally slipping out from my romantic ideas of the world and starting to accept hard facts. Things like preparing to be alone forever, me not giving a shit about impressing people who don't deserve my time, etc.

However, I'm in a funk right now that I can't figure out, which is horrendous because I'm a logical thinker who wants to solve every problem anyone has right away. Six months ago, I was living with my boyfriend at the time in the small, shitty college town where we went to school. He originally grew up there, in fact, and after awhile I started to realize that he wanted to stay forever, and I just couldn't do it. So I moved to a much bigger city which I am enjoying for the time being (who says I should put both feet on the ground yet?). The break up was hard for me, especially since I've recently learned he's got a new girlfriend already six months after telling me he didn't want to date anyone (pretty sure he meant to say "I don't want to date YOU"). I've dated around a few times since then but no guy has really clicked with me, or I with him (really though, mostly me-to-him).

I have a lot of LGBT friends and, being an ally of the that community, I often go to gay bars with them. But after awhile I started to get restless and wanted to go somewhere I could meet a guy. So a couple weeks ago, we went bar hopping to some dive bars and such. I didn't really think anything would happen, but I met a guy and it escalated pretty quickly (approx. 30 minutes, plus or minus a drunk-hour). We were gearing up to go back to my place when he told me he needed to let his girlfriend know he was leaving. Wait, what? Oh, he said, we're in an open relationship. Now I have nothing against that cause you know, different folks, different strokes. I saw him chatting with her and she seemed upset and left, but still we ended up in my bed, having the best sex of my life. Like, kamasutra, 5 hours of cunnilingus, that type of shit. This guy keeps telling me I'm beautiful, yadda yadda yadda typical boy-wants-to-get-laid things.

Anyway, eventually we're not having sex and I start prodding him about the open relationship thing. Mostly out of curiosity, but also because I think I felt a bit guilty and definitely confused. He seemed annoyed when I mentioned her, so I just stopped and, of course, we started fucking again.

The next morning we exchange numbers and he leaves. A few days later, he texts me some small talk and we chat for awhile. Then, out of nowhere, he gets really serious and tells me wants to make absolutely sure I understand that he's got a significant other, although they both occasionally have sex with other people. Now, I don't usually get mad at many things but boy, that really hit a nerve with me. I replied with a very stern "yeah, I'm aware," hoping to end the conversation. But nope! For the next five minutes he continues to explain several times over his relationship status, as if the "yeah, I'm aware," didn't strike him the way it was intended, which is "YES, I KNOW."

Now, I'm all about women's lib. I believe a woman can fuck and walk just like a man can. But I am REALLY upset that he seems to think I can't. Since that conversation I've been feeling like a compressed ball of energy is in my chest, waiting to explode. But I don't know why! Maybe I'm hurt that, subconsciously, that sex felt like a huge compliment that he gave me, only to pull the rug out from under me and take it away. Maybe I'm just really uncomfortable with the idea of messing around with a man who has a girlfriend, even though they are (well, at least he is) OK with it. Maybe I'm pissed that I met a hot guy who is fantastic in bed and shares interest with me who also happens to be taken. I don't know! But I've felt like shit since, and I need someone, i.e. you, to sober my feelings up a bit. With brutal honesty, of course.

Sincerely,

Ms. Whatthefuckisgoingon

Dear Ms. WTFIGO,

This is very natural, lab-rat-wants-the-pellet stuff on both sides. You turned him on and he wants to have sex again, but he also wants to bludgeon you over the head with his relationship status to assuage his own guilt, to mollify the girlfriend who's standing a few feet away, or just to clarify and strengthen his Have Your Cake And Eat It Too worldview. He does one or all of these things for him, not for you. That's why you feel like a fucking towel he just jerked off into.

You, on the other hand, have had your mind liquified by an oral performance so breathtaking it belongs on PBS's "American Masters." Your circuitry is in a high state of alert. You're ready to push that pedal 50 million times just to get another pellet from your invisible cunnilingual overlord, thanks to the fact that your hypothalamus is in overdrive. (Do they still think it regulates the sex drive, or is that outdated science? They keep changing the names and shapes of the goddamn dinosaurs, so what do I know? It makes me want to go bury my head in the sands of Constantinople.) Bottom line: Your body wants more premium-grade sex, pronto.

But, since you just got dumped and replaced (OK, maybe I'm being extra brutal just to match the brutality inside your head), now you're feeling a little fragile. You're tough, yes, that's clear. But now you feel a little sick about things. Feeling like a jerk towel. Because you got a text that essentially said, "Hey sexy lady, what's the haps? Cool. Yeah but seriously LISTEN UP: I'M DEEPLY IN LOVE WITH MY GORGEOUS GIRLFRIEND WHO IS PERFECT FOR ME IN EVERY WAY. ROGER THAT? GORGEOUS. IN LOVE. FOREVER PROBABLY. SHE RULES MY WORLD. DO YOU COPY? I REPEAT, DO YOU COPY?!!"

Even for an American Master, this was beyond the pale. Clarifying things in one text? Maybe. Explaining the next time he sees you? Sure. But texting on and on and on? That was self-pleasuring at its worst.

And I'm telling you, this is the curse of the roving lady drinker/predator. You get the premium grade sex handed to you on a silver platter occasionally, and you think, "I AM sexy, really fucking sexy, and this is the high-quality sex that I fully deserve." And then the world comes in your face fifteen times and wipes its ass on your nice hand towels. Stupid world.

High-caliber one night stands can be troubling, too, because they give you a deceptive chemical rush that indicates that YOU MUST BE IN LOVE because your brain is dripping out of your ears and he is the cause and he looks so so good. I still remember saying to this one extra-skilled guy, "Wow, that's not even fair, to be that good." Yes, I was so cavalier about the fact that my brain was forming a puddle on the floor. Because I assumed I would win in the end! Even though I immediately told him that HE brought the magic, HE brought the pellets, HE was the source of all divine wonder in the universe, I was still perplexed to discover that he was a player. He was a player, hmm, maybe because he looked great and had crazy skills and wanted to spread his deluxe goods to the impoverished lady masses? Of course. In truth, this was charity. He was doing me a favor.

And really, who can blame him for feeling omnipotent, with such skills at such a young age? That's like being born with J. Lo's body. What can you really do to resist the inexorable pull of Fly-Girl-dom and $15,000 skin creams?

So this ball of compressed energy in your chest, that's your knotted-up ego, which you've just chewed up and swallowed whole, and it's also your extra-alert, overstimulated sex drive. You were walking around feeling sexy, getting all geared up to press the pedal and get the pellets, and some small part of you assumed that you would win. What kind of shriveled-up toad doesn't assume that? Ye shalt win thine magic man. This was the end of the rainbow, really. Not because you're a sucker, but because YOU ARE AN ANIMAL. Animals want to survive. When an animal stumbles on a mate that releases all the right chemicals in its brain, that makes the animal think it's going to be not only safe and secure and well-fed but also thoroughly licked and groomed and ushered into an extended state of extreme bliss. This is the genetic jackpot. Secure that mate and flash your incisors near its jugular, if necessary!

For him to then say, "OH HEY NOW, DON'T FORGET MY FOREVER LOVER, MY EVERYTHING! PLEASE VERIFY THAT YOU COPY!" That's the Go Apeshit signal for the nervous system, is all. Throw in an exboyfriend with a brand new lady of his own, and you've some major ego torpedoes raining down on you from the skies above.

And let's get one thing straight, right here, right now: Sex is not a huge compliment. Sex is not even a small compliment, even when sex is saying, "Hot damn, you're fine." Even when sex feels like being ushered into a shiny silver land of angels and moonbeams, it's not a compliment. No. Someone wanting to fuck you? That's commonplace. Because you're an animal, it's natural for you to believe that it means you're going to survive and win, win, win. Nah. You're just going to be sore in the morning.

Enjoy yourself, but don't place a huge amount of stock in your hotness and your charms, formidable though they both may be. Don't keep rolling out the door in search of men to reassure you that you really are beautiful, you really are great in bed, you really are meant to win, win, win. Most of all, don't – DON'T! – resolve to be tougher, more cavalier, less invested. You're already starting down that path. Don't do it. You can accept the hard facts about the world without losing all of your romantic ideas. Don't toughen up and act proud and flaunt your swagger. (See also: "A Tree Falls In The Forest" in my book, which describes exactly what happens when you try to be tougher and more cavalier than you really are.)

If you try to put this situation behind you and in so doing, pretend that it doesn't bother you, you run the risk of becoming the kind of swaggery fun-time girl who blocks out her own feelings for the sake of appearances. She makes a pretty resilient brand, but not a very healthy person. And while we're examining our reductive perspectives on sexuality, let's go ahead and cast a shadow of doubt on the belief that men need a new jerk towel every few seconds, and that justifies whatever the fuck they need to do, because biology is destiny. That's a skewed notion that's been endorsed and perpetuated by our culture in order to sell shit, so now we walk around thinking that we're less than human, controlled by some almond-sized nugget in our brains. Like we shouldn't be expected to make rational choices, or honor our hearts or our loyalty.

Does it make sense that we should take our cue from a culture packed with brands that tell us we're one-dimensional beasts? And brands that bring out the very worst in us, brands that don't challenge us, brands that make us feel really comfortable being even less than we are now? These things transform our world into a version of Mike Judge's Idiocracy, where we sit in our La-Z-Boys among mountains of trash, sucking sports drinks out of tubes in the chair, and yanking it to close-ups of big round butts. (OK, I really didn't mean to make that sound so appealing.)

If you're going to be a brand at all, at least don't be a brand that takes it easy on the lazy and the small-minded. Don't be a brand that would never dare to make people work a little harder. Don't be a brand that celebrates the lowest common denominator. Remember, you aren't depending on this sale. You can say, "I don't fuck guys with girlfriends, and I don't care what complex and rigorous philosophical scaffolding they might have to justify getting their rocks off with strangers." You can say, "Don't text me your Bill of Rights, dipshit. I'm not interested."

That's tough, too, I guess. But it's toughness that's true to your feelings, toughness that keeps your heart safe.

In the comfort of your own home in the big city (put both feet on the ground, why don't you?), you can let your guard down and feel sad about this mirage of a man, with his pretty face and his impressive skills. (Note to other young men: Apply yourself! Be a master of your trade, for fuck's sake, not a pudding-lapping hound.) In the comfort of your nice little apartment, you can cry and let that ball of compressed energy slowly loosen and disperse.

It's hard to be alone at times like these. I get it. It feels crazy to exit some magical fairyland of good sex, and then get your face rubbed into your own shit afterwards. It's nothing personal, really. Forgive that guy. It was tough for Dirk Diggler, too, once he realized that the party was over and he wasn't a great, big, shining star anymore. Let that guy go forth and fine-tune his elaborate rationalizations with someone else. This will be a funny story, in a few years.

It's not a funny story yet. Don't rush to get there. You can feel bad about it, even if it seems like a small thing. We've all been there. This doesn't mean that the next truly magical guy who comes along is a false god, or a male siren, or an asshole. You won't be able to tell the difference between any of these things, though, if you drink too much and leap before you look. You won't be willing to tell the difference if you overvalue your looks, or if, when someone says you're beautiful, a little piece of you believes that you're going to win, win, win and keep on winning.

Fuck winning. Don't get all shiny and hard and special. Let yourself be odd and awkward, and hurt. You'll be stronger and happier if you let yourself feel genuinely upset by this right now. Crumple on down into the carpet, and sob for a while. You need to remember this, and acknowledge that it upsets you, that you don't want to do this to yourself again. If you deny that this hurts, though, you will do it again and again and again. Think about how you want to live, and who you want to be. Even when you're very young, it's not impossible to drink a little less, and say no to bad propositions. It doesn't make you boring to do that, either. It means you give a shit about your own feelings.

So give in to those feelings a little. Then get up, walk to a plant store, and pick out a plant you really like. Take it home and set it by the window, and water it every single morning while you're waiting for your coffee to be done. You are a regular pretty lady living a regular life, and this is the very beginning of your story. Stay open to the world around you. Pay attention to people who aren't bullet-proof brands. Give some time to those who make you work a little harder to see them clearly, to let them in. You are raw potential, but you'll only stay golden if you give up on glory and show the world your true goofy, unwashed, brutal, brilliant, opinionated, vulnerable self. Make them work harder for it. And if they're not offering you the deal you want, be prepared to walk.

Polly

Are you just batin'? Write to Polly and find out!

Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl's existential advice columnist. She's also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses. Still from Idiocracy by Gwydion M. Williams.

The post Ask Polly: We Had The Best Sex Ever, But He Won't Be Mine! appeared first on The Awl.

Dear Polly,

Let's start this off originally, to match the unique snowflake that I am: I'm an extremely socially handicapped lady, 25 years of age, with just a handful (maybe 3 at best) of friends, and in a lonely place in my life.

To paint a bit of background: I have always been very shy, introverted, and fucking terrible at connecting with others. I was comfortable with my alone-ness, though. I've always been a bit (of a lot) of a closet romantic, so I can't really remember any long period of time since the fourth grade when I didn't have a crush on someone. But mostly, those were either boys I never even talked to, and just obsessed with from a distance. (When I was 18, I once waited for an hour in the evening, in the dead of winter, because I knew my crush would eventually wait for the bus at the same bus stop, so I'd get to look at him from a distance for about 6 minutes.) Or celebrities—musicians, actors, any kind of face to put to my ridiculous, constant fantasies of romantic love, and keep a safe, peaceful emotional outlet for my feelings. I was ridiculously delusional, and pathetic, but I was happy.

I seriously would give anything to be able to do that again. But my first [and only] serious boyfriend kinda had the effect of the first taste of blood for a lion cub on me. It didn't work out—and it didn't work out on a magnificent scale, with our relationship and the pressure from it leading to me developing a full-blown eating disorder in the span of a year and a half. (I was vehemently against the idea that perfect, one-and-only him had anything to do with it at the time; and really, he was a nice guy; but now, after tons of therapy and self-analysis, it's obvious that it was him—or more accurately, my extreme insecurity in relation to him—that basically drove me crazy.)

I was entered in a hospital, and after a pretty rough period of severe depression, managed to get over that—with the help of a six-month stay at a clinic for the treatment of addictions.

After I got out, I slowly got back on my feet; I'm living alone for the first time in my life, and holding down a steady job. And yes, I have very few friends, but I'm actually happy with them. I've always strongly preferred quality to quantity when it comes to friendships. But I'm also very, very lonely. For the first time in my life, just sighing dreamily and watching from afar really doesn't cut it. It's an agonizing feeling of longing to be in a loving relationship, made all the worse by the facts that:

1. I barely know anybody, literally. When I got out of the clinic, almost a year ago, I had lost contact with whatever few close acquaintances I'd had before, and managed to keep only the aforementioned 2-3 close friends, which makes it extremely hard to even have a basis to start meeting new people and find a possible romantic interest. My work colleagues are 3 elderly ladies, with which I'm on polite, but extremely distant terms. There are very few clubs / forums / etc. for people my age around, and they're all related to interests I really don't share. I suck so bad at communication and social interaction that I barely talked to 5 people when I was at my university, and that's when I was constantly surrounded by hundreds of other people my age. I'm not even sure I want that many friends; but how am I ever going to find anybody [as in, a romantic partner] if I speak to literally 7 people in my life?

2. One of those 7 people is a guy who struck up conversation with me over half a year ago online. In the beginning, I wasn't interested, especially not romantically; but he was nice and talkative, and well, he was there. Since then, oh boy, have times changed. Over time, I grew more and more interested in him. He seemed to grow less and less interested in me. I find it ridiculous that we haven't (almost… bear with me, I'll explain) even seen each other live, even though we've been chatting constantly for so long and we live in the same damn city. We even have mutual acquaintances.

Once, he invited me over to his place in the middle of the night. Yes, I know. And I went. Yes, I know. We just talked for a bit in the dark, and then cuddled, silently, for half an hour, and then I left. It was weird, and we don't mention it often, but oh God, I was so happy in that tiny moment of meaningless affection! (Or maybe it meant something to him too, he's just shy? Insecure, like me? Oh the mastery with which I make up excuses for him in my head!)

Since then, not only has he not made any attempt to see me; he's extremely ambivalent about agreeing to my invites to hang out (and I invite him rarely, and overly casually, and back up easily, because I may be obsessed, but I'm also proud, and with a damn fragile ego, I admit that).

So I know it's ridiculous, and I know it's hurting me, and I've even reached my boiling point and told him once, explicitly, that he either has to see me and hang out like a normal person sometime, or just stop writing me altogether. He didn't seem to take it too seriously. We stopped communicating for a month or so, and then mutual acquaintances, Facebook, one thing lead to another, I convinced myself it's okay cause I don't even care anymore, or maybe I was too harsh in the first place, yadda yadda, and we started talking again.

Yes, I'm an idiot.

But I'm also crazy about him, and so damn lonely. I feel like a starving rabbit with only a few pieces of horrible, rotting cabbage leaves in its cage. I keep telling myself they're fucking awful, and I'm better than that, and I deserve at least some normal, not even amazing, just regular good old cabbage. But eventually, hunger always gets the best of me and I give in. I write to him. Or I respond to him. That's just the way it goes, and I can't seem to stop it.

Also, what gives?! This guy won't see me, but he won't stop talking to me, either. Says he appreciates me talking to him, and that he does want to see me (just never actually makes plans). I basically asked him to put me out of my misery, i.e., let's do this or just go away forever and stop fucking with me! But he won't go either way.

Why?! Like most guys our age (seriously, it's fucking infuriating), he's commitmentphobic. But it's not like a coffee means he's agreeing to our fucking wedding. The only slight clue he's ever given me is, "I'm trying to be a nice guy and not a douche," which I interpreted thusly: "So you mean you like me, but you don't wanna lead me on?" (i.e. fuck me and disappear off the face of the earth). His answer? "Erm, no, it's not exactly that…." And that was all I got. Analyze that!

I don't get it. And being lonely and obsessed with him, I actually do care about what the fucking reason behind this lunacy might be. It's almost like I'd prefer to be the wrong side in this equation, because then I'll be able to fix it and try to make it work.

Please help me get out of that cage!

Can't Stop Eating Rotten Cabbage Leaves

Dear CSERCL,

The cage is open. You can walk out anytime you want. Why are you still in there?

You're a young, sensitive romantic and you need to find some new form of self-expression that builds you up instead of knocking you down. You need a consuming project that doesn't involve dumping out the best parts of yourself for someone who's using you as an emotional confidant but refuses to be in your life. Engaging in that kind of relationship isn't just a dead-end, it makes you weaker and prevents you from meeting the kinds of people who will improve your life instead of making you feel frustrated and depressed.

But please be clear about one thing: YOU are the one who wants to stay frustrated and depressed. No one is doing that TO you. You keep asking "Why is he still around?" That's not the mystery here. He doesn't want anything more from this situation. He's getting exactly what he wants: something to occupy his time and make him feel important. The mystery is: WHY ARE YOU STILL AROUND?

Even after the eating disorder, the hospital, the years of therapy, you're essentially throwing yourself into another destructive, loneliness-inducing obsession, one that leaves you feeling empty, abandoned, and out of control, but that keeps you coming back for more simply because these are the emotions that feel the most familiar to you. You're addicted to loneliness and desperation. It's the strongest emotion you've ever known, so your subconscious tells you that it's your destiny.

The short-term answer is very easy. You can choose to be a million times happier than you are right now. All you have to do is say, "I deserve to be happy." Write it down in big letters with a Sharpie and tape it to the wall. Now write, "I deserve to be deeply loved." Tape that to the wall. Write, "I will open my eyes and my heart and take in all of the beauty in the world, every day." Tape it up.

Now go to your computer and write this to him "I can't do this anymore. You're a nice guy. I wish you the best in life." Don't wait for a response. DO NOT ANSWER HIM IF HE ASKS WHAT'S GOING ON. Now block him. Do not explain anything. That's you being obsessive. He doesn't want to see you in the light of day. He doesn't care what you want. Wondering about how he feels, waiting to see what he says, second-guessing your resolve: all of these things exist on an unhealthy continuum with your tendency to seek solace in self-destructive obsessions. He doesn't like you romantically. His very existence in your life diminishes you and makes you feel weak. You are not weak. Block his fucking chat ID and his email and resolve to never, ever read a single word from him again. Send him your blessings and be done with it. Write "I am stronger than I realize." Tape those words to the wall.

Now put on your running shoes and go out into the world. Put on some music and walk for an hour. Bring a watch and, if you're not in great shape, jog for 1 minute and then walk for 3, and repeat that pattern for the full hour. As you walk, keep your eyes open, keep your heart open, and let the world in. Smell the air. Breathe deeply. You are fully alive in this moment and you never, ever have to feel like someone who's hiding in the dark, waiting for love, ever again.

Go home and write for an hour. Type out all of your thoughts, feelings, worries, regrets, and hopes for the future. Every single word is OK, because it's a part of who you are. You are not damaged. You are not socially handicapped. You are young and you are learning how to live. Write that down. I AM VERY YOUNG AND I AM LEARNING HOW TO LIVE. Tape it to the wall by your bed and read it every morning.

You are very, very young. You are learning how to live.

Someone who's sensitive like you, with your kind of emotional energy, needs to be thoughtful about how she spends her time and where she puts her focus. You naturally work very hard at things. The same trait that makes you obsessive can be harnessed to create art or to help other people or just to cook a truly unforgettable lasagna.

But you MUST break this fixation on love as the cure to all of your ills. If you found love right now, you would run it straight into the ground in seconds. You need an outward focus that has nothing to do with guys or even making new friends (which you currently view as merely a vehicle for meeting guys). Forget some of your assumptions about where your interests lie. Sign up for classes and clubs that are outside of your comfort zone, and see what happens. Observe others without worrying about what to say. Don't chide yourself for doing it wrong. Just exist, in your awkwardness, without apologizing or explaining yourself, even to yourself. Your ideas and labels about What It Means to be shy (handicapped!) are what stand in your way. The noise in your head when you're around other people stands in your way. Slowly, you need to practice being more comfortable in the company of other people. Gradually, you may get to know a few people who are different from you, who make no immediate sense and have no immediate value in your life. As you turn your focus outward and begin to create a more positive, creative, accepting spirit around you, you will naturally draw people to you.

But that's not the central task at hand. The central challenge in your life is not finding people who will support you and love you. The central challenge in your life is you finding a way to give yourself support and love. You need to shift your concentration away from this imaginary hole in your life, and shift it towards bigger projects that will feed and sustain you over the course of a lifetime.

You're like a working breed of dog that doesn't have any sheep to herd. Do you know what happens to those dogs? They rip up rugs and chew shoes to tiny shreds, and then pace, and then grow depressed and violent. That's what you're doing to yourself with this pointless correspondence. You have so much potential, so much energy, so much sensitivity to the world, and you're wasting it, and using it to eat yourself alive, using it to tell yourself that you're worthless.

The old messages need to get thrown out once and for all. Every time you hear a voice that says, "No one will ever love me because I'm fucked up," shut it up and look at your signs on the wall.

I assume you still have a therapist you see every week. If not, you need to get one immediately. Someone with your background can't be expected to forge ahead without a sounding board for your challenges.

In the long run, you will find love. Right now, you need to commit to NOT looking for love. You need to sign up for art classes, dance classes, yoga, or cooking classes—or all of the above. You need to be active and be around people, all kinds of different people, young and old. You need to practice accepting yourself, with all of your quirks, in the company of other human beings. You need to be open to the world around you. You need to move through the world by listening to other people, without trying to prove that you're good enough for them. Just exist and be your shy self. If friendships with men and women come about, so be it. Don't get involved with anyone. Have lunch, have coffee, and continue to work hard on the things that won't dry up and blow away: Your health, your career, your little art projects or poems or essays, your odd new half-interests, the complicated folds of your sensitivity and your darkness, and your belief in a world that wants you to be happy.

But you can't do this halfway. If you choose NOT to block this guy, if you choose to continue obsessing, then you are choosing misery. You'll never meet anyone or change a thing as long as you're chatting with this guy. Just because it's familiar, that doesn't mean it's truly comforting or meaningful. Just because you're putting all of your focus into it doesn't mean you're actually in love with him. You're just not looking at anything else in the world. In searching relentlessly for safety all these years, you have made yourself more and more lonely and unsafe.

I know how tired you must feel. I know that you've been working so hard. But these things are hurting you. Everything is about to change, but you have to dare to proceed in a whole new way. You have to wake up in the morning and say, "I will not do the old things that I've always done. This is the start of my real life. This is the day I started treating myself like someone who matters." You have to believe.

When you believe in your raw potential, you are not alone. When you believe in who you are, the whole world rallies around you, and raises you up, higher than you thought you deserved to be. Fuck these dead-end crushes. They're crushing you. Rip your focus away from this empty obsession, that seems so serious but it's actually silly, and shift your focus to things that seem silly but are actually serious. Do silly little things for yourself. Write those silly little signs. It will all seem so ridiculous and pathetic, but it's not. Because slowly but surely, you'll notice that the tide is turning. You will start to accept yourself, and you'll stop trying to convince other people that you're worthy. No one will need to be convinced. You will create things that make you happy. You will give your love freely to the people who deserve it. You have so much to give.

No one out there is going to support and protect and believe in you. Not yet. You have to learn to support and protect and believe in yourself. Nothing could be more romantic than that.

Polly

Do you understand your own priorities and values or do you avoid thinking about them entirely? Write to Polly and discuss!

Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl's existential advice columnist. She's also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses. Photo of the lonely dog by Les Chatfield.

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