Andrew,

Help Me.

Dear Help Me,

I did indeed spend a few years living in Los Angeles. And like you hope to do, I eventually returned here to Portland.

And while I was lucky enough to find people who were not fake and had finely attuned senses of irony, I also spent a lot more time talking about doing stuff, and pitching stuff, and trying to sell stuff, than actually making stuff.

So let’s address that first and foremost.

There are people in Los Angeles making stuff. Not just movies, but plays, and art and dance pieces, and all that other good stuff that sometimes you forget about in Los Angeles because everyone is talking about movies.

Find those people. Figure out how is making stuff that might inspire you and go to the places they are showing off what they make. Go to Chinatown the night all the galleries stay open late, look at the fliers in window of Skylight books for an interesting sounding theater premiere, and figure out when the hipster communes in East LA open their doors. Maybe you make friends, maybe not, but at least you confirm people are making stuff and start to get inspired.

Meanwhile, find some of the tens of thousands of other creative people in Los Angeles who aren’t making stuff but are similarly frustrated that they aren’t making stuff. You are not alone. This is a common refrain of people who came to Los Angeles to make stuff. So find some like-minded folks and start making.

Pick a night, find a place be it a café or your apartment and host a making night. Make zines, or greeting cards, or posters, or clothes, or costumes out of cardboard box. Start a writer’s group, create a low stakes improvisational dance collective, or organize a parade in the name of something ridiculous. Start by making a big sign for your first meeting “Talking about ideas you’re not actually going to do is strictly forbidden.”

You need to do these things with a sense of urgency. Why? Because you’re not staying there, that’s obvious. Los Angeles is a temporary situation for you, so live like it is.

Live every day like it might be one of your last in Los Angeles.

When I was in Los Angeles, I knew it was temporary, and yet I didn’t act it. I lived like I lived there. You should live like you’re on a working vacation. Yes you have a job to go to. But weekends and night should not be about establishing roots, getting into a routine, or relaxing with leftovers in front of the TV.

Because you’re leaving soon!

How soon, how knows? Maybe days, maybe months, maybe years, but you are leaving. Which means there are a lot of things you need to do before you leave.

You need to visit the Getty, LACMA, MOCA, and the Jurassic Museum of Technology. Visit them again if you already have, and then again in a few months, shows change often.

You need to go swimming on the roof of the Standard, visit Clifton’s and stroll down the oldest street in LA eating tacos.

You need to visit Griffith Observatory and explore every inch of the park. Ride the merry-go-round, visit the zoo, play tennis and hike the trails.

You need to get a pass at the farmer’s market to see a test screening of a movie on a studio lot where they strip search you and treat you like cattle.

You need to see a Dodger game, visit Santa Anita wearing your Sunday best, and crash a pick-up basketball game at Pepperdine University because that’s where all the celebrities who live nearby go to shoot hoops.

That just off the top of my head, and I barely scratched the surface of Los Angeles in my two years down there. There are all kinds of gems.

Have you been to the police academy diner? It’s awesome. You get awful service because you’re the only table there not full of officers in training, but the food is good and the experience one of a kind.

Have you been to the see the biggest painting in the world? It’s inside a museum inside the Glendale cemetery? Go see it. You sit in the dark for 20 minutes seeing bits of pieces of the painting as you hear the story of Jesus before the entire thing is revealed in all it’s glory at show’s end.

Have you gotten drunk playing par 3 golf at the course just half a mile away on your way back into Los Feliz? The one across the street from the Indian market that serves insanely huge lunch portions for five bucks?

The list goes on and on.

And that’s just inside Los Angeles.

Start thinking of the place you’re vacationing as anywhere within a few hours and you’re looking at Palm Springs, the thrift stores of Ventura, Catalina Island, Joshua Tree, Mexico and Vegas.

So make your list. Take out 4 pieces of paper and number each of them from 1 to 25 along the left side. And fill them in with stuff along these lines. If you get stuck reach out to your friends who live in and have lived in Los Angeles. I bet you can’t stop after you’ve filled up those 4 pages with 100 things you need to do.

Next, get cracking. We got a long weekend coming up so you should be able to knock 2 off at least.

You’re on working vacation! Act like it!

As someone who is on a working vacation you should spend at least an hour every Monday planning out the coming week and weekend. Bare minimum. Come up with a plan and invite people. Organize expeditions. Let those spread out old friends who are married with kids know you’re coming to their neck of the woods and they’re invited on the adventure you have planned.

Sure, people will cancel last minute. They’ll flake. You might eat the occasional theater ticket, or dine on sushi alone. But people in LA are so damn friendly you’ll end up having a spirited conversation with the person next to you about how their agent won’t send them out for parts ten years their junior.

Look, we’ll see you back up here eventually. We both know that. But have some fun in the meantime!

Dear Yours Truly!

From,
Confused

Oh hell. What a dilly of a pickle!

Love and marriage! What are they, and how do people do them? Some people stay together for 65 years and are happy. Some people stay together for 65 years and loathe each other. Some people don’t like monogamy but feel pressured into it by society and are unhappy because they keep making their partners unhappy with all their crazy cheating and they can’t find a way to come clean about it and just be poly. What does it all mean?

Culture. Culture says you fall in love, get married or otherwise partnered up, and stay together until one of you dies and then, to paraphrase Louis C.K., the other one “waits for [their] turn to become nothing.” In actuality people fall out of love all the time. How can love end? I have pondered this a lot. It is inconceivable, when you’re in love, that it could ever end, and yet we have all experienced that very thing. How can love go away? Where does it go? What was it in the first place?

My belief is that a relationship “built to last” is one in which, due to some accident of luck and chemistry and time/place, you both happen to be able to change together and in complementary ways. This has the effect of making you feel like the cage door is open, which in turn makes you not stressed out about being in the cage. If you know you are free to become whatever you’re going to become–and if you’re willing to give him that same freedom–then you don’t feel so oppressed. But I think this is very hard to just decide to do–it has to happen organically. How can you know if this is possible, when you first meet someone? You can’t. You find out later. This is too bad for most relationships.

I think a lot of relationships, even when they are nice and both people are very nice and there is no fighting, can still somehow become cages. I think even if on the surface everything is pretty much great, you can still feel constrained/constricted/oppressed. And it’s actually WORSE, to be in a decent relationship where this happens, than it is to be in an obviously shitty relationship! When your friend who’s dating the complete asshole is like “I’m not in love anymore,” you’re like “DUH.” But when your friend who’s dating the great guy says it, it seems inexplicable and sad. AND YET.

I know this feeling, of just experiencing a relationship as kind of a drag, for reasons you can’t totally put your finger on. You’re just sort of bored and bummed out, whereas your life partnership is supposed to be exhilarating and deeply rejuvenating. But you can’t really point to anything that needs changing. It’s not like, quit drinking or I’m going to leave you. It’s not like he’s doing something “wrong.” It’s just being in the partnership, the concept itself, that is harshing you out.

To answer one of your questions: No, I do not think this is just necessarily how it always goes for long-term relationships. My parents are still in love. Really in love! I know lots of older couples who still get a huge kick out of each other and prefer each other to all other people on the earth. And, speaking personally, I can say that although I have only been with my old man for 9 years (a drop in the bucket, compared to my parents, e.g.) I have never once–never one single time, not even for one second–ever even vaguely felt anything like “I’d be just as fine being by myself.” Thinking about not being with him makes me feel the deepest sorrow. He makes every single aspect of my life better–every one. He’s made me a better person. I love doing things with him, everything from cleaning our house to having sex to sleeping through the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari while he delivers a monologue about expressionism and never realizes I am asleep. He rules! He makes me laugh so hard! Every day with him is a blessing. I legitimately still get excited to see him when I know he’s about to get home. And yeah, the spark of crazy sexual chemistry fades, but if you’re patient and don’t panic, I think what can happen is that something else takes its place, and that new thing is awesome and deep and real. Different, but not worse. You go through the different phases of life together. Things change, you change, your bodies change, and you love each other more and more because of all that, you love the familiarity and the deep knowledge and the tenderness that comes with spanning time together.

I don’t know if this is how it is “supposed” to feel, or even if this is how everyone would LIKE it to feel–what do I know about everyone else? I only know about me. And also, who knows if it will go on feeling this way? Maybe it once felt this way for you, and now it doesn’t. That’s awful. But all I know is that my relationship has changed a lot and yet it still feels good. And that what you’re describing doesn’t sound like it feels good. It doesn’t sound like he makes you excited at all, sexually or otherwise. And like, if you’d be just as happy alone, then I don’t really see any reason for you to stay together. You don’t even have kids, right? There’s no reason we should stay with people who don’t make us legitimately happy. There’s no point in being partnered up if it’s just the same as being alone.

I think if you fantasize regularly and vividly about being alone, that’s a bad sign for your marriage.

“7 Year Itch” means you specifically want to fuck other people/somebody else, and it doesn’t sound like this is what you’re talking about. You’re describing a pervasive, general, oppressive malaise about the whole concept of being in a relationship. This doesn’t seem to me like the garden-variety boredom or irritation that of course sweeps through a relationship from time to time. Yes, everyone gets bored with each other periodically, but it passes–it doesn’t FEEL like a problem, because it isn’t. What you’re describing feels like a problem. Six months of all-encompassing ennui and the desire to be alone? I can’t even imagine! That seems maybe like not a great sign.

The thing is, relationships can weather storms, and they can overcome obstacles, but you have to actually want to be together in order to do this. You have to get something out of being in a relationship, to want to stay in one. It doesn’t sound like you are, right now, and, while I might advise you to give it a little bit more time, I do think it’s good you’re pondering this stuff and trying to get to the bottom of what’s really going on.

Just because someone is a wonderful person, it doesn’t mean you have to like being partnered with them. “Getting something out of the relationship” is different, very different, from “he’s a great guy.”

One thing you don’t mention is: Have you talked to your husband about any of this? It could be that a really intense painful sit-down with him could be amazing. Sometimes I think blockage in communication leads to feelings of blockage elsewhere. when you unblock your communication, it can feel like this rushing warm liveliness comes back into your feelings for each other. How do you know he’s not feeling this exact same way? Talking about it could be awesome. I mean really really talking about it. Facing up to it and naming these things you have named to me. Have you done this? You should do this, if you go on feeling this way.

I often wonder how other relationships work. Isn’t it fascinating? People who aren’t fascinated by other people’s relationships are crazy. It’s so fundamentally interesting, and it’s so delightful to compare notes. I genuinely want to know how often people have sex; I want to know how often they fight and what the fights feel like; I want to know about people’s routine together and what they enjoy about each other. Every relationship is such a weird uncharted territory, baffling to outsiders but intimately familiar to insiders. It’s wild!

If your letter had said: “My husband is amazing and I fucking love him, but I am just really bored with our sex life” maybe I would tell you to spice it up in the bedroom, or talk about non-monogamy, or even see one those sex-positive therapists Dan Savage is always recommending. I think sexual boredom can totally be overcome if both people are willing.

If your letter had said: “My husband is amazing and I fucking love him, but he drinks too much,” I would have told you to deliver an ultimatum, to help him get therapy, etc. etc. I think devastating personal behaviors can be overcome if the person wants to overcome them, and I think relationships can bounce back from dreadful calamities.

If your letter had said: “My husband is amazing and I fucking love him, but I’m having these weird insatiable urges to make out with other people,” I would probably have written a really long thing about how beautiful sex can be when the spark is replaced by something deeper and more based on familiarity and trust. How it’s sad, but also beautiful, the way things change. How you have to embrace those changes and look for what they bring, not just for what is lost. I would have told you to look into non-monogamy. I would also have told you that periodically having an outside crush is perfectly normal and is not evidence that your relationship is irredeemably ruined.

But your letter didn’t say anything like any of these things. It just said you’re bored and oppressed and would be just as happy being alone. It’s like, you lack even the passion of rage or longing. Even your problem is passionless. You deserve to have passion in your life and I don’t think you need to feel obligated to stay married just because people are supposed to stay married. Who even made that rule anyway, Moses? Who cares!

Concepts That Might Be Helpful:

– go on a solo trip! Like, go to Paris! I don’t know how rich you are. But you can afford to go somewhere even just for a weekend. Alone! Go to a hippie hot springs and take yoga.

– take a trial separation. Difficult and sad, but could be great. Actually move out! Get a sublet. Be like “I need three months to not be married to you” and see what happens. Your husband has the right to be totally devastated by this, keep in mind

– thing to think about: people who feel the way you are describing often end up cheating. Cheating is bad. It’s lying! It’s hurtful. It’s destructive. It makes you feel bad about yourself, too! I am a big fan of getting things out in the open before cheating happens. Open up your marriage so that it’s no longer cheating! Break up so that it’s no longer cheating! But whatever you do, don’t just sit around feeling like shit until you cheat, because I swear it won’t make you feel any better

– definitely talk to your husband at some point soon. That’s a hard conversation but you’re going to have to have it anyway, unless this problem magically resolves itself, which actually could happen, you never know.

– don’t go longer than a year feeling this way. Life’s too short.

LIFE IS SO SHORT YOU GUYS.

Don’t do shit that makes you feel bad, if it’s not for some sort of greater good. God, can you even imagine how it must feel to be 80 years old and look back on all the stupid shit you spent years of your life worrying about? We probably can’t avoid it, but we should at least TRY to avoid it. Don’t stay for years with someone who bores you / hits you / is just some random dude. Don’t stay for years in a job that sucks! Don’t wait to do the things you know are right; the things you want to do. Reach out for the better life, the cooler choice. Open yourself up to the world and everything in it, the joy and the sorrow. When you’re dead, there’s nothing else! This is all we have, this fleeting time on earth, we should try to do it to the max. Life is too short to live in a cage if you have other options. Get out of that cage, one way or another, with or without your husband.

Dear Andrew Dickson,

Concerned with Input/Output Ratio

Dear Concerned,

First off, ah to be 29 again. I spent the last few days of my twenties in Ashland where my parents graciously took my now wife and I to celebrate my 30th birthday. We stayed at a nice motel, ate great meals and saw several awe-inspiring plays. We had a fabulous time, but I could never quite forget that rent was due 3 days after the trip was slated to end and I had less than a $100 to my name.

I had never hesitated asking to borrow money from my parents before; I worked in the erratic freelance film community and I had a good track record of paying them back after the inevitable big job. But somehow turning 30 felt like it was time to stand on my own two feet. I held my tongue, and silently hoped my birthday card would contain a check. It didn’t, it was a pricey trip after all.

When we got back to Portland I turned to my go-to get rich quick scheme. There used to be a used bookstore on 30th and Killingsworth (where the restaurant DOC now stands) that bought whatever books Powell’s couldn’t sell for pennies on the dollar. It was packed to the rafters with their castoffs. I had a deal worked out with the owner where I could fill an entire box for $5. I filled six boxes. And I spent the next few days driving between the different Powell’s stores selling them back the very books they didn’t want anymore. I wore out my welcome with the Hawthorne store book buyers in particular, but I made rent.

All that’s to say it’s right to feel like you’re at a major threshold. I’m not very knowledgeable about astrology or anything else even vaguely in the new age universe, but I understand those that are believe there’s more to turning 30 or 40 then just changing the number at the front of your age.

But I might disagree that just because you’re on the verge of changing decades means an end to “guilt free philandering with ideologies as well as men.” If you want that sort of thinking and behavior to end, turning 30 is a great excuse, but don’t change just because you think you’re turning an arbitrary age, new age astrology aside.

I choose to stop borrowing money from my parents when I turned 30, but I didn’t really get my shit together to get more than a month or two ahead of my rent for another 3 or 4 years. And I did some of the work I’m proudest of in those short years. I would hate to think of where I’d be now if I hadn’t spent those few, extra crucial years making art before I took a real job.

You’ve got a lot on your mind right now. Whether or not to go into graduate school, and how to have better relationships are big questions in their own right. But your third query is the one maybe sums them all up. By “concerns regarding the greater implications of being an organism composed of specialized cells that are in and of themselves universes” I think you’re asking what does it all add up to. What’s the point, the meaning of it all? What does it mean not just to be happy in career, and relationships but in life?

Big fucking questions.

I’m not going to answer all your these questions one-by-one. I’m not even going to necessarily answer them head on, although let me address the doctoral program here and now.

Don’t go to graduate school, at least not this coming fall. You don’t sound particularly excited about it, especially the workload. I don’t think people who are ready to buckle down put it in quotes, as if they’re trying it on for size and don’t like the way it fits. Maybe you’ll be ready this winter, maybe next fall, but not immediately. You’ve got something else you need to do first.

So here’s my piece of curveball advice.

Get out of your comfort zone and do something that shakes up your world profoundly. Immerse yourself into something completely even dangerously new. Not physically dangerous, but something that might endanger how you’re thinking and living right now.

I’m not talking about a modern day Vision Quest you drive around the country alone or a motorcycle or live in the woods for a month trying to figure it out. Think too hard and you’ll just give yourself a headache. You’re leaning further towards your head versus your heart then I think you want to right now.

So throw yourself into experience that will keep you so busy and spin your head around so completely that you won’t have to think.

Go work on an organic goat farm. Jump in the van and be a roadie for a punk band. Reach out to your friend who moved to Romania and take them up on their offer to live in the squat and work under the table at the coffee shop. Follow whatever crazy dream you had 8 years ago that’s almost but not completely gone, be it going to New York to try out for Saturday Night Live, attending clown school or living in Las Cruces, New Mexico for a few months to paint landscapes of a sky never seems to end.

Have an adventure. It doesn’t have to be for two years. Go for few months. But be sure to get out of Portland.

If you’ve been doing crazy stuff like this for the last few years, well, never mind. But I suspect you haven’t. So if this sounds even slightly intriguing, do it. If this sounds completely terrifying, then you have to do it.

My theory is that going and doing something 180 degrees different from what you’re currently planning on doing is going to help you figure some of these big questions out. Not because you’re thinking about them all the time, but because you’ll be actively experiencing and experimenting with other kinds of living, meeting new kinds of people and having the same conversations and asking the same questions you are now but in completely new contexts.

Don’t worry so much about your output right now. I think you need more input. Fill your metaphorical well. You’ll have time and inspiration to put things out into the world once you’re out in it or when you get back.

So, decide what you’re going to do, set a deadline for going and have fun!

The buckle-less Portland lifestyle, doctorate programs, lab life, and the big questions will be waiting for you to get back. Men too.

Speaking of men, if you meet one during your adventure, as you inevitable will, give him the once over. If he’s an asshole, move on. Go through your mental rolodex of bottom of the blueberry box notes if you need extra inspiration. You deserve and want better. If he passes that test, ask him if he’s a feminist. That’s a sure way to get a good conversation about gender roles and compromise in relationships going. Assuming you’re reasonably sure he’s a good guy who doesn’t feel the need to wear the pants don’t analyze it to death. So what if he wants to move to Orlando after clown school and work at Disneyland and you want to move back to Portland. Enjoy each others company and see what happens. You never know what nice guy will do for a girl he falls in love with. Oh, and if you do find one of these actually not terribly uncommon men, try not make him feel dumber than you, even if he is.

Hope that helps!

Hi Yours Truly,

Thanks!
Not Exactly Advice

Fun! I’ll do this in two very obvious parts.

WORMS, or as I like to call them, ‘woims’

Worm composting is a fun, weird, and gross way to get involved with composting if you live in an apartment building and don’t have access to outside space large or distant enough to basically put a garbage pile on (although you’d be surprised–a black plastic composter doesn’t take up much room, is there some shared space you could stick it?). Regular composting is easier than worm composting because as I understand it you just kind of pile up garbage and let it do its own business (may not be true), whereas the worms do take some managing and finagling. But conversely, the worms are much more interesting, at least to me. It is hard to explain the satisfaction of building up a worm colony to the point where it’s eating all your garbage! It is like MAGIC.

So yeah. It’s a long term project, building a small apartment worm bin. You start with a small tub and move up to a large tub after like 6 months. Initially they will hardly eat any of your garbage; by the time you move up to the large tub they’ll be eating a lot of it. Depending on how much you cook at home (i.e. how much actual organic garbage you generate), a large in-home worm bin, in my experience, can process anywhere from 1/2 to all your garbage. We are two people and we cook at home a lot, so I was never able to get all my garbage in there, but if you had space for two large bins you’d probably be good to go–I did not.

OKAY!

Here are a couple step-by-step explanatory sites that I read before I started, but the guide I ultimately followed was the one in this wonderful book which I highly recommend.

There are lots of theories and vibes w/r/t keeping worms. But I say, just to get started, keep it simple and don’t sweat all the small stuff. For example, if you get involved in online forums for worm composting you’ll perhaps get intimidated by people arguing about cedar vs. other types of wood; worm tea, what even is that???; is there a difference between worm poop, worm castings, and just normal dirt?? etc. Just start small, figure it out as you go, and soon you’ll be comfortable enough to start changing it up/moving up in terms of the size of your colony, etc.

There are many fancy worm composting systems available for sale. If you look on ebay you can find cool stacking ones and crazy handmade wooden ones and ones with faucets at the bottom. If you have that kind of money, go for it! I bet they are awesome. But as for me, I started with something like this, and then once I got the hang of it and stopped sweating it, and once my worms had reproduced themselves to where they were actually able to take a lot of my garbage, I switched to something more like this. For every bin you get you need to get TWO lids, because one goes underneath as a tray to catch all the sick liquid that comes out the bottom of your bin and is NOT, apparently, worm tea.

I really recommend getting that Urban Homestead book because it has very detailed step-by-step instructions, as well as a million other unrelated cool household projects. I won’t give you super detailed info here–get that book, or read those websites I mentioned–but the basics are:

– you drill a shit-ton of 1/16″ holes all across the lid of the tub
– you drill an additional shit ton all across the bottom and all four sides of the tub
– you get a piece of very fine wire mesh from the hardware store and line the bottom of the tub with it (this helps prevent escapees, and trust me it’s worth it)
– you half-fill the tub with strips of newspaper and some handsful of potting soil
– you dump in your worms (look on craigslist and call around to your local hippie gardening stores to try to find local worms for sale. I bought mine from a lady farmer who delivered them to me in her car, pretty sweet, I think they were $15. You can order worms online but purists frown on this as travel (specifically, vibrations) is hard on worms and they might all arrive half dead and shocked and then fuck up your experiment and dishearten you)
– you sprinkle a little water, or better yet your own urine (this really separates the men from the boys, in my opinion, when it comes to worm composting) over the mess of dirt, worms, and newspaper (you want things to be damp but not wet. Like a wrung-out dish cloth)
– you put the lid with the holes drilled in it on top
– you put the non-drilled lid underneath the bin (perhaps propped up on little chunks of brick or wood, so the bottom of the bin is clear of the muck in the tray below, I recommend this)
– you put the whole contraption somewhere mellow and dark, for example under the kitchen sink or in a dim mudroom or in an unused closet)
– you wait a long time, I forget how long, read those websites, but basically you wait until the newspaper is all integrated/half eaten/digested and you’re starting to see more of a uniform mud vibe in there
– then you start giving them little bits of garbage, and you work up from there–as the worms multiply (which they do very quickly) they’ll be able to take more and more garbage.

Cautionary details:
– If you introduce too much garbage all at once, they won’t be able to get to it fast enough and things will start rotting/seeping and you’ll have disgusting moisture/smell issues. This is why you start slow and slowly build up your own sense of comfort/awareness of what’s going on in there. AFter awhile I promise you will be able to tell what’s happening and how much garbage they can get through in a week or whatever
– if things get too wet, the worms drown and/or all escape in mass numbers to escape drowning: terrible, dead worms all over your kitchen floor, no!
– if things get too dry, they die
– you have to BURY the garbage in the compost/mud vibe, because if you just leave the garbage sitting on top it will rot and you will get FRUIT FLIES. So each time you feed your worms, you basically go in and dig a little hole with your hand, and dump the garbage in, and cover it up.

My schedule:
Okay, once my worm bin was performing at max capacity: I kept a big yogurt container in the freezer (to minimize fruit flies) and put my compost in it throughout the day/week. When it was full, I’d go open up the bin and dig all around in there, turning the mud and worms and moving things around/aerating. This is really fun and fascinating because you see what kinds of things take longer to compost than others. That avocado pit you put in there 8 months ago is STILL there! But the banana from this morning is gone. Etc. Then you dig a big hole, dump the garbage in, and cover it back up.

It sounds confusing but after awhile you will figure it out. Read those sites/that book and then just get started! If I can do it anyone can do it. And by the time I had transferred my worms to the bigger bin and they had expanded in it they really were taking most of our garbage, it was so awesome.

I miss my worms. When we moved back across the country I gave them to my friend Bri, I wonder how they’re doing?

Some basics:
– ultimately once your worms are going good, what it looks like in there is basically just a tub of really dark, wet mud.
– if you do it right, it DOES NOT SMELL. It smells like mud, only. Does not smell like poop or garbage or anything! If it smells bad something’s wrong, probably it’s too wet
– if it gets too wet, stop feeding them, and mix more newspaper or potting soil in there to soak stuff up
– if it gets too dry, sprinkle with water
– throw some pee in there periodically (nitrogen is good for them)
– you can’t put citrus peels in there, for some reason
– you can’t put meat or dairy
– you shouldn’t generally put much cooked stuff–oily/salty cooked stuff they don’t like so much

Um, that’s about it. Read and get your bin ready and find a worm supplier and go for it! The cool thing is that it’s not much of a financial risk. It’s like $25 max, and you borrow someone’s drill. So you might as well just give it a shot! Nothing ventured nothing gained.

Okay next up!

TAROT CARDS!

Yeah! I have so enjoyed my growing relationship with my cards. I had a deck for years and just kind of half-assed it, barely ever using them and never memorizing the cards and never really getting that good at it. Then last year for some reason I decided to approach it super seriously and all at once, as a major undertaking. I spent two or three FULL DAYS–I mean, morning to evening, seriously–and by the end of it I had the basics down. Since then it’s just been about deepening and refining my understanding and my abilities.

There are people who believe the cards are actually magical or mystical–that they access some sort of cosmic energy, that they really do predict the future or whatever. This is fine, and I have learned a lot about the cards from reading things these people write. But other people, myself included, think of them more as a personal, psychological exercise, a kind of means of gaining insight into your own unconscious/subconscious, more like meditating or intense journaling than actual magic. I’ve seen it happen a million times–you do a reading for someone who is a total skeptic, they think it’s silly and hilarious, but then the minute you start talking them through their spread, they get so into it and start having realizations. “Oh my god, that card is ABOUT MY MOTHER!!!” etc. This just means they are looking at their feelings on a given situation in a new light, in a new way, as instigated by the cards, and this can help a person have revelations or see things differently or more clearly. We all know we can be mysteries to ourselves, and I think the cards can just sort of help you focus and analyze and look within a little bit. Like, if you ask the cards “should I have a baby,” and then you interpret your spread as saying “no,” that probably means you just don’t want to have a baby. And that is helpful information!

So that’s how I personally feel about it. I use them kind of like meditation. All alone, I make a nice quiet space for myself, and I kind of work through a problem via doing a spread about it and writing down the spread and kind of pondering it all.

So, the actual nuts-and-bolts of learning to do it! This sounds like a lot of work, because it is. You should only do it if it sounds fun to you. For me it was like this rad, quiet project, so wholly unrelated to the dissertation I’d just finished writing. It felt really healing and good to just go deep on this mystical shit:

First get a deck you like. Decks more or less based on the old traditional (dating from basically the renaissance, as I understand it) decks, even if they have different illustrations or even different names of cards (e.g. “The Pope” instead of “The Hierophant,” or “discs” instead of “pentacles”) will be basically the same, in terms of the meanings of the cards. The five of discs has the same meaning as the five of pentacles, etc. But there are tons of other decks, based on different spiritual systems, made by all kinds of different weirdos. Like there’s the Book of Thoth, which I think Alistair Crowley invented or something? There are dragon-based decks and decks with round cards signifying feminine energy or whatever. There are probably Harry Potter decks.

Basically the point is, for whatever deck you get, make sure you are looking up the meanings of each card in some sort of corresponding book or website. If you have the Rider-Waite deck, looking up meanings in the Book of Thoth is going to fuck you up.

(for what it’s worth, I have the Rider-Waite deck. It’s the most popular deck in the world, I think because it looks so cool and is such a weird mish-mash of what appear to be really ancient drawing styles and symbols. It was designed in the 1950s though I think. Anyway this means if you just google “tarot spreads” you’re going to get stuff based on the Rider-Waite deck, more than likely. Rider-Waite is sort of the industry standard, I guess)

Okay. So once you have your deck (and a book about tarot, preferably not just the little pamphlet that came with your deck but like an actual book), get a beautiful new notebook that you enjoy writing in, and a fancy pen. Get your book about the tarot (that you have already read or at least skimmed around in), and also get your laptop with a couple of the more reputable (whatever that means) tarot sites (for your specific deck) loaded up. In my experience the more times the words “aura” and “crystal” and “energy” are mentioned, and the better the spelling, the better the site’s gonna be (sort of joking, sort of not). Also some of these sites have forums, which is just really a delightful thing to peruse of an evening. Discussion forums, about interpretations and meanings and every once in awhile someone being like “I just started Ankh of the Goddess and then a wind blew out my candle but ALL MY WINDOWS ARE CLOSED” and then elder stateswomen of the forum chiming in with comforting words about conjuring up a guiding spirit. These people are SO KIND. Also please do not conjure up a demon (joke: not possible)

Here is how I memorized the cards and started delving into how to use/read them:

FIRST:
don’t shuffle the deck–when you buy it, it should be un-shuffled, with all the cards in order. You should learn them all in order, because there are cycles and narratives within the deck itself. Like from the Ace to the King of each suit kind of tells a little sub-narrative. And the major arcana cards (there are 22 of them I think?) comprise two ten-card cycles. I think it’s good to learn them in order, that way later when you’re actually doing spreads, you have the sort of foundational knowledge of where each card fits WITHIN THE DECK to help inform you.

So, take the first card (in the traditional deck, this will be the Fool, major arcana card zero). Put it in front of you and just look at it for awhile. What do you see? What do you think that card is about? Think about it and kind of note what your first impressions of the card are, in terms of what messages/symbols you think it’s about. Then in just a sentence or two (or even just a string of keywords), write down these initial thoughts and impressions in your nice notebook, underneath where you’ve written “0, THE FOOL.”

Then, look up the Fool in your tarot book and see what it says there. See what aspects of your gut reaction are actually in line with traditional understandings of that card (you’ll probably be surprised how often you are “right”). Then look The Fool up on one of your cool crystal hippie websites, and see what it says there. By this time you’ll have kind of a well-rounded cultural profile of the Fool, and you’ll feel like, okay, I think I get what this card is all about.

Now, underneath where you wrote down your first impressions, write down keywords and sentences gleaned from your book/website–as well as the other stuff, like the numerology (twos are about duality; fives are about roadblocks; fours are about stillness; etc. And also all the astrological stuff, like swords go with the air signs, which are all about thoughts and logic, while wands go with fire, and are about energy and creativity; etc. etc. )

Finally, compose what feels like your ideal definition of the Fool–take the meanings you like best and feel like most correspond with both tradition and your gut reaction.

Do this for every card in the deck. This will take a full day, basically.

(NOTE: Some people do “reversed meanings” for the card. This means that if the card comes up upside-down in a spread, it has a different meaning than it does when it’s right-side up. I find this too confusing and I just don’t do it, which is also a viable option. If you want to deal with reversed meanings, that’s fine, but if you don’t, then just ignore it whenever you see it on the websites or in your book)

When you’re done, you will have many many pages of notes. Now, in a much smaller, more portable notebook (one that, perhaps, you will carry with your cards in whatever decorative pouch or box you choose to keep them in), write all the definitions of the cards in very small precise handwriting. This will be your own personalized tarot dictionary. You made your own! Instead of carrying around the one you bought or the weird one that came with your deck when you bought it. This helps get it all ingrained, because you’ve approached your deck with a personal intuitive vibe instead of just trying to memorize what other people say about the cards.

Now you can start practicing doing very mellow readings. All tarot reading is is crafting a narrative out of whatever cards come up–you interweave the symbols, stories, and messages of the cards in an effort to create a coherent take on a given question or situation. So start practicing by just shuffling the deck, picking out three random cards, laying them in a row, and then making a story out of them, just a very simple story or message. Do this again and again and again, you’ll feel it becoming more fluid.

This not only helps you practice actually interpreting/crafting meaning, it also is the next step in memorizing the cards. At first you’ll be looking up cards constantly in your little personalized card dictionary, but after awhile, the meanings will become instinctive and you won’t have to look them up anymore.

Also, many times every day, just sit down and go through the deck, card by card (shuffled or in order, doesn’t matter) and just quiz yourself.

Once you really feel like you get what it’s all about, you can start trying to do established “spreads,” like the Celtic Cross or my personal favorite, DRAGON ORACLE. You can also invent your own spreads! Go back to your tarot book/websites and look up spreads and follow their instructions. You’ll get better and better and more and more confident. Try doing a spread for yourself, then for a friend. You’ll get better and better!

Memorize spreads so you don’t have to keep looking up the card positions. The more independent you become from your little book of meanings and spreads, the happier and more empowered you’ll feel.

Some spreads will be like WHOA, that thing just read itself! Others will be weird and fragmented and you won’t be able to make them hang together. That’s cool, just keep on truckin’!

One thing people recommend, that I really enjoy when I actually do it, is that you should draw a card first thing every morning, and write it down in your journal. This card is basically just “something to think about” for that day. It could be about a challenge you might face, or it could be something general to just keep in mind. like if you draw the miser card, you kind of keep it in the back of your mind all day, and you’ll notice stuff come up that makes you think of that card. Like maybe you’re kind of tired but a friend calls and invites you to something really fun, and your knee-jerk reaction is just to say no, because you always say no. But then you remember the miser card and you’re like “I should try not to cling so tightly; I should loosen up,” and so instead you say yes, and you go out and have a delightful time. Generally this practice I find just helps me stay mindful throughout the course of a day.

some of the more woo-woo devotees say that when they do this every single day they start noticing patterns. “throughout the month of February 9 out of 10 cards I drew were swords, and February was when I was trying to finish my dissertation!” that kind of thing (swords are about words and intellect and logic and writing). To that I say: ME NO KNOW

this has inspired me to try to start drawing a card every day again.

Get a special new journal and incorporate tarot spreads/daily draws into your regular journaling! Or, if you don’t journal, just get a cool notebook to write your spreads down in. Because suddenly oops, that notebook is full, and oh my god look what you’ve done, you’ve almost without thinking about it kept an ongoing log of all your mental processes and problems and thoughts for like a year! YOU TRICKED YOURSELF INTO JOURNALING

good luck! report back! follow up questions welcome!

DEAR REGARDERS,

Thanks!
ADVISEE

I really understand your desire to get things firmed up. You want to know where you stand, you want to be able to talk about your future with your dude without Potential Future Ghost Baby lurking above every conversation. I am someone who likes things to be very firmed up (that’s what she said) so I empathize. However, I know that lots of people do not like to firm things up, preferring instead to just “let things happen.” This lifestyle gives me hives, but is apparently quite popular, judging by almost everyone on the earth I am even vaguely friends with. So, you guys are struggling with a kind of mild difference in vibe that I think is not that big a deal.

If I were you I guess I’d be a little worried that your dude’s loosey-goosey stoner ambivalence actually indicated that deep down he kind of wanted kids. Which would make me even more frantic to firm that decision up.

To his credit, I think it’s kind of nice to be a person who is able to just be open to whatever. It’s nice that if you suddenly wanted a child he would be like “that’s fine too.” He sounds like an easygoing guy and that is a good thing! I feel so awful for these couples that have to break up after years together because one of them suddenly decides they simply can not budge on the baby issue, one way or the other.

My personal testimony on this issue, as per your request: I never wanted kids, ever. But then at a certain age I did go through a weird societal/biological struggle. Colloquially termed “baby fever,” I would indeed describe it as a kind of sick feeling. Seeing toddlers made something in my stomach go “URK” and I’d get sweaty. At this time (roughly age 27) I told my old man “I want to have a baby by the time I’m 35.” He said “That sounds fine.” Then we basically never talked about it again. During the next few years my body was like “the time is now! DO IT!” but my brain was like “but I don’t want to!” Every once in awhile one of us would say “should we have a baby?” and then we’d both be like “ew, NO, not yet.” I felt a rising panic, like, if I’m gonna do this I really ought to do it, but I don’t actually want to do it! But aren’t I supposed to do it? Everyone on the earth is telling me to hurry up and do it. That kind of pressure is hard to just shrug off. But that “not yet” just kept never turning into “yes, now,” and that has to mean something. If I had wanted to have a baby, surely I would have just done it by now. But still I wasn’t really sitting down and nailing my desires to the sticking post or whatever that saying is.

Then, a couple of years ago, on the plane to visit some relatives, I read Freedom, and had kind of an epiphany. It was like I’d never actually seen it put into words, all the good reasons there are not to have children, if you don’t want to. I feel dumb saying this but it kind of hadn’t occurred to me until then that “not having children” was actually a viable life choice, really. It seems like something everyone does, and like everyone just kind of has to do, or else your life gets all boring and pathetic and you’re sad when you’re old. But suddenly I realized, EVERYONE is sad when they’re old! And who says the childfree life has to be boring and pathetic? I was letting everyone in the world pressure me into doing the thing everyone always does, instead of challenging myself to imagine an alternative. And this realization was really huge! I looked at the world with new eyes. What would that feel like, to just say “I’m not having kids,” and then actually do it, and commit to it, for better or for worse? What if you regret it one day? Well, Jesus, I imagine I will regret any number of things, one day. Throw that one on the pile. Plus, I bet there ARE people who regret having children, they just aren’t allowed to say it out loud. So ultimately, whatever! We’re all gonna fucking die alone, who gives a shit?!?!?!??

On this trip we hung out with two toddlers. And I mean, I know children who are delightful and who do not fill me with malaise–I get that there are different ways to raise children and different amounts of sugar to cram ceaselessly into their shrieking bodies–but generally I was feeling a lot of angst and horror at this time, w/r/t children. Or really, not children per se, but to parenting. The concept. And then I went to Target to buy diapers with the mom and I was suddenly appalled to the very center of my being, by the diaper aisle at Target, the vast, vast diaper aisle at Target, filled with so many plastic diapers. And suddenly I really realized that I felt this general sense of shrinking horror, when I imagined procreating for myself, when I thought of the world and babies and humanity, the ceaseless daily slog of childrearing, the trauma to my body, the anxiety about my children and their well-being, the attempt to make good feminist and/or environmentalist choices while being a mother–something that I know exhausts some of my friends who are mothers. I just don’t know how to want to do it. I feel like I conceptually understand what is beautiful and awesome and wonderful about having a baby–I get it, I get why people want to do it. Babies are amazing, doing that with your partner must be amazing. You must learn so much and it must be a rad challenge in so many ways. But just for me, I don’t know how to WANT it.

I also know that once you actually have a kid, all this stuff becomes totally “worth it,” because obviously you love your kid so much and can’t imagine your life without it, but like, why force yourself to have a kid, if you’re not feeling it? The world doesn’t need any more kids. Save it for those who really really want to do it, who are called to it and who are going to do a good job at it. Of which I know several! And I prefer to hang out periodically with THEIR kids rather than having some of my own, at least that’s how I feel right now, I guess.

And so that night after we went to bed, my old man suddenly said in this really tender voice, holding my hand, “has being here changed any of your thoughts on having children?” and I was suddenly filled with terror, like in that moment I really realized that I don’t want to do it. But I was suddenly POSITIVE that my old man–characteristically so ambivalent and like “maybe in the future, sure”–was going to tell me he wanted to make me pregnant and have beautiful babies with me. And I was terrified! And I said, “I really need you to answer that question first: has being here made you want to have children?” and he paused for a long time and then he said “No. The opposite.” And I said “ME TOO,” and I felt like crying. And then we hugged and I felt closer to him than I have ever felt. And we talked about facing the world together, just us, and facing the fact that we are all gonna die someday, and really embracing what we want to do in our daily lives and then doing it, and about how teaching college is an awesome way to be involved in young people’s lives, and about all the stuff we want to do instead and how it’s okay that we want to do that stuff instead. We talked about overpopulation and global warming and how even if we’re being stupid, we still don’t fully believe there is going to be a world for future generations to live in so why would we make more people? etc. etc. We felt relieved. We felt LIBERATED. I don’t mean that not having kids is automatically liberating–I just mean that for us, we’d sort of unconsciously assumed that we “had to” have kids, and fully verbalizing that we didn’t want to and didn’t actually have to was very freeing.

I might regret it, sure. I might kick myself later for never having kids. I don’t know. People love having kids. But there are so many things you might regret, how can you possibly make decisions based only on that line of thinking? You should do something if you really want to do it, if it seems right, if it makes sense, if you feel called to it. And none of those things are present for me, when I think about babies. And now my biology doesn’t even fight me anymore, it’s like I rode out the Baby Fever and now it’s over. Now when I am around a nice child like my friend Calvin the hilarious toddler, or my friend Rachel’s beautiful children, or when I see pictures of J Hopper’s weird little dudes, e.g., I enjoy it and am pleased by it, I feel love and happiness, I have fun, I’m happy for my friends and their beautiful families, and I’m so glad to see them so happy, and then I go home to my childless house and am glad to be there, dropping F bombs with my husband at one in the morning (swearing, not actual fucking (also actual fucking)).

I feel like, why does this make me a monster? People with kids are happy; I am happy; we’ve both made choices based largely on selfish desires, and that is fine, and why can’t that just be okay, all of us living our different lives respectfully. If, as everyone in the world predicts, I do “change my mind” one day when it’s “too late,” boo hoo I’ll fucking adopt. Yeah I know it’s expensive and really really hard but it can’t be any more expensive or time consuming or heart breaking than the shit people get into involving fucking fertility clinics, Jesus Christ. Everyone’s like “Adoption, ew, gross, what if the kid has emotional problems?” well to that I say: god, shut up. Everyone I know has emotional problems.

And if I can’t adopt, oh well. OH WELL! I say OH WELL to everything. Good day sir.

Actual Advice:
My old man likes to put his arm around me and say “Never having been born is the greatest gift we can give our children.” There are plenty of good reasons to have a kid, but there are just as many good reasons not to. Do you think it would help you and your partner if you sat down and discussed all the reasons not to have kids? Even more specifically/brutally perhaps than you ever have before? Would it help him if he were forced to really lay out all the pros and cons and talk about his literal feelings when he imagines the day-to-day grind of child-rearing? Because I think for us, really verbalizing it and turning it over in reality and saying all the harsh shit about mortality and futility and capitalism really helped us come to a conscious, open-hearted embracing of our decision.

My other advice would be, if you want to really fucking nail down the issue one way or the other, raise the concept of THE VASECTOMY.

If you are really truly not going to have kids, there is no reason not to go ahead with this procedure. Imagine never again having to worry about birth control!! It’s a luxury I almost can’t even imagine. What would happen if you sat him down and said “Hi baby, it’s money-where-mouth-is time: How do you feel about making that ol’ vasectomy appointment?” If he’s like “WHAT? BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN,” then you’re in trouble. If he’s like “WHAT? BUT WHAT ABOUT MY BEAUTIFUL SPERM,” then that is annoying but you are in less trouble. If he is like “WHAT? BUT MY TESTICLES! HOW COULD I EVER HURT THEM” then you punch him in them (not literally). You point out that you’ve been destroying your body for 20 years with hormonal birth control or whatever. You point out that getting your tubes tied is a billion times more invasive and painful than a vasectomy. You point out that the physical consequences of an unintended pregnancy are going to rest 100% upon your body, all scraped up and sore and sad and bleeding, while he plays X-Box and drinks beer or whatever (comically gendered abortion stereotype). In short, you point out that he is being a total wiener.

And if he’s like “Whoa, that’s intense, but yeah, I guess I should do that,” then great. I feel like if you sit him down and say “There is zero percent chance I will ever, ever, ever want to have a baby. I think we should talk about vasectomy,” this will surely open the door to the kind of conversation you’re really wanting to have. Right?? Because it’s about something so literal, an actual decision that needs to be made right now.

I know people our age who have gone the vasectomy route, and I am jealous of them. I am not sure why we have not yet gone that route…I feel like eventually we will, but somehow it seems too final, too intense. Maybe this means a tiny subconscious part of my brain is still whispering “…but what if?” I assume by the time I hit menopause–which will apparently be sooner rather than later–I’ll finally see that the decision is out of my hands, and I’ll prod the ol’ beardo into making that appointment. “GO TO YOUR WIENER APPOINTMENT HONEY.”

I feel like raising the vasectomy issue is a great way of getting this shit nailed down. In fact it may be the best way! Give that a shot and report back.

Dear Yours Truly,

Loyally,
Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number (and Sometimes Y)

First of all, what a simply great use of a Mad Men analogy. I’m sure everyone reading your letter got to that part and was immediately like “OK I TOTALLY GET WHAT SHE IS SAYING NOW.” That scene is so brutal!!! In future, when asking me advice, everyone, please try to include such a cogent referral to a pop cultural product. But anyway, now on to my rambling thoughts about refusal to change and gnarly power dynamics:

I’ve read your letter like ten times and I find it very interesting that you focus the majority of it on your age difference, when the problem you are describing seems to me to be totally unrelated to anyone’s age. You write all this stuff about people looking at you weird, and him slowly realizing people look at you weird, and then you getting more comfortable with people looking at you weird, but then when you finally get to your actual problem it’s that he acts like an asshole. How is that an age issue? How is that a generational issue? Was he born in the 20s and doesn’t believe women should have “the vote”? He’s not even a baby boomer! There’s no “generational” issue I’m aware of that would explain the way he treats you.

So yeah, it sounds like you have not really considered the way he treats you as being unrelated to his age, and maybe you should. 50-something people don’t all treat their girlfriends like this. 50-something people aren’t incapable of changing behaviors. Those two things are just straight-up facts. About the idea of change: My dad was 64 years old and suddenly started doing yoga and stopped eating meat. Don’t tell me old people can’t change their lives, can’t change the way they relate to other humans. The world is full of awesome old people having crazy revelations about themselves, the world, their children, whatever. What about all those old people whose kids turn out to be gay and suddenly they’re like flag-waving LGBTQ activists after a lifetime of creepy bigotry? My old man’s mother was terrified of international travel for her entire life, and then all of a sudden when she turned 50 she said “I’m tired of being afraid,” and started going to India, South Africa, Singapore, Italy, one epic trip a year. Challenging herself! And she’s stoked! She’s become so much more open and self-confident! It’s inspiring. Maybe getting older means getting more used to your routine but I will never believe it means you literally can not change your behaviors. Anyone who says that to you (and I don’t know if this is something he has actually said to you or not) isn’t too-old, he’s just lazy!

So to reiterate: I think this is a relationship issue independent of his age. I know tons of people who are the same age as each other who still struggle with this same issue, where one of them refuses to listen to the other one. Conversely, I know two relationships where the dude is like 17 years older than the lady, and they do not have this problem at all. I think there is a chance that by hanging this problem on your age difference you are letting him off the hook! I think that’s a mixed metaphor. But it’s almost like you want to be able to say, “he’s an asshole, but it’s because he’s in his fifties.” I think that is not really true. And really, even if he IS being an asshole because of his age, that doesn’t make it any more acceptable to you, as a girlfriend. I don’t know how much this changes the way you see the problem…maybe not at all, maybe a lot.

About power dynamics: The only way I might think his age was affecting things was…I don’t know, if I imagine dating someone that much older than me, I imagine it might be sort of easy to fall into a kind of lopsided power dynamic. In some cases maybe that’s even part of what’s attractive! I could see that! I don’t know if this is necessarily the case for you (or for anyone who’s with a significantly older person), but at least when I really picture it, I imagine feeling a bit cowed by him, a bit in awe of his greater life experiences or whatever, a bit more like an interloper in this decades-long life he’d been establishing while I was still getting my braces off or whatever. Are your feelings/worries about the age difference actually more about how YOU FEEL within a certain power dynamic (in which he demands all the power), than they are about wondering whether or not he’s too old to change? Because honestly, the answer to that latter question is that no one is ever too old to change. MY CALL!

For me this kind of issue comes down to one word: willingness. No one is going to become perfect, ever. Your partner is never going to never annoy you, or vice versa. But, when it comes to heavy-duty fundamental stuff that you require of them in order to be happy, they either have to show willingness to work on that stuff, or the relationship should probably end. Most people don’t follow this advice, including my own past self, so I accept that this is easier said than done. But seriously, if someone’s not even willing to TRY, what recourse do you have?

Willingness. Willingness means he listens to you respectfully. He hears what you say. He recognizes your humanity even when he disagrees with you. He acknowledges that it is actually scientifically not possible that he is always right, even if he is older, and a man, or whatever. Willingness means he doesn’t create a climate of fear where you feel scared to disagree with him. And willingness means he sometimes acknowledges wrongdoing, and then agrees to wholeheartedly work on something, and that after agreeing to do it, he actually does it, he makes efforts. “Efforts” does not mean he does one nice thing and then goes immediately back into old habits. “Efforts” does not mean he keeps just doing whatever it is that’s hurting you, but then apologizes profusely afterward. “Efforts” means some degree of actual change occurs, permanently. PERIOD!

Here’s the deal: everybody says “you can’t change a person.” But you know what? A person can change THEMSELVES, no problem. All they have to be is willing.

How many changes have you made, to yourself, personally, over the years? I bet it is one million changes. We start exercising, we start cooking at home instead of going out all the time, we consciously decide to be more social/less social, whatever. We go vegan, we give up gluten, we start or stop smoking, we challenge ourselves to learn new languages, we suddenly decide we are going to make the bed every day and then we do it, we go to AA and stop drinking, we stop taking x, y, or z for granted, we stop teasing somebody about something if they tell us it bothers them, we go to school, we learn how to do our own laundry, we used to hate dogs but now we love dogs, we always thought we were monogamous but now we’re giving polyamory a shot, we hate salsa dancing but our partner really wants to go so we agree to go once a week. Homophobics stop being homophobic. Soldiers become hippie peaceniks. We change our beliefs, our ideas, our habits, our way of relating to the world and to each other. We do this ALL THE TIME. That’s why a 30 year old person isn’t the exact same person as they were at age 10, and ditto a 70 year old/30 year old. We are changing all the time, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. We might not fundamentally change our personalities or desires, but when it comes to behaviors, habits, actions, we can change them–ANY OF THEM–whenever we want. Yeah it’s hard, but that’s not the same thing as impossible.

With this in mind, we start realizing that when a person flat-out refuses to change a behavior that is destructive or that is ruining their relationship, it’s because THEY DON’T WANT TO CHANGE.

Maybe they don’t want to change because they like the way they are, or because they’re scared, or because they’re lazy, or stubborn, or they’ve built up a whole elaborate personal identity based on being the way they are, or whatever. But the bottom line is, if a person refuses to change, that’s a decision they are making. And I think once you realize that, the situation seems gnarlier. Because, why?

Why would a person refuse to change when someone they say they love makes a very reasonable request of them? You aren’t asking him to lose 100 pounds or move to Finland or to change his sexual orientation. It sounds like all you are asking him to do is literally to just listen to you when you have something to say that he disagrees with. You are asking him to not just relentlessly and on principle force you to ascribe to all of his ideas and desires. To me, what you are asking for is a pretty fundamental human right. I mean, real talk, I wouldn’t even be FRIENDS with someone who didn’t grant me that right, much less life partners. Do you agree? Think how quickly you’d ditch a supposed friend who just told you you were stupid whenever you disagreed with them, who simply flat-out refused to even entertain the possibility of doing something your way, ever. It is exhausting just thinking about it.

I don’t mean to harsh you out. I know things are complex and that I can not understand everything that’s going on. Also, full disclosure: my personal emotional makeup is such that there is VERY LITTLE that gets my blood boiling like a dude who won’t listen to a lady, a dude who thinks he knows what a lady wants and needs better than that lady knows herself. Ugh! Ugh! It is thus very hard for me to not just gnash my teeth and say TO HELL WITH ALL THAT. Like, I am way too old to sit here listening to some dude tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about–I get enough of that in the great wide world, you know? How dare you tell me that actually I do like orange sherbet?? HOW DARE YOU?

So that is just me. Trying to look at the bigger picture–which is that not everyone is me, and also that I don’t know all the nuts and bolts of your life–I understand that you obviously get a lot of good things out of this relationship, or you wouldn’t be here. I get that. And “how much is too much” is a question everyone has to answer for themselves. One man’s mild flaw is another man’s dealbreaker. Everyone’s relationship is a bit of a mystery to everyone else–I’m sure there are people who would hate dating me, or my partner. Because, to each his own! So, while I react really violently to this situation you describe (specifically, to a woman using the word “disempowered” when describing how a man who supposedly loves her makes her feel, ugh!!), I also get that it’s always more complicated, more ooky and personal, more intertwined with feelings and issues and positive things and good sides than anyone else could ever understand. You aren’t crazy. You are trying to navigate through a lot of difficult, conflicting feelings and experiences, and that is very, very hard to do. It is ALWAYS easier for an outsider to see things as obvious and black-and-white than it is for the person actually involved in the situation.

Your letter is really eloquent. You sound like an incredibly thoughtful, precise person who has considered this issue very carefully, which is to your credit as a human being. Here are the words you helpfully used to describe your partner in this situation: obstinate, defensive, rigid, righteous, and previously wounded. To me, these are all related to one word, which is FEAR. He’s not too old to be nice to you, he’s AFRAID of being nice to you. Due to whatever his past reasons or experiences are, he’s afraid to trust, to be tender and vulnerable with you. Obstinate defensiveness, rigidity, self-righteousness, the refusal to communicate, to listen, to understand, these are all about a terror of recognizing others’ humanity, because of the sense that it will make his own humanity permeable or changeable. If Megan doesn’t like the sherbet, it means that Don’s predilections aren’t universal truisms but merely personal idiosyncrasies, which in turn is terrifying to him, because how can he know what is True and Right if they aren’t just whatever he happens to believe? Which is obviously crazy, but I think a very common attitude, which is why so many relationships involve so much yelling.

So, lets consider the concept of Trust: You say you trust each other, but I don’t think this is 100% true, if this is how he’s acting. What do you mean when you say there is trust between you? When someone trusts someone else, he doesn’t treat their every difference of opinion or desire with this unilateral arms-length defensiveness. And also, I should point out that you don’t actually trust him either, since your letter is all about how you can’t trust him to treat you respectfully in disagreements, which must be frightening. More fear. So even if at other times (i.e. when you are agreeing with him) you feel trust, there is nonetheless a breaking of trust here, a problem of trust, and it’s a problem created by him being fearful and cowardly about opening up his heart and making some damn changes in the way he perceives you, communication, women, himself, relationships, who knows what-all?

And you know, that’s sad. That’s sad for him, that he’s so afraid. That he’s so afraid of being vulnerable in that way; that he’s so afraid of trusting someone in that way. And it’s sad that he’s so terrified of letting go of aspects of his identity that he feels make him who he is. It’s sad that even the bad parts of our characters can come to feel like a security blanket. I can tell from your letter that you have this amazing well of compassion for him, and I commend you for being such a decent person. YOU’RE really seeing HIM, it sounds like, and trying to understand where he’s coming from, and being willing to be vulnerable in front of him if it means understanding him better, which is what people should do with each other, because then we’d have no wars (exaggeration). And he’s not doing you this same service in return, and that is honestly sad. You’re offering him this possibility for cool change, for enlightenment, for new life and growth as a person, learning to communicate better and share himself more fully, which is actually really exciting and wonderful, and he’s refusing it. And he has to know that eventually it’s going to drive you away. You can’t be with someone forever with whom you can’t communicate in this very basic way. And even knowing this, he still can’t make these changes. And yeah, that’s sad. But “previously wounded,” I have to say, lots of people have terrible things in their pasts and they still manage to treat their partners with a baseline human respect. Lots of people turn past hurts into lessons in compassion, not into licenses for eternal defensive assholery. Again, I don’t think you should let him off the hook too easily.

You know, lets discuss semantics for a second. A relationship isn’t “good” just because it’s good when it’s good. Did that make sense??? What I’m saying is that in a sense, your description of the good stuff is a tautology. Like obviously “when you’re on the same page,” it feels good. That’s what being on the same page means! Of course you’re a good team when you’re in agreement. But that’s not what REALLY make a good team a good team—a good team is good because the team members are good at listening to each other and taking ideas from each other and resolving conflict in a way that moves the team forward, that makes the team greater than its individual parts. A good team isn’t a good team if just one team leader makes all the decisions! That’s not a “team,” actually, it’s more like a military unit or something. It’s like you’re just saying “when things are good, they are good.” Tautological! The good parts are, by definition, good. But a good relationship, a holistically good all-around relationship, means that even when you disagree or fight or are mad, it still feels fundamentally good, because you are essentially communicating and understanding and getting better together. Because you know you’re allowed to disagree and he will still treat you like a human being. Because you aren’t scared or defensive. Because you know that keeping things “good” isn’t contingent on you swallowing every single dissenting opinion you ever have. In a good relationship, even the bad parts are good, somehow. Whereas, the bad stuff you’re describing doesn’t sound good at all. You say that you feel considered by him, except when he doesn’t consider you. What does that mean?

A Helpful Pizza Analogy:

You wouldn’t say “this is a really good pizza except that there’s a big pile of dogshit in the middle of it.” Like, at a certain point, the fact that the edges of the pizza are really unusually delicious isn’t enough to overcome the fact that it’s a pizza with dogshit on it. You’d probably rather have a slightly-less delicious pizza that didn’t have the dogshit. Right? And if you take it back to the pizza place and say “sorry but I don’t like dogshit” and they say “YES YOU DO,” well, then, you’ve got a major problem on your hands. When what you really ought to have is your goddamn money back!

End of Pizza Analogy

So then unfortunately it all comes back to you and your own ooky feelings. IF he legitimately can’t (i.e. won’t) change, THEN what will you do? If you imagine this situation never getting any better, what do you think you’d want your future self to do? Is this a cross you’re willing to bear–being meek in the face of this man’s refusal to listen to you? And/or exhaustedly fighting tooth and nail for every single dissenting thing you want to do/say/feel/eat/whatever? Are the good aspects of this relationship worth sacrificing your desire to be allowed to voice opinions and have them respected?

We all make compromises in the face of long-term relationships. We all give stuff up. And we should do it joyfully only when we feel that the bargain is good. What’s the tradeoff for you, and is it worth the sacrifice?

I have only given you advice about, like, “how to conceptualize the idea of change” or whatever. I haven’t given you any real-world advice for actually making your relationship better. That’s because, frankly, in a situation like this, it’s not on you to make it better. At least from your description (which, to be fair, is just your side of the story, of course) it sounds like it’s up to him to make it better, and it’s up to you to decide if you want to stay with him if he doesn’t make it better. The only way this relationship can be better is if you clearly articulate these issues to him, and he hears them, and then he changes the way he relates to you. It’s fundamentally very simple but in reality very hard to accomplish, tragically. There’s really no other way things can get better–if he can’t start treating you with respect, then I’m not sure there’s anything you can do, unless you’re willing to just give up your desire to be respected, which I really hope you don’t choose to do.

The only thing I’d really suggest in a situation like this–where compassionate, specific, repeated requests have resulted in no change–is an ultimatum. Ultimatums don’t have to be dick moves, even Dan Savage agrees. Ultimatums can be very loving. Think of the ultimatum “stop being a junkie or I’m going to leave you.” That’s not only a perfectly reasonable thing to do/say, but it’s also loving! Because if it works, hey, you’ve made somebody’s life better! Yeah, people only change when they want to change, but at the same time, being in love with someone doesn’t mean you just accept literally anything they do, any behavior, any choice. That’s actually just called “enabling.” The reason partnered people statistically live longer than un-partnered people isn’t for any spiritual reason, it’s because partnered people fucking hector each other about shit like drinking too much and eating pizza while lying down in front of the television. You know, the classic wife who’s like “The doctor says you can’t have bacon! You have to eat this wilted carrot instead!” and the husband’s like “Awww nuts!” and then the audience laughs. But news flash: thanks to his nagging wife that guy’s not going to die of a heart attack! If my old man was suddenly like “I am a born again christian and I got a tribal tattoo and from now on we can only listen to Blues Traveler in our home” I’d be like, well, maybe this isn’t going to work out anymore. I feel that is totally fair of my hypothetical future self. And certainly if he just yelled at me all the time for sometimes having a different opinion from him, I’d think it was perfectly within my rights to reconsider my commitment to him. It’s just like Megan said to Don that time he didn’t appreciate her surprise party and then she made him watch her clean the house in her underwear and then they had sex on the floor: “every time we fight like this, it diminishes what’s between us.” I don’t think that’s the actual line, but remember that scene? She’s right!!!!

Disagreements have to be PRODUCTIVE, they can’t just endlessly repeat themselves with no change. And one person doesn’t get to unilaterally decide everything. That’s not a relationship, it’s a dictatorship. And dictatorships don’t end because the populace just says “well that’s just the way it is, he can’t help it.” They end with bloody revolutions and somebody’s head on a fucking pike! I’m getting so sidetracked!

The only thing about ultimatums though is that you have to mean them, and this is the hard part and where most ultimatums fail. You have to say “if x, y, and z don’t truly change within x amount of time, I am literally leaving, FOREVER,” and you have to mean it. Because if even one time you back down on an ultimatum, then he sees that you don’t really mean it, and he knows he doesn’t have to make the changes. This is hard, because obviously you don’t want to break up or you wouldn’t be writing me this letter. However, if you sit down and really acknowledge that if these changes can’t get made, then you no longer want to be in the relationship (if that is indeed how you feel–maybe you don’t, maybe you feel like this relationship is worth staying in even if he literally does not ever change), then I recommend very specifically, calmly, and even somewhat brutally telling him this and then holding yourself to it. Give yourself a deadline and if shit isn’t ENORMOUSLY DIFFERENT–if it isn’t well on the way to becoming better–then bail. You’re a grown-ass woman with a million skills and hobbies and friends and people who love you. You’ve got work to do in your own damn life–you can’t spend your life tip-toeing around this guy, changing so many of your behaviors in order to fit quietly and gently around his refusal to change his own. Why should you have to do all the changing, all the capitulating?? It’s not fair! And honestly, if you continue doing all the capitulating, it’s going to result in the relationship ending anyway, because no one can survive that kind of building-up of resentment. So the ultimatum is actually trying to salvage something before it’s too late.

Everyone is complicated. I’m sure he is a really lovely man in so many ways–obviously he is, if you are with him in the first place. I believe you when you say that in many ways this relationship works. Obviously that’s true, or you wouldn’t be in it! But, getting back to your basic question–no, I don’t think his age is what makes him act this way, and I don’t think his age means he can’t make these changes. I believe everyone has the capacity to become a better version of themselves, at any point in their life. But if they refuse to do this, then what they’re doing is telling you that holding onto those behaviors is more important to them than you are. And that sucks.

Being firm is hard, especially if you’ve fallen into a pattern of docility or capitulation with him. I think also being brutal and firm is hard when you’re essentially a gentle, generous person, as your letter makes you seem. But being brutal and firm is the only way out of this situation–whether that means leaving him, or whether that means holding him to actual change. I know that you can do it. I know that you have the strength and the wisdom to know what to do and how to do it, to deliver the brutal ultimatum, to speak your heart boldly, to know what is best for YOU–not for him, for YOU. Reach out to your friends, keep talking about it, keep pinpointing your own feelings and needs, and keep believing that you deserve to have those needs met. Because you do! You are not being unreasonable! HE IS!

DEATH TO ORANGE SHERBET

Hey!

B

Ah, global bureaucracy. But no, first of all, let me say what we are all thinking, which is: CONGRATULATIONS. This is totally amazing news. You have done such a good job and worked so hard, and you’ve conquered this huge goal! One thing I’ve noticed and have been sad about is how hard it is to fully appreciate a goal once it’s been reached. I remember as a kid thinking “man, if I could just put out an album of my own music, I’d never be sad again,” or like more recently, fantasizing so intensely about how amazing my life would be once I had a PhD, but then when these things finally are achieved it is like “oh yeah duh, it’s so easy, a fetal donkey could do it.” We always kind of forget the emotions that were once attached to a thing we worked toward/experienced, because I guess a thing in reality is always going to be different and by definition more normal-seeming than that same thing in our fantasy future-projections. But seriously, take a second to just feel awesome about this fantasy-thing you have made a reality-thing!

There are lots of cards in the tarot deck that are all about trying to take a break from the strife of life and just look gently and peacefully for a second at what you have built. All of the nines (except the nine of swords, that fickle bitch), for example, are about yes, acknowledging that stuff is still hard, that your life is going to continue to contain obstacles, but also hey–look at all you’ve done and accomplished! Look how far you’ve come! The tarot is about cycles, because life is about cycles. When a new cycle is beginning, it means that an old one is ending. This moment of transition between cycles can be really unsettling/scary, which is why it’s so vitally important to take that moment of quiet meditation to look at how far you’ve come. Remember when you were first applying to this institute, how obnoxious and complex the application process was, how insurmountable it all seemed? But then, you surmounted it. You did all the steps. You got a goddamn GED! You did so many things and accomplished them in order to attain this huge goal! Now you’re reaching a new obstacle (getting into the country where the already-attained goal resides) but you should still appreciate that you fucking nailed the old one!

There will never not be an obstacle.

Obstacles are part of life. People who don’t have them are boring and/or dead. There will always be struggle and confusion. Even when you’re perfectly content, there are obstacles, there are goals, there are things to figure out and overcome. This is what makes life awesome! Freud has that whole bit about how we can’t really appreciate joy unless we’ve also felt sorrow, and this is why Jesus is creepy (long story short).

But anyway, this is I suppose the bigger picture of your question—how do you deal with that fact? How do you maintain equilibrium when things get stressful?

I have my own methods; everyone’s are probably different. Mine obviously involve using tarot cards as a sort of meditation practice. But I also do yoga, write in my journal, deliver monologues to my friends, take my dog for long walks during which I barely have a thought in my head, eat enormous meals and watch Arrested Development, etc.

I personally think that dealing with stress is about being mindful, and keeping the big picture always in front of you. In the big picture, this visa situation is pretty small potatoes. I don’t even mean in the big picture of the universe! I mean even just in the big picture of Your Entire Life. Honestly, it’s going to work out–schools deal with this kind of thing literally every day, it’s not an unusual problem. University bureaucracies are legendarily loathsome and impossible to navigate, but eventually your loans will clear and your visa will be approved. All you can do is stay on top of it; maintain contact with a point person in your department who understands your situation; maintain contact with some sort of point person at the administrative department that handles international students and has definitely handled this situation for like 7,000 people before you; keep making those phone calls to the student loan people checking on their timeline and all that. It’s totally stressful, and annoying, and tedious, and even scary–don’t get me wrong!–but at the same time, this is not a life-or-death situation. This is not, like, “international terrorists have kidnapped my husband and are going to kill him within 24 hours if I don’t get 10 million dollars and an army helicopter” or whatever. Right? You don’t need Liam Neeson to solve this problem for you (although, don’t we all wish!). This is a big deal, and you definitely have your work cut out for you, but IT IS GOING TO BE OKAY. Honestly, you’ve done the hard part–applying and getting accepted!–this is all just bullshit on top. I bet there are like 50 other incoming students in your exact situation right now. And you’re all going to be okay!

When I have something akin to this in my life–something that feels overwhelming and like it’s in danger of swamping my well-being–I try to really sit down and take a deep breath and focus on the realities at hand, seeing them for what they are, seeing each individual step in the process, and trying to truly accept which things I have control over and which things I don’t. Making the phone calls, keeping in touch with a person at the school, maintaining rigorously clear and careful files and paperwork, maintaining your own mental well-being: these are things you control. Control them! It will make you feel better. But the timeline for student loan approval, the rules regarding student visas, the passage of time itself: these are things you can not possibly control. So let them go.

Letting go is hard. I will pass on this aphorism I read somewhere that is really so annoyingly true: “Worrying does not rob tomorrow of its sorrows, it only robs today of its joys.”

Which speaks to the other thing that’s important at trying times, which is focusing on the positives. If you know me at all, you know that the relentless hectoring of the “positive thinking police” in our country infuriates me and that I am wholly of one mind with Barbara Ehrenreich, who believes it is “destroying America.” HOWEVER, a little positive thinking, realistically applied, is a very important thing. Life isn’t all positive, but it also isn’t all negative.

What is good in your life? Special friendships, a pet, a book you love, a goal recently accomplished, something that made you laugh super hard, going on a hike/run/swim/whatever, the ocean, the beach, cooking something fancy, fancy cappuccino, the new Wes Anderson movie, something you’re looking forward to–a party, a hangout, a meal, any kind of lovely experience, a funny dog you saw at the park. There is no way you don’t have stuff like this in your life! Think about that stuff. Write that stuff down in a fancy new notebook you splurge on.

Also, maybe fantasize about London? Unless that stresses you out too much. But man, I love projecting my imagination PAST the stressful thing and into the future when the stressful thing is over. Imagine when you are just living in London, going to school, living the life of your dreams! Rainy ol’ England, eating your gross fish n’ chips, riding the tube, puzzling over the keep left signs, literally never figuring out how to order coffee! Going deep with your work. Learning new stuff. Living in a whole new place; becoming a new phase of You. That’s all awesome stuff, and it’s definitely going to happen, once this visa bullshit is over.

Self-sabotage is such a common plight. Why do we do it? I think a lot of self-sabotage stems from the fear of failure. It’s like, you might fail at something, and that would be so awful, that you almost don’t want to allow yourself to think anything good might ever happen, because you might jinx it. Or something. Fear of failure holds back so many people from becoming fully self actualized. The thing about failure is: Well yeah, you’re going to fail sometimes. That’s life! You’re also going to die someday. Also terrible: also just life! Failing doesn’t mean anything. Or, it doesn’t necessarily mean that much. I’ve failed lots of times. Big ones, too! I had a job interview at one of the best jobs posted in my field last year, and I blew it so cataclysmically that I don’t even want to tell you the things the chair said in our post-interview phone conversation–and she was trying to be nice! It was a failure of epic, unmitigated proportions, just a completely unsalvageable, no-two-ways-about-it failure. And yeah, I cried for like an hour and was so ashamed I wanted to barf. But then, you know, I went out for pizza and got on with my life. And my next interview was way better. Nobody murdered me; nobody kidnapped my husband; it was embarrassing and truly horrible and I didn’t get something I really wanted, but, you know, here I still am. Here we all still are. You should read the stuff Stephen King has written about all the rejection notices he got from various editors and magazines. For, like, YEARS. “Dear shithead, I am dumber for having read this piece of crap,” stuff like that. And he’s back in his emo laundry room, living off his wife’s day job, drinking too much, and being all, “boo hoo, nobody likes my story about the haunted car!!” But he kept on plugging and now look at him–he’s, like, singlehandedly financing the economy of an entire town in Maine. He just bought the fire department a new jaws of life! He didn’t let fear of failure keep him from trying–he didn’t even let actual failure keep him from trying.

Yes I did just hold Stephen King up as a moral mindset guru. Why not? Dude seems like a nice guy.

A lot of failures end up being blessings. We can only create a coherent, linear narrative of our life in retrospect. At the time, all failures feel like The End, but then after awhile a lot of them, in retrospect, seem awesome. You’re so glad that relationship didn’t work out; you’re so glad you got fired because that was what finally spurred you to start your new business or whatever; you’re so glad you didn’t get into UC Berkeley because your second choice school was USC and when you moved to Los Angeles you fell in love with Johnny Depp and he whisked you away to a life of luxury and pleasure; etc. etc. To quote Garth Brooks: “Sometimes I thank god for un-answered prayers.” Heavy! Good old Garth. Like, that terrible interview I failed at–who knows? Maybe when I look back on my life I’ll be like “there was the moment where it all went wrong.” But it is just as likely if not more likely that I will look back and be like “oh thank god I didn’t get that job, because it meant that [whatever other thing] happened instead!”

The point is, dreading failure is just…I don’t know. You have to be willing to fail sometimes, or else you’ll never take any risks at all. Clearly you know this–you’ve just done all this insane shit in order to get into this school of your dreams! Clearly you know you have to take risks in life. Clearly a part of you does not actually fear failure; be stoked on that part of yourself. That part of yourself is the realistic part that’s going to get shit done in your life.

The other thing about self-sabotage is: Who cares? What are you proving, by sabotaging yourself? Is it really that important to you to make sure you don’t accidentally think highly of yourself? BIG DEAL! Nobody cares if you think highly of yourself or not! Everyone else is on their own weird journey–whether or not you believe you deserve success makes no difference to anyone else. And if that’s true, then why does it matter to you, to hold onto these self-destructive ways of thinking? Why is that so important to you? So you might as well just believe you are doing fine, believe you can be happy, just do it, just dig into the things that make you happy. My dad always says “deserve ain’t got nothing to do with it,” and he’s right. Nobody deserves anything–good or bad–except maybe Hitler or Dick Cheney or something. Are you Dick Cheney? No you’re not. We’re all just alive, trying to do our best to get through it unscathed. There is no point in dissing yourself or being like “I don’t DESERVE to go to fashion school” or whatever. What does that even mean? Who DOES deserve it, if you don’t, and why do they? I want you to know that I understand what you are describing–it’s called “fraud syndrome,” in academia, and everyone has it including me–but nonetheless I think you need to really put a moratorium on it, because it serves no one and is pointless. Just put a damper on it, when you feel it bubbling up in your brain. Just say “NOPE, I’m not going down that route right now,” and then turn your attention to something else. Just LIBERATE YOURSELF from the need to tear yourself down. Do this by reminding yourself that it makes no difference–you’re not proving anything to anybody, you’re not being noble or modest, by tearing yourself down or by resisting success or by refusing to feel good about your accomplishments. Free your mind!

Also, re: suicide, which is very serious…I hope you are no longer feeling this way, and that if you are, you will seek help more qualified than me. I mean, talk about serving no one: suicide is the worst! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some Pollyanna asshole–I think there are all kinds of good reasons to commit suicide (for example, everyone on earth dies in a nuclear holocaust except you), but not getting to go to fashion school (which isn’t even going to happen to you!) is definitely not one of them, nor is stress related to moving to a different country. To quote somebody else I forget: “You’ve got forever to be dead.” Right? Why rush it. It’s like rushing to get to your root canal appointment seventeen billion hours early. Why would you do that?

So basically:
– big picture focus. This is just one obstacle among many yet to come. It is annoying and difficult but ultimately not that big a deal I SWEAR. It’s going to get dealt with; you are going to be okay.

– conceptual meditation. You don’t have to literally sit in full lotus thinking about your chakras or whatever. But find some sort of quiet peaceful vibe zone in which you can somewhat honestly and calmly examine your life, the situation, and your feelings. Take deep breaths. Write it all down, look at it, and then close the book and put it away for awhile and go for a walk and think about how life goes on, life goes on all around you, your own life goes on, no matter what sorts of things are currently harshing you out.

– work with open heart and devoted mind toward CLAMPING DOWN whenever you find yourself veering into self hating sabotage or feelings of un-worthiness. These are chimeras, they are false friends. They aren’t real. They serve no one; they prove nothing. Rise above them. Acknowledge yourself as a creature on the earth, doing your best, living your life, no better or worse than anyone else, no more or less deserving than anyone else of success or failure. Just a human person, trying to build a cool thing in your life, because why not build a cool thing? Given the choice between laying around feeling unworthy and actually doing something cool, I honestly think we should all choose option B. Nothing wrong with that at all! And if you try and fail anyway, OH WELL. I know an old lady who has “Oh Well” written on a piece of paper and taped to her bathroom mirror–it’s her life motto. It’s a pretty good one. Simply do not allow yourself to fall down these various shame spirals. Distract yourself when you realize you’re coming close to one–like when you catch a dog chewing on your couch, you’re supposed to clap your hands to startle him and then shove a more appropriate chewtoy into his mouth. Do this with your brain!

– on a way more literal level, I will give you the advice I give to almost every person in every situation: make lists! Do you make lists? In this case, deeply concrete to-do lists. Write down every aspect of every thing you have to get done (i.e. don’t write down “apply to grad school,” but instead write down: “download application forms,” “email advisor,” “write draft of personal statement,” “buy stamps,” etc.). If you are feeling overwhelmed by shit you have to do, always make a deep list and keep it with you 24 hours a day and look at it constantly. This may not be something you need to do right this second, as it sounds like you’ve actually come to the end of a major to-do list (getting accepted to school) and are now waiting for what comes next, but I’m just saying, in the future, this is very helpful for maintaining realistic sanity in times of duress. Nothing is so grounding and satisfying and CHECKING SOMETHING OFF A TO-DO LIST!

– Take a break and really appreciate what you’ve done, how far you’ve come, what a good job you continue to do. You’ve already accomplished so many awesome goals! You’ll get past this obstacle too, one way or another. You totally will, I swear.

Finally, I can’t tell if having taken 6 years off before going to this school is stressing you out or not, but it shouldn’t! I took 6 years off before grad school and I’m so glad I did. It meant that I loved EVERY MINUTE OF IT, instead of complaining about it like the people who’d never had a real job or paid their own rent or whatever. Grading papers? Reading 600 pages of arcane theory? Listening to some boring-ass person at a conference Q&A talk for a thousand hours about Hegel? Guess what, it’s all better than getting some asshole coffee, which is what I’d been doing before. You will be the best student and have the best time, you’ll love everything you have to do in school, you’ll love your classes, you’ll love your homework, you’ll love London, you’ll feel so blessed! It will be so great.

Change is scary but also awesome; trying to avoid change is futile. There’s another lesson of the tarot deck.

Be real, focus on realities and not chimeras (I love this definition of chimera: “a horrible or unreal creature of the imagination; a vain or idle fancy”). Be real to yourself. Acknowledge your own humanity and your own capacity for joy, your worthiness, your human right to experience pride and contentment, if they are there to be had.

I know you can do it! And keep calling the school and staying on top of this bullshit bureaucratic nightmare. Email your future professors to let them know what’s up, or to see if you can reserve spots in their classes even though you aren’t allowed to register yet or whatever. Doing things like this will help you to feel on top of it, and like you are managing.

So, a mixture of real-world task management and calm meditative grace, I think that is your new goal, a goal of mindset, of attitude, of awareness. Totally accomplishable goal.

And again, congratulations! We are all so proud of you, and happy for you. And I for one am highly confident that this is going to work out, and that soon you will be making yet another to-do list, this time titled “Moving To London.” That’s a whole new can of worms! But again, that’s what makes life amazing–new cans of worms to open, new lists, new fears, new goals.

good luck!! Keep us posted!

Dear YT,

My question is: how important is it that we watch TV or climb mountains together or whatever? Also, how long does it take to find that sweet spot of “sharing” each other’s pleasures and friends? I want to emphasize that I really do love this man; I want to find a way to have a healthy relationship where we can each maintain what is essential about ourselves while still inhabiting and enjoying a life together. Please advise?

Hmmm!

My knee jerk reaction to this is to say “Girl, don’t worry so hard!” I think your boyfriend is right, actually. But I also appreciate that this is something that worries/bothers you, and thus should be discussed. But seriously, don’t worry so much!

To begin with, I’d point out that dating someone who shares your friend group, while awesome in many ways, also brings with it its own issues, especially if you ever break up, which, I don’t think this will happen to you, but I’m just saying. Or like, sometimes it’s nice for it to just be a given that you are invited to something and he isn’t. It’s nice to not be a couple at every single event. Go solo! I just think having separate friend groups can be nice, in some ways. It’s nice to have your own scene where you go do your own thing! Just keep that in mind, as you work through this stuff. A little separation can be a very nice and healthy thing.

The other thing that’s nice is that when you have weird separate lives/interests, you get to learn from each other. Was I interested in avant garde film sound before I met my match? No I was not. But now I know kind of a lot about it, relatively speaking, and my life is better and I am interested in it and hooray! EVEN THOUGH, no, under no circumstances would I ever just throw on Walter Rutmann’s Lichtspiel Opus 1 to enjoy by myself of an evening, in lieu of Arrested Development. NEVER WILL I! But still, I have developed a fairly deep and sincere appreciation, even if it never matches my old man’s towering passion, and even if I OFTEN do not join him in that pursuit. Right? And the same goes for him and whatever weird shit I’m working on. Now he knows kind of a lot, relatively speaking, about nineteenth century art music, and it is very cute when he talks about it and I get to hear his outsider insights into my field, which are often totally brilliant. It’s fun to have stuff you can educate each other about. Or like how he is obsessed with fantasy sports, which, if there is something more boring in the history of the earth I legitimately don’t even want to know. But it is fine! He checks his stats and talks shop with his nerdy friends and he leaves me the hell out of it. And I make sourdough starters and watch Downton Abbey and I leave him the hell out of it. I think this is more than reasonable.

Okay but I get that you are talking about a somewhat more extreme separation; a more extreme non-overlapping Venn diagram. And I do understand how that can be worrisome/stressful/emo. Because it IS really nice to be able to hang out in a group with your partner and not feel like he is the Outsider, and vice versa for you when you hang out with his friends. And it IS really nice to share passions and lifestyles, and of course some overlapping is necessary if you are actually going to have a life together.

One thing that I think is probably a challenge for you in this regard is that you are both older (i.e. not in college), and have lived in your city for years and years. So you are both very firmly established in terms of friends, vibe, interests, etc. It is hard to develop new passions later in life, frankly. And it is a lot harder to make new friends the older you get, just because it’s maybe a bit exhausting? You maybe are like “I have enough goddamn friends.” Or something. Or, you’ve really figured out who you are and how you like to relate to your friends, and having to find your footing in a whole new group is just not as enticing as maybe it once was. And in terms of interests, god help us but we do get set in our ways. Maybe 20 years ago I could suddenly have become a devoted mountain climber, but it’s seriously just not going to happen now. All of which is more than reasonable–I don’t think it’s depressing or bad. You slowly learn who you really are, as you age, and that’s a very good thing.

But I do think this just means it’s going to TAKE LONGER. Seven months actually does not seem that long to me, for your friend groups to still not be integrated or whatever. These people are all grown-ass people, with careers and kids and routines! It’s going to take way more time to feel integrated with them, and vice versa, than it did in college when everyone was basically the same and we all just hung out and partied CONSTANTLY.

So my first piece of advice is to just chill out and give it way more time. You’ve established that you LIKE each other’s friends (this would be a whole different issue if he was like “your friends are all horrible a-wads”), and you’ve established that you appreciate, respect, and understand each others’ interests (again, it would be different if you were like “his ‘interest’ is being a drug addict and I don’t relate to that” or something, or like if he was a bowhunter and you’re an ethical vegetarian, or if he’s obsessed with Nazi paraphernalia, etc.), which to me all sounds like a perfectly solid foundation upon which to build a relationship. Right?

I think you will develop at least a few more shared interests just over time. Like, again, I did not set myself the task of learning about avant garde cinema—I just sort of learned about it and came to enjoy it through osmosis, just via hanging around with this dude for years. Right? At first, I sincerely did not enjoy watching these films with him. They made me mad, which is a very normal response to intentionally opaque works of art. But after awhile, I realized with surprise that I was actually looking forward to watching them. It happens! You may never want to climb a mountain but you may develop a more sincere enjoyment of going on a mellow hike, e.g. Or you might enjoy going on a vacation with him where he climbs a mountain but you stay at the cabin reading by the river and then he comes home all tired and you make love in the field with the unicorns running by. Like after awhile, you’ll find that you’ve come to more fully appreciate or even enjoy SOME of his interests, and vice versa, AND/OR you’ll just naturally figure out how to include each other in some of your interests at whatever level works for them (i.e. the cabin vs. the mountain). And if this doesn’t happen with ALL your interests, that’s fine! I would hate it if my old man shared all my interests, honestly. It’s nice to have some stuff that’s just yours. Weirdly one of mine is Ingmar Bergman, which you’d think he’d be super into but for some reason that is really my thing. And I like that! I watch them when he’s not home, and it’s my special time. (I think it’s because I hate humanity and really pride myself on being a super judgmental atheist, and my partner doesn’t, and isn’t (he’s just a regular atheist). There’s another non-shared interest!!!!)

My second piece of advice is just about changing your ‘tude a little bit w/r/t friends. I totally get that it would be nice if he had deep abiding friendships with some of your friends, but also if this never happens, just say OH WELL. It would be nice if he was a millionaire too. It would be nice if he had magical powers and could take you back in time to see a dinosaur. It would be nice if he was friends with Johnny Depp. But like, oh well! As long as your friends/him and his friends/you all like each other, which they totally do, just let it be what it is. You both understand that it’s important to hang out with each others friends; you both enjoy each others’ friends, it’s not like it’s a drag or anything; so don’t try to make it something it’s not. We all have acquaintances who aren’t necessarily “close friends,” but who we enjoy so much and are always happy to see. That’s fine! We don’t need to make every pleasant acquaintance into a best friend just because they are our partner’s good friend or something. Having separate good friends is a good thing, a lot of the time. It’s totally fair that you wish there was MORE overlap, but also, it’s not that big a deal I think.

I do think you should be cognizant of this and that you should consciously make sure you don’t give up people or activities that make you happy, just because of this issue, like you say. It sounds like your boyfriend is not someone who’s going to make that demand of you (“I hate when you go hang out with so-and-so without me or whatever”), which is good, but I do think you’re right to worry a bit that you’ll just sort of slowly and inevitably give stuff up. JUST DON’T DO IT! I really think it’s about ‘tude. Just cultivate an attitude of, like, having these separate things and really appreciating that, and appreciating that you get to go off and do this stuff you enjoy with your close friends, and then you come home and tell him about it and he laughs and you are happy to see each other and then you do something together that you both enjoy. Totally a normal way to live! And over time maybe you realize you are really vibing with some friend of his, and maybe one of your friends invites him to some weird dude party, and anyway after awhile you won’t feel this crazy gulf and it will just be normal.

Overall, I think this issue is more like, this is something that is mildly less than ideal. Rather than a Huge Problem or a Dealbreaker or something that Prophesizes Doom. It’s just something that could be better but isn’t that bad so oh well! We all have stuff like that.

1. Give it way more time to change slowly
2. Don’t worry about it!
3. Enjoy it the way it is and accept it the way it is, and after awhile it will seem more and more normal and eventually you probably won’t even remember why you were so worried about it.

Also make a list of all the things that would actually be worse problems than this one:
– he refuses to do housework, ever
– you don’t trust him
– he’s a drug addict
– he blows every paycheck at the track
– you legitimately think his friends are dicks
– he still spends the night at his ex girlfriend’s house but when you tell him this bothers you he accuses you of being “controlling”
– you fight all the time
– you make ten times as much money as he does or vice versa (this would be fine with me but I know some people find it difficult)
– his parents are insane
– he has debilitating night terrors every night
– he has troubled teenage children from an earlier marriage
– one of you has some deeply niche sexual fetish that the other one would rather die than partake in
– he actually embarrasses you in front of your friends
– he thinks Anna Paquin is “our greatest living actor”
– you have profoundly different political beliefs or lifestyles
– he’s a Mac guy and you’re a PC guy LOL

etc.

In conclusion: THIS IS NO BIGGIE!!! Don’t let it be a biggie because it really doesn’t have to be one, in my humble opinion. It’s totally fine if it worries you but try not to let the worry get too big, because I really think time and mellowness is going to take care of this. You guys are obviously an amazing match and you make each other happy and the rest is just going to be a fun process of experimentation and discovery to fit ever-better together over time. FUN!

I have no idea whether this is even a fair question to ask you, but I am currently struggling with my old cat. He is about 15 years old and has had some x-rays to confirm that his rather pronounced limp is due to arthritis in his hips and the back part of his spine. He can’t walk very far but he still purrs a lot and he was always one to sleep most of the time anyway and his appetite has not reduced. He can’t play or run around like his buddy who is 2/3s his age, but i suppose that his just aging. I am struggling to decide if I’m doing right by him and if I should wait until he basically just can’t move around anymore or if I should ease him out of this world before he gets to that point. I think I know what I would choose for myself but I struggle with laying my own issues on my cat. I just worry that he’s suffering since he can’t do much more than sleep and eat. Maybe that is just old age though!

Oh boy. Sweet old animal friends nearing the ends of their lives: heavy stuff! But also, in a way it is kind of nice. Sometimes I look at my dog, and I think how lucky he is–and I am–that legally I am allowed to put him gently to sleep when his time of suffering draws nigh. I wish we were granted that same right for ourselves and our human loved ones, honestly. I think it honors the commitment you make to your pet, to not let it needlessly suffer for months and months. I think it shows love and an awareness of your responsibility to him.

That being said, from your letter, it doesn’t necessarily sound like you are at that point yet with your dude. I really think it’s great you are thinking about it and paying attention–this means that when the time does come (if it comes–there’s always the chance he dies in his sleep, in his bed, which would be so great, don’t we all wish the same for ourselves), you’ll be ready, because you will have already prepared and pondered, mentally. It won’t creep up on you. I hope we can all have this same experience with our own old ages, you know? Talking and thinking about it so it doesn’t creep up.

I am not a vet, but I have had relationships with many animal pets, and judging just by your letter I feel like your guy has some life and pleasure left to him yet. I think if a cat is still eating, he’s probably doing more or less okay. I think that especially if you know an animal well, you can tell when he’s just an ol’ gimpy grouch and when he’s crossed the line into truly gnarly suffering and decrepitude. I think you should relax, and trust that you’ll know when he crosses that line.

I housesat for someone a few years ago, and this involved caring for her morbidly ancient cat who had terrible failing kidneys and you had to inject her with saline solution every other day, which involved holding her violently squirming skeletal body between your knees and jabbing a needle into her shoulder. I personally felt that this had gone a bit too far, but I agreed to the arrangement, and even though it was emo, it was more-or-less okay for awhile. The cat still asked for pieces of cheese. The cat still wanted to snuggle. The cat still grouched around and switched her tail. I could tell that even though she was emo and old as shit and probably not super comfortable, she was still digging her life in some way. But then one day, the cat stopped eating. The cat stopped being able to get into the litterbox, and would sort of just lean against it and pee on the floor. It was awful. I could see in her face that it was not okay anymore. It was such a definitive moment of the cat crossing the line from still sort of okay into not okay at all. It was like, the moment I came home and saw her like that, I KNEW. And I dilly-dallied, because it wasn’t my cat and I felt weird making that call on my own, but I couldn’t get in touch with the cat’s owner, and so finally I couldn’t bear it any longer, the cat’s horrendously visible suffering, and I went to the emergency vet and they put her to sleep immediately. And honestly, my only regret was that I had waited six hours or whatever–my only regret was that I hadn’t done it IMMEDIATELY on coming home and finding her that way. That’s how bad she suddenly was. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind, in that moment, that her time had come.

This is just to say that I feel like you’ll know when the time is right. Right now, I wouldn’t worry too much. He sounds like he’s achey and old, but if he’s just sleeping all the time and still enjoying his breakfast and still enjoying pats, he’s probably still feeling okay about his life. And honestly, I think you’ll know when that’s no longer the case.

Any vets out there disagree with me? Any additional words of wisdom, things to watch out for, ways to conceptualize the kind of amazing responsibility of deciding when your friend should pass on?

If you have to leave him with a stranger for 6 months, though, while you live in another country (or the equivalent situation), I do think it is 100% acceptable, loving, and responsible to ease him gently out of this world NOW, rather than making his final months stressful. You know? So you be the judge, on that kind of thing.

Bottom line, don’t feel bad about any decision you make. Just the fact that you’ve had this nice guy for so long, and are so worried about doing right by him, means, I think, that whatever decision you make is going to be loving and tender and perfectly acceptable.

In conclusion, I am so glad you’re taking your responsibilities seriously and worrying about your cat’s comfort and quality of life. You are a good cat owner! And for now, I think just enjoy him at this final phase of his life, and pet him and give him all his favorite things, and keep tabs on him, and be honest about whatever changes you notice. You can do it! We all have to die, and what a blessing that he doesn’t have to worry about his final days being horrendous and shameful, because you’re there to help him out at the end. I know cats don’t worry about this kind of thing, but still, he’s lucky to have you.

Dear Yours Truly,
What is love?! What is a good relationship? What is worth fighting for? My live-in boyfriend of 3.5 years and I broke up three months ago, very abruptly, moved out from each other. Our relationship was at least 85% great, but we did have problems we needed to work on such as me snapping at him, and generally not being as laid back as he is (I worry and plan, he goes with the flow, sometimes letting important things slide). The timing and abrupt nature of the break up was due to our lease being up and the convenience of moving apart at that point, rather than potentially breaking a lease down the road.

Thank you!

(I emailed this lady back to find out how old she and the boy in question are, because I think such things are relevant (see below). She is 27 and he is 28)

First of all, let me say I am sorry you are having this hard time! It is definitely hard, but also please remember that EVERYONE has been there, in one way or another, and that you are definitely going to come out the other end of this totally okay, regardless of what happens. You’re going to ponder and be honest and make thoughtful decisions and you’re going to be okay!

I’m going to start by philosophizing very generally about relationships and love, as per your more cosmic questions, and what I personally believe about them, generally, before moving into some specific reflections on your situation.

Here’s a few things I now feel strongly about, based on observation and life experience. What’s your sincere reaction to each of these things, if you let yourself really close your eyes and think about them?:

– a truly good relationship is a place of solace and comfort, not a place of stress, confusion, tension, or regular fighting. Sure, you’re going to have some fights, some annoying stuff, some stretches of time where one of you is applying to grad school and is acting like a maniac, but these should be significantly in the minority. So many people, if they really asked themselves this question: “does my relationship GENERALLY bring me comfort and solace or does it stress me out?” would I think find it is the latter, and I don’t think this is a good basis for a relationship.

– a truly good relationship brings out the best in you, such that when you remember the way you were in other relationships–or even alone! who knows–you feel huge relief that you don’t have to be that person anymore. Do you regularly find yourself being like “What am I doing, who is this person I am acting like?” In past relationships I would have honestly described myself as a “hectoring shrew,” and even at the time it felt wrong to me, like not who I truly am.

– a good relationship has 100% trust at every level. There is no backing down from this cold hard fact. Trust means you never have any pangs or worries about what is really going on, in many different regards: cheating, being mean in fights, trusting that he will tell you if you have something stuck in your teeth, trusting that when you have your period and feel like a dog shit on your face he will still love you, trusting that he won’t abruptly break up with you and move out of your house, trusting that he will listen to you when you tell him something important, that he will respect you and really hear you when you tell him something he does that bothers you or whatever, trust that if he says he will change a behavior he will actually work to change it, and trust regarding money and material stuff–trusting that he isn’t somehow getting more of your money than you’re getting of his, etc., trusting that he doesn’t make you do all the housework, like maybe he hates cleaning the bathroom but he makes up for it by always cleaning the stovetop or something. In a really good relationship you don’t have to worry about Keeping Things Equal, in any regard, because they just ARE EQUAL. (and all of this goes vice versa, too, he has to trust all these things about you)

– a truly good relationship makes you sincerely, unproblematically happy much, much more often than it bums you out

These are just my opinions, I suppose they could be disagreed with by someone who loves fighting and not trusting their partner, but hey, this is my advice column and I call the shots.

And what all these really boil down to is: communication. It’s a cliché because it’s true. And “communication” doesn’t just mean you barf out whatever’s on your mind without regard to hurtfulness. And it doesn’t mean you constantly process about your emotions and cry all the time. It doesn’t mean anything, except that you feel heard, and that you feel 100% of the time that you have the space to say what’s on your mind without fear of judgment/meanness/defensiveness from him. And that you also appreciate this responsibility in return, and you also 100% give him the same space and the same respect. Communication. Meaning you see the other person’s humanity AT ALL TIMES. You never see them as an adversary, even when you are ragingly angry! This is a hard thing to accomplish or even to explain, but it is real. Even in the heat of rage, you aren’t thinking of it as a battle with points and a score, and you know he’s also not thinking this way. And you aren’t afraid that he’s going to actually wound you, and you aren’t trying to wound him. You are thinking about how this is a human person with thoughts and feelings, and you care about those thoughts and feelings, and you are trying to hear him even though you’re mad, because you know he’s also trying to hear you. Arguments have to be “productive,” which means you feel heard and then actual change gets made afterward, in some way, by one or both of you. You can’t just keep fighting about the same thing over and over again and it never changes, whatever it is. That demonstrates that you actually aren’t communicating–you’re just fighting.

These are the nuts and bolts. But the stickier side of your question is this terror about What Is Love and how to recognize it. What if what you think is love isn’t really love? Many have asked this question, few have satisfactorily answered it! And I will surely not be among them, for really I do not know the answer! It’s very much like the tired old thing everybody always trots out about the Supreme Court Justice who said, of pornography, that he couldn’t define it but he “knows it when he sees it.” This is what Love is. I think it is hard to define because it’s going to LOOK different for everybody. HOWEVER, I think my above list actually should cover any relationship, at its foundations. Whether you’re monogamous or polyamorous, whether you have separate bedrooms or are constantly together, whether you’ve had a million abortions and he is an insane right-wing fundamentalist christian, I think you should be able to respond affirmatively to the items on that list. It’s not about the trappings of the relationship, it’s about the substance. How many advice letters do you read where the person is like “My boyfriend is perfect for me! We are exactly the same in every way! The only problem is he cheats on me constantly.” Too often we mistake on-paper compatibility or crazy sexual sparks for actual Love, yet herein is not where Love resides.

Another mistake I think is often made is basically that we decide we love someone just because we say that we do. “But I LOVE him!” I once dated a boy who I claimed was my soulmate, and yet all we did was scream at each other about how he pathologically lied to me, cheated on me, and took all my money and then literally did things like make me pay him back because he’d “loaned” me a postage stamp. Which my friends still bring up to this day to affectionately mock and humiliate me. Yes, I was only 20 years old, but I ask you, where did I believe “love” resided, in that situation? Looking back, it really does seem like I just decided to love him, so I said I did, and then that meant I did, I was committed. Or like because he made me laugh super hard, that was the same as being in love with him. I never once stopped to ask myself any of the above questions. Because if I had, I would have realized that really I fucking hated that guy. I dreamed about murdering him like every night. That is another thing that should be on my list: “you should only very rarely dream about murdering your partner.” Loving someone is not the same thing as just saying you love someone.

My old man likes to say that love is a project you both work on together, and it’s a project that’s never finished. Real good love isn’t something that’s just there. It’s a thing you build, a thing you make together, and continue tinkering with and appreciating and discussing and being aware of, together.

I don’t know if you do this, but a lot of people, especially in the younger years, mistake “passion” for love. Passion meaning, fighting, screaming, tearing of the hair, sobbing. When I was dating that awful boy I remember totally looking down my nose at people who didn’t fight with their boyfriends. Like how do you know you’re “really living,” if you’re not constantly riding the rawest possible edge of manic depression? As though this makes you an artist or something. It’s such a violent, brutal, self-hating way to live, not to mention pointless. What does it serve? It doesn’t serve you. It doesn’t serve the relationship. It doesn’t serve humanity. It’s self-indulgent and weirdly cowardly. The best thing about growing up, for me, was learning to love and appreciate the gentle ease of contentment. Life is hard enough; the world is sad enough, without your relationship also being a place of heavy strife.

This is the negative stuff. On the flipside, I think lots of times we miss seeing that Love might be there, because other stuff seems wrong, or the timing is off. Maybe he’s a republican, or a smoker, or he eats meat, or he’s “boring,” or he’s weird looking, or he’s a woman and we thought we were straight this whole time, etc. Because again, Love doesn’t reside in the surface level stuff, although that stuff is definitely a factor in it, and in building a relationship or not. But really it’s about a deeper understanding between two (or more) people. An understanding that goes beyond just noting his qualities or feeling like you should be together just because you already are.

It’s like “Avatar,” a stupid movie, but when they say “I see you,” I kind of love that. Love means you really see somebody, and they see you, and you know they see you and in this mutual honest view of one another all the other bullshit floats away and you are free. AND, he sometimes does the dishes.

What I’m saying is that there are so many things, both tangible and metaphysical, that go into Real Good Love that it is actually terrifying and hard to believe anyone ever accomplishes it.

I do not believe in soulmates. I believe in varying levels of compatibility, and that there are at any given time probably millions of people with whom we could all have fulfilling, satisfying, love-based relationships. Put the idea of soulmates out of your mind, if ever ’twas there at all. I think after years with someone you’re compatible with, he maybe becomes something of a soulmate, but I absolutely do not believe in the ideology of “The One.” I think that ideology is bullshit, and ends up locking a lot of people into relationships that don’t make sense for them.

I do not believe that Love means you are blissfully frenching 24 hours a day, or that you never argue, or that you don’t sometimes secretly wish he would just stop talking for a second because you’re trying to stare out the window blankly, or that in the night when he steals the covers you don’t sometimes “accidentally” elbow him with cruel intentions. One time I was so tired of hearing about my old man’s dissertation that I literally broke into tears and cried HARD for 15 minutes while he apologized. Me, a grown-ass woman! And okay, neither of us is proud of that moment, but that is real. Love doesn’t mean you are happy in the field with the unicorns running by all the time. Love doesn’t mean you stop being a planner and become as laid back as him–it means you both learn to live open-heartedly with those tendencies in one another, while also being willing to be honestly aware of those tendencies in yourself, and how those tendencies might affect each other.

Then again, in real love, there is always some amount of frenching or equivalent. If you’re not frenching anymore something is highly likely to be wrong.

When it’s Real Love, when it’s true and deep and based on 100% trust and respect: You love him more because you get through the hard stuff together and still love each other when you come out the other side. You love him more because he challenges you to work harder and to be better, always trying to be better than your baser self, and you love him because he’s always also working for you, trying to be better for you, too. You do that work because you value one another; you see each other as allies. You face the world together, in all its sorrow, and you make a place of kindness and honesty and safety and laughter, there amongst all the suffering and confusion in the world and in life. You love him when it’s fun and when it’s boring; when he’s driving you crazy and when he’s tenderly making love to you or whatever; when he’s there and when he’s gone. It may not be crazy sexual sparks all the time (although they should be there some of the time!) but it should be other stuff in replacement, better stuff, even. Love sometimes fades away and the relationship ends, but even when it doesn’t, Love still changes over time. We shouldn’t mistake the nice changes for bad fading–but we also shouldn’t mistake the bad fading for nice changes. If Love goes away it is better to acknowledge it and move on, than to cling. Sometimes the fading of sexual vibes for example speaks to larger ennui, bigger issues. I think this is a distinction you identify based on whether or not you are even asking the question to begin with.

in my experience (which is just me, and also who knows, maybe I will end up divorced and smoking Virginia Slims and being like “stay away from boys, honey”), but in my experience thus far, you know it’s “right” at the very point when you stop asking yourself that question. You know it’s right because you don’t even wonder anymore–it would not even occur to you to wonder. If you’re wondering, I have to say there’s a good chance it’s probably not right. For whatever reason. I mean, obviously if you’ve only been dating somebody for a week and you’re wondering “hmm, I wonder if this is going to work out,” that is totally reasonable. But wondering at nearly 4 years, after initially thinking it was a Life Partners situation and then suddenly having that life partner yank the rug out from under you but then continue hanging out with you ambiguously? Seems sad/sketchy to me, just on paper. It could turn out great–again, I emphasize that I don’t know you two, and maybe if I saw you in person I’d be like “they are obviously happy together”–but I would say the odds aren’t that good. I mean, lets just look at some numbers: of all the couples I have known in my life who have broken up and moved into separate houses and then briefly continued sleeping together, which is probably, I don’t know, hundreds of couples (i.e. almost everyone I have ever known, including me, has done this at least once), only TWO of them actually successfully got back together in a solid relationship-way in the future. Could totally happen! I’m just saying the data is not optimistic. Will take deep thought and commitment from both of you to get through it intact as a couple.

And I guess what you’re asking is, is that hard work even worth it, like maybe cosmically speaking he’s just some random boy and why should you bother pouring years of your life into working on a relationship that isn’t even that ideal in the first place? Again, I feel like hard work is worth it only up to the point where you start asking yourself if it’s worth it. Once you’re like “is this even worth it,” I kind of feel like the answer is “No,” most of the time. Relationships are always hard work but ideally I think when you are really happy together/go well together, it never occurs to you to wonder if it’s worth it, because duh. You know? So again, the fact that you are asking these questions might mean you already know the answers.

HOWEVER, and moving into specifics, I would be willing to consider your respective ages as pretty major factors in this, possibly. I am not a super woo-woo person, and I also don’t want to insult you by saying “oh you’re so young, lol,” but that whole Year of Saturn Returns thing (google it!) has proven to be remarkably universal across my group of friends. The age of roughly 27-28 tends to be a time of tumultuous change and questioning, of crisis, of stress, of painfully shedding the last vestiges of childhood and humbly taking up the mantle of adulthood with grave finality. This is the age when many people move across the country abruptly, or break up with their partner, or fall tumultuously in love, or suddenly decide to quit whatever they’re doing and go live in Tibet at a monastery. It is a time of milestones and the ends and beginnings of cycles overlapping in unusually violent ways. It is when you actually face questions like “who am I” and “what am I even doing” and “what career should I try to have, oh my god,” and etc. It is a very hard time to be in a relationship–it is a hard thing to weather, together. I can tell you this from personal experience. Although, I can also tell you from this same personal experience that it CAN, ultimately, be weathered, if all the above factors in making a good relationship are present.

I would further point out two other diametrically opposed things, which I thought of when I read your statement “at any point either of us could say ‘this doesn’t work, please leave me alone forever'” and how that is scary. My two thoughts were:
1. That’s just life, sister! Anyone could leave you anytime. He might get hit by a dump truck and die tomorrow. NOTHING IN THIS LIFE IS CERTAIN, ACCEPT IT
2. But also at the same time, I do think in a good relationship you are not actually worried he is going to leave you. I think in 9 years I have only worried that my old man was going to leave me once, and it only lasted about 6 hours until the next time we talked on the phone. I worry that he’s going to die, constantly, but I never worry that he’s going to leave me. The reason I never worry about this is because even during our hardest times he never abruptly broke up with me and moved out of our home. Meaning, your fear is totally justified and reasonable. But also meaning: it’s not fun to be with someone you’re always afraid might be about to leave you. And this is worth considering deeply.

I realize this “advice” has been a series of “maybe this…or maybe the opposite!” statements, but that is life with an advice columnist you don’t know personally! If I knew you personally I might have stronger words, like “DTMFA” or whatever the opposite of DTMFA is. My tendency is to believe that things like “suddenly breaking up and moving apart” and “questioning if I even love this person or not” and “constantly being afraid he’s going to leave me” are generally not good signs, for a relationship, but your particularly astrologically-fraught ages may be more to blame. It could be that you weather the Saturn Storms and when things calm down you are like “oh yeah, obviously this is my partner and we are happy.” Or it could be that this Saturn stuff is just masking what are actually irreconcilable issues. I can not know this. I urge you to make some brutally honest lists, about what you want vs. what you have, your ideals vs. your reality, your dreams for your future vs. what you see your future actually being with this person, who you are now vs. who you believe you really are/want to be. See how it matches up. I don’t know enough about you to give you super explicit advice, the way I would if your letter was like “my boyfriend raped me should I leave him” or something, like, that’s fairly clear-cut and I would definitely have specific advice for you then.

But here is what I do know:

What I Know For Sure:
– breaking up is not as scary as it seems and can be really awesome, although this is also always easier said than done
– conversely, relationships don’t have to be as scary as people often make them
– there is no such thing as “the one”
– relationships don’t “fail.” You don’t “fail” if you stop wanting to be in one. Relationships are fluid, they are born and they die just like all things on this good earth. Sometimes they end because they no longer make you feel good; or because one of you becomes a drug addict; or because you grow into really different life goals; or because you fall in love with other people. And sometimes they end because one of you dies. But they all end, and it’s not about succeeding/failing. Surely we have all had wonderful relationships we look back on with so much fondness, having learned so much from them and having nothing but kind feelings for that past person. Were these all “failures?” Is “being with someone until I die” the only viable goal, for relationships??
– 27 is a really difficult age
– life is TOO FUCKING SHORT to spend huge chunks of it mired in uncertainty and self-torment
– 90% of the time, we actually do know what we really ought to do, if we were only able to look honestly at our thoughts and feelings
– going on a solo yoga retreat to a hippie hot springs with nothing but a journal and a deck of tarot cards never hurt anybody

So here’s my advice: meditate and find a place of peacefulness where you can really let your thoughts and feelings out, and look at them calmly. This sounds simple, but we all know it is actually hard. The reason it is hard is because we’re afraid of what we might find. And we’re afraid of what we might find because we’re afraid of change–whether change means breaking up with someone or really open-heartedly changing beliefs/behaviors/lifestyles, or moving to a new city, or dropping out of grad school, change is ALWAYS SCARY. So we try to close our eyes and just hang on in whatever zone we’re currently in, hoping stuff will just get better on its own. And sometimes it does! But usually it doesn’t.

So yeah. “Pray on that.” And maybe you will find that this person is a good partner and you sincerely love him and want to be your best self for him and with him, and that this distance and confusion between you is just phantoms of your unfortunate astrological ages. Or maybe you will find that actually he stresses you out more than he calms you, that you don’t actually like the person he brings out in you, and that this confusion and distance between you is actually really about the fact that you aren’t right for each other and no amount of fighting/talking/living in separate houses is going to fix that.

Either of these options is ABSOLUTELY OKAY, and should be acted upon accordingly!

Good luck sister!