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Is three a crowd? | page 1, 2, 3
My wife and I are in our late 20s, quite successful, happily married. However, we also
choose to take part in discreet, safe erotic fun with other married couples periodically. It's
hardly a lifestyle for us, more like a hobby to add spice to our marriage. Do you think our
behavior is even remotely normal? Is there any way I can talk to my friends and associates
about it without them immediately assuming we are wild and crazy, hell-bound hedonists? Open-minded in Georgia Dear Open-minded, The urge to have erotic fun with strangers is certainly a normal urge and
probably universal. And the practice is common enough, God knows. As for your friends
and associates, you know them better than I. Among my friends and associates, it would be
considered weird in the extreme to discuss one's sexual exploits, whether monogamous or
orgiastic or bestial or involving canned peas or hearts of artichoke or whatever. Why would
you discuss it? To boast? To seek advice? To get a thrill out of shocking them? Dear Mr. Blue, I've stepped beyond a crossroads in my life: I got married and gave
up my job to write full time. These decisions feel right, but every
day I find myself sitting on the couch watching TV in an anxious
stupor. My sweet husband is helpless around the house, and as I was the footloose single gal
for 10 years, being home alone cooking and cleaning for a guy who can't pick up after
himself reminds me of my miserable mom. As for my writing career, I've had one success
and seem to be on the verge of another, but I have little money in the bank and my
husband's salary is pretty meager. I feel like I've taken some great
leap and am scared. Please advise! Goofy with Anxiety Dear Goofy, First of all, take the damn TV and stick it in the corner of the garage and put
duct tape over it. Writers write for TV, they don't watch it themselves. Secondly, look
around you and decide how clean you want the house to be and figure out how many hours a
week it takes to keep it that way. I assume you're living in an apartment, not a 14-room mansion, and it shouldn't take you more than four hours a week to keep things decent.
Most writers spend that much time staring at a blank screen and clearing their throats. So
whenever you're in a stupor, just get up and run a vacuum cleaner around and mop a
bathroom floor. And then take 20 minutes to toss supper together. I'm sorry your mom
was miserable but you're not her. You've got a sweet husband and you're getting some
success writing. Move ahead, day by day, and do what you know you have to do. Don't put
too much effort into defeating yourself. Dear Mr. Blue, My husband and I have been married for three years and recently had a baby, a beautiful
little girl. Before the baby, I was 25 pounds lighter and had no stretch marks and
wasn't too tired to keep up my looks. I want to make myself attractive for my husband, and
when I don't I feel like a failure. I see him looking at other women, though he denies that he
does, and he has begun to read Playboy (he thinks I don't know). He tells me that I am still
attractive to him, but he looks at me differently. I am so saddened by this. I cannot diet until
I wean our daughter, so I don't know what to do. What is your advice? Mom Mr. Blue Garrison Keillor's column appears every Tuesday in Salon Books.
Feeling blue about your prose? In the doldrums over your last date? Ask Mr. Blue. Dear Mom, Men are always looking at other women. Don't worry about it. As for Playboy, it's harmless, an aid to masturbation, and you shouldn't deny that to him. Be attractive in the best way you can, and that is to be his partner, his soul mate, the mother of his child. A father is in an odd position, seeing you with your daughter at your breast --- where does he fit in exactly? Make sure he gets plenty of time with the baby, that he developes some skill in handling her and caring for her, that he feels essential, which he is. Tell him how you feel and let him reassure you that he loves you. I hope he does a good job. Every mother feels unattractive and every father feels useless. So help each other. Dear Mr. Blue, I am a 21-year-old college student and I have a crush on my dental hygienist, who is a couple of years older than I. Are there any rules against asking out one's dental hygienist? Or can I just ask her out nonchalantly as if we had not met in the dentist's chair? Searching for the Tooth Fairy Dear Searching, You don't get much time in her chair to start a conversation and establish a connection, and most of that time she has her fingers in your mouth. I guess you'll have to write her a note and leave it propped on the instrument tray. A shot in the dark, but if you write a really good letter -- better yet, a sonnet -- and if she's footloose and you don't have green teeth and she's attracted to you, you might be able to persuade her. But be sure to floss regularly. And make it a good sonnet. Dear Mr. Blue, My boyfriend and I (he's 28, I'm 30) have been living together for over a year. He's kind, generous, intelligent and funny, and there's just one problem: I have a much higher sex drive than he does. I'm in the mood for sex twice a week; he doesn't seem to be in the mood more than a few times a month and even then, I have to initiate the rolling. I've asked him about this very gently and he says he's stressed about his job or about debts, and I suppose that's true, but everyone in the world has things they're worried about. I know that my boyfriend loves and is attracted to me -- he tells me so and lets me know in many non-sexual ways. And, as I said, I have virtually no complaints about our relationship other than this. Do I really have anything to complain about here? Should I just count myself lucky and try to get past this issue myself? Or might his lack of desire for me bode ill for our future together? Anxious Dear Anxious, Young men are more jittery about sex than they ever let on, and if your
boyfriend senses your dissatisfaction with his performance, this can paralyze him. You can
excite a man by praising his erotic qualities (e.g., "Whenever I look at your naked earlobe,
Eugene, I feel my uterus flutter"). I can't advise you on the long-term prospects here. I do
recommend that you seek the simplest explanation first, and that would be lack of
confidence, which you can help. If that's not the reason, then you can consider other fancier
explanations (your hair smells bad, he's gay, he's on steroids, the FBI is after him), and deal
with it accordingly. But no, don't simply accept this. You're young; don't settle for what you
don't want. Feeling blue about your prose? In the doldrums over your last date? Ask Mr. Blue.
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