These are business decisions, and I stay out of all that. I just write the column. It’s best that way. I leave it to the hard-working business people here at Salon to keep the lights on.

Let me just restate the obvious: I love doing the column, and I love hearing about you and your lives. It’s without a doubt the most remarkable experience of my writing career. I continue to be humbled and amazed by the depth, variety and sincerity of the real-life tales you tell. The only way this can go on is if Salon does well as a business. Ergo, whatever it takes. I hope you can support that.

P.S. This is No. 50 and the column’s one-year anniversary; it premiered Oct. 17, 2001.

Dear Cary,

My husband and I have been married for nearly eight years. We have a preschool-age son and another baby due in a few weeks. We have a wonderful marriage, and he’s an excellent (quite nearly perfect) partner in all areas but one — the seduction.

When my husband is feeling amorous, he usually communicates this with the oh-so-romantic line, “Wanna do it tonight?” He will make this proposal while looking at his e-mail or sweeping the floor or some activity equally unrelated and unsexy. At times he shows even less finesse, pointing to his crotch, tilting his head and whining about how horny he is. This makes me roll my eyes and want to run in the other direction. My usual response is, “Gee, no thanks.” If I am trying to be a good sport (or if he has been a nice guy lately), I will follow up with, “How about another blow job, honey?” This takes only five to 10 minutes of effort on my part and will get him to shut up for a few days, but it is always followed by the same lousy approach later.

He was so wonderfully flirtatious earlier in our relationship. He could really make me feel like the sexiest, most beautiful woman alive. Why is he so lazy now? I have tried to tell him that his standard line isn’t working for me, but I don’t think the message is coming across. And I don’t think it’s just because I’m pregnant now, because this has been an issue for some time (as I recall, even before our first child was born). When we actually do have sex, it is great for both of us. But it is ridiculously infrequent, and I have to really focus to get into it, because my husband has not done anything to help me get in the mood.

I have asked a couple of my most trusted girlfriends about this, and I was surprised to hear that they had experienced this in either their current or past relationships. Is this just a guy thing? Are all men like this?

You’ve Gotta Be Kidding

Dear Gotta Be Kidding,

His approach does sound crude, but the pattern you describe is so pervasive that it’s probably not fair to single him out. Reluctant as some of us are to admit it, domesticity, for all its benefits, can be passion poison. We accept it gladly because we want safety and routine, we want comfort and security, we want to raise kids and keep order in society and care for someone we love. But it’s poison nonetheless.

The routine of life in a busy house gives birth to a kind of distracted emotional shorthand, a system of spiritual triage. Sonnets are reduced to Post-its on the refrigerator. Whatever is most urgent is what gets our attention, and romance gets neglected in favor of money, education, housing and other immediate concerns.

Bit by bit we get careless. We make short-term decisions that have long-term consequences. We have little unsatisfying moments whose sting lingers and works to further erode the passion that once was the life-giving center of the relationship. And all the time this is happening, the relationship is moving inexorably forward, developing a language, a collection of habits and a context all its own.

Sometimes you have to break the routine. It helps to get away somewhere, to be reminded of why you’re together. And it helps to find a way to reintegrate the act of making love into the larger realm. I’m not sure quite how to explain how to do that, but if you break the routine that’s killing the romance, the romance seems to reemerge, like a plant that’s been deprived of what it needed.

You can go to counseling too, if you can’t break the routine on your own, or if you’re lost and can’t focus, or if you’re lost and he can’t focus. You can use more candles at dinner and turn off the TV. You can send the kids to camp. You can camp yourself, in the back yard. But there’s no doubt that being a couple in America and working for a living can drain your once consuming passion until the dark, wild and ageless drama of seduction is reduced to a snapping of the fingers and a pointing at the crotch. There is no simple solution. It’s a fact. It’s the way we live. It’s who and what we are.

We ought to be better. But we’re not. We’re Americans, we rule the world, and we go to sleep hungry, restless and alone.

Dear Cary,

I’ve been living with my boyfriend for the last two and a half years. We live in a city where housing prices often force premature cohabitation, and as I was the one with the apartment, it was my concession, early on, to agree to live together, and I suspect that this planted a kernel of resentment that has seeped its poison steadily throughout our time together. Both of us have issues with depression and substance abuse as a way to mitigate that. He binge-drinks and socializes widely in the neighborhood, while I tend to stay closer to home and smoke weed by myself or with a few close friends. I go out with him sometimes too, and our societies of friends are very intermingled. We are a very public couple.

I want to change patterns of consumption that I think are leading to an unstable home economy. I’m 31 with a salaried job, some debt I think I could get a handle on if I stopped getting stoned, and he’s 33, a freelance artist, with steady design gigs but sporadic checks that don’t quite cover his half of expenses — or they would if they didn’t cover quite so many rounds at our locals. He has tried A.A., but isn’t willing to go back, and of course I can’t force him to.

Our level of intimacy and tenderness is rare for a gay couple nearly three years into a relationship. We’ve gone through so much together and have both been transformed by the relationship. But just recently we had a fight when he returned in the wee hours, drunk and ranting in the other room about a fight we’d left dangling before he went out without me because at the last minute I decided I would hang back rather than go out in public while an argument was unresolved. He continued ranting until dawn, in the other room. I lay in bed, my stomach in knots — again — until he petered out on the living room sofa.

When I said that the relationship wasn’t working, he immediately took an aggressive stance and began dictating the negotiations of the split. I was huddled in a corner sobbing. Then he was “comforting” me and saying that he was a terrible partner and that I’d be better off without him. We settled into affectionate holding of each other in bed, each crying, in turn. We ordered Chinese, cried some more, watched TV. I began to cave.

Before our latest two and a half years, we had a six-month stint together that I also blurted out a call to end, but when a few months later we saw each other at a party, I caved and within a matter of days he was living with me.

Are we going to be Liz Taylor and Richard Burton, forever splitting and coming together? What can you do with a dysfunctional system that seems so familiar that it is both the torture and the comfort? Should we bite the bullet and separate?

Hate Closure

Dear Hate Closure,

You probably cannot change without outside help; it would be like trying to perform an appendectomy on yourself. Whatever you call it — recovery, healing, therapy, enlightenment, growing up, whatever — you’re going to have to undertake it with some outside help.

You can get through this. It will be painful, but you’ve already begun to see your situation. Describing it clearly is a great beginning. The fact that you know you’re dealing with depression, that you know your substance abuse is related to that and to your economic problems, and that you have written to someone for help are all powerful evidence that you’re on the road to change. I think the next thing you need to do is go somewhere where you and your partner can sit down every week with someone who can help guide you through this. I know what you’re talking about, and I just don’t think you can make much progress alone.

And if your partner isn’t willing to commit to such a project, I think it would be best if you moved apart. That doesn’t mean you have to break up. If you still want to be together, you can be. But the kind of work you need to do can’t be done if your partner is living with you but unwilling to participate. When economic conditions play a role in cohabitation, there’s a temptation to be there just for convenience. That won’t work. He has to be committed to you for more than just the apartment. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Good luck. Let me know how it’s going.

Dear Cary,

I’m 23 and in a satisfying, amazing relationship with a 40-year-old man. I graduated from college a year and a half ago, and during college I never had a serious boyfriend.

After graduation I moved to NYC and got a great full-time copywriting job. I have an immense amount of responsibility, no direct boss, and write and edit every letter of copy this retail company requires. And for many months no one here knew how old I was. I bring up work because it is a part of my life that makes me feel older than I am.

For a year after I arrived in New York, I ran around relishing being an attractive, young single woman in the city. But then I met Ben. I wrote him off at first because I thought I wasn’t attracted to him and I’d been in a fickle mode for so long. He suggested we hang out anyway and we did, and he was a gentleman — we just had fun. But as time passed and I got to know him better, I realized I was falling for him.

He’s in no way a typical 40-year-old. He’s kind of a bohemian artist, has tons of energy, is insanely creative and very smart. In other words, I take him seriously. He’s honest with me and seriously doesn’t have any sort of younger-woman fetish. It doesn’t at all feel like he’s some older sugar daddy and I’m the young sex kitten. It feels balanced.

The problem that I’ve been ignoring is that I want very much to be with Ben, but not with someone who is 40. It’s awkward merging our lives. I told half of my friends that he’s 35. Lately, and suddenly, when I look at Ben I see his receding hairline and the flecks of gray around his temples. I’m most attracted to him when he’s dressed “young” in dark, worn canvas pants and a hipster T-shirt, as opposed to a button-down shirt and jacket.

I think these feelings are coming up because he wants me to go home with him this weekend to meet his family in a city six hours away. I mumbled that the cable installer was coming on Saturday and I might have to be home for it (despite the fact that I have two roommates). Ben and I are emotionally, intellectually and physically compatible in a way I never really believed was possible, and it’s so good for me to feel this. He claims it was love at first sight.

But how many levels does a relationship need to work on? What does being 40 mean?! I’m afraid if I talk to him about this (of course we’ve talked about it, but we’re in love, have been gloriously happy, and not thinking seriously about ramifications), it will become an ominous, brooding stain, because there’s no way to change things.

I trust you, Cary, and if you could give me a few words on your gut feelings I’d be extremely appreciative.

Rose-Colored Rift

Dear Rose-Colored,

My gut feeling is that it doesn’t sound good. If his receding hairline and flecks of gray are bothering you already, I think the age difference may be too great. You’re young. You’re 23. You’re just coming into your own as a woman. It’s biology. Here’s a guess: You may have fallen in love with him because he’s the first emotionally mature man you’ve been with. But over the next few years, guys closer to your own age are also going to reach some level of emotional maturity, so you can combine hot physical attraction with those other qualities that come as a boy becomes a man.

If you stay with this 40-year-old guy, these little signals of his age may become more significant and burrow their way into your psyche because of the inevitable aging and loss of animal power that they represent. You may come to feel that you are trapped and losing out on youth. You’re not even close to the point where such things no longer matter — nor should you be! You’re young! Take advantage of it! That’s just my gut feeling, but that’s what you asked for.

Dear Cary,

I am a 26-year-old single heterosexual male having an affair with a 36-year-old married female co-worker with two children, ages 8 and 11. This began four and a half months ago when I escalated our weeks-long flirting to a kissing/groping session in my office at 6:30 a.m. (we both arrive at the office early by choice). After 24 hours of anticipation, our first sexual encounter occurred in my office the next morning on my desk. All subsequent sex took place in my apartment over our lunch hour until three weeks ago.

Her motives for getting into this: 1) retribution against her husband, 39, who has cheated on her at least twice that we know of, most recently a year ago with a 22-year-old; 2) she has been cut off at home, since her husband now finds her completely undesirable; 3) the thrill of breaking a taboo/sneaking around — her family is Hispanic, conservative, and very Catholic, so in her world, when the husband cheats, it’s a nuisance, but when the wife cheats, it’s a serious transgression; 4) attention from the only young, decent-looking guy in our 50-person office.

My motives are the obvious: no-strings sex with a woman I’m interested in.

Problem No. 1: She has grown increasingly insistent over the past three weeks that we fuck in the office. I have reluctantly indulged her in this, but I am getting very nervous. We have escaped detection so far through luck and caution — neither of us has told anyone (I think), and we staged a public disagreement at work three weeks into our affair to further deflect suspicions. We are now very cold to each other at work, which, incidentally only makes the sex hotter for both of us. When confronted, she has admitted that the possibility of discovery gives her a taboo-shattering thrill.

Discovery of our tryst in the office would probably mean termination for both of us, and an expensive divorce and Stalingrad-like custody battle for her. On the occupational side, she views her job as nice but ultimately fungible because she is good with computers. My job is of the long-hours/high-pay variety (I’m in a senior, but not supervisory, position to her), and I am lucky to have it, and I doubt I could find another as good. On the home front, the possibility of a divorce and custody fight scares her so shitless that she can barely bring herself to think about it.

My point? I’m ready to cash in my chips here. We’ve had a nice run, and no one has gotten hurt (so far). However, when I raised the possibility of ejecting, she became agitated and not-so-subtly threatened to expose me at work. When I pointed out that this might have negative repercussions for her too, she claimed to have convinced herself that everyone at work could find out but she could still keep it from her husband and family, which strikes me as just plain coco-loco. (I think the prospect of being rejected and humiliated by her husband and me is very painful for her.)

Problem No. 2: (Get ready to suppress a groan) I’m a classic male commitment-phobe. I tend to pursue married and/or unavailable women because I have found that women are less eager to demand a husband and kids when they have them already. However, I’m worried that I’m starting to fall for her (despite her obvious mental instability), which kills me, of course, because I know that if I went public on her, she would deny everything. We’ve never discussed it, of course, because I can’t bring myself to force her to lie to me or, even worse, tell me the truth.

Any practical advice on how to fuck in the office and escape detection? And any larger advice on a way to extricate myself from this mess that does not end with termination/divorce for her and termination/job at the supermarket for me?

Adulterer

Dear Adulterer,

I think you have to break it off with her immediately and take your chances. I don’t think she’ll expose you. Her threat is probably part of her erotic role-playing. If you remove the erotic element, the threat will probably evaporate. But if she does expose you, that’s the price you have to pay, because this is about more than you and her. It’s about her kids.

I have to say, in fact, that I think you’re being unfair — not to the woman you’re fucking on your desk, but to her children, 8 and 11, whom you’re using as a sort of a human shield. To maintain your own freedom, you’ve stacked the deck, buying immunity from commitment with the threat of a family tragedy. You’re using her kids as insurance for your own personal amusement. I don’t think it’s admirable of you.

Do you understand how damaging it could be to a child to learn that the poverty she is enduring with her now single parent came about because her mother was fucking some man on his desk in his office and was discovered by the cleaning lady, or the security guard, or by her boss? Children do come to learn these things. The possible disruption and damage to her kids make your behavior verge on the criminally irresponsible.

So here is what I suggest: Meet with her privately away from the office and break it off with her. Stop arriving at work before others. Make sure the office is full of people when you arrive. Begin keeping your office door open all the time. Prop it open with bricks if necessary. If anyone asks, say it’s for ventilation. If she enters your office, don’t allow her to close the door.

And hope for the best.

I think my problem is the way people see me. If life were a sitcom, I’d be the willowy blonde’s best friend. I’m the chubby brunette who always cracks jokes and helps the ingénue get the guy but who never ends up with him herself. I’ve been in that situation with several friends I’ve had over the years — with the friend always getting the male attention, although I was the one to make him laugh. It’s always someone else the guy’s pining over, even while I’m pining over him. I’m still insecure from my middle school days, when the nasty boys would make fun of my awkward, painfully shy self; I have guy friends now, but that kind of thing is hard to shake.

Twenty-one sounds young — sure, you could say I have all the time in the world — but when everyone you know has been in at least one relationship, and many have kissed countless partners, it becomes pathetic. At some point, people start pitying you, and at another point they assume there must be something wrong with you, to have never even had a kiss.

I want a romance. I want desperately to know what it feels like to kiss someone. I want to be held and loved and trusted, and to hold and love and trust, to not just get that slightly sick, altogether lovely feeling at unexpectedly running into your crush, but to be able to act on those feelings. I’m not asking for a swarm of suitors; I’m just asking for one guy, a sweet, nerdy, funny guy — it doesn’t even matter what he looks like — one of those guys who’s cynical on the outside but mush inside, who understands why Jon Stewart is the funniest man on the planet (hell, Jon Stewart would be perfect), whose eyes light up to see me, who thinks I’m special and worth being with, who would pick me over the ingénue because he sees that I have something different and maybe even better. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask, does it? Where the hell is this guy?

Loveless

Dear Loveless,

What a touching letter that is. I know what you’re talking about, having had tall and handsome Italian friends into whose boudoirs eligible women would disappear for hours or days at a time, only to emerge to ask, How do I look? and, Do you think he likes me?

The crux of the matter is that you have to strike out on your own. Literally put some space between you and your girlfriends, and try to meet guys when they are alone as well, not when they are with groups of friends. One way to do that might be through personal ads. Another might be simply to talk to guys in classes or at other functions, but not while you and they are surrounded by friends. You have to get to know a guy one-on-one and keep him away from your girlfriends.

There is also the question of why you do this — why you attach yourself to pretty girlfriends, why you play the role of the funny sidekick. Are you a middle child? I ask because I am a middle child, and I tend to play the sidekick as well. I tend to think of group harmony and the welfare of others before I think of capturing something for myself. It’s just a guess, but did you ever notice how the top dog operates? The top dog is all about making decisions and moving, and the rest of us are all about accommodating and executing the plan. So you have to come up with a plan of your own. You have to break away from the pack and hook up with somebody else who has broken away from the pack.

Then close your eyes and don’t let go.

Dear Cary,

I like to think of myself as a moral guy. I’m a 23-year-old journalist who once wanted to right all the wrongs in the world and is just now becoming content with the thought of merely waking people up to their existence. But in my personal life, I like to do all I can to make life easier on the ones I love, including my girlfriend of 4-1/2 years.

Recently this has become hard. Why? Two reasons: First, I’m in love with my best friend, a wonderful, crazy, sexy traveler whom I’ve known since I was about 11. There was always something there; then one night we got drunk and kissed. That was a year ago, and it’s become a fairly regular occurrence since then, though I have never cheated on my girlfriend (in a strictly physical sense). My guilt over this caused us to break up early last year, but we ended up back together after about two months because she is beautiful, dependable, sweet, caring, worships the ground I walk on, and takes all my shit. Also, she’s the kind of girl who would make a wonderful wife. (My mother tells me she has birthing hips, all that jazz.)

I feel that I must give a relationship with my best friend a go, however, as she is quite possibly everything that I really need. She doesn’t take my shit, makes her points known, laughs with me, and doesn’t take everything quite so seriously. So, I would leave my girlfriend and honestly apologize and give this a go, except for reason two.

My girlfriend’s parents just broke up, and her dog died, then her grandmother, and now her (now single) dad kicked her out of the house. She is not in a position to handle this at the moment. But my best friend returns from her latest voyage in a couple of weeks, I have about two months off, and I want to go to Mexico with her (the friend) in December, but I’m racked with guilt over deserting someone as special as my girlfriend at a time like this. So, what do you think … some help here would be nice.

Feeling Like Archie

Dear Archie,

You say you’re a moral guy who likes to make life easier on the ones you love, yet you’re thinking of dumping your girlfriend at a vulnerable time in her life and running off to Mexico for two months with your “best friend.” That, as a journalist might say politely, seems to call for some clarification.

Here is something I have learned that may be of use to you: Life is not about what you get, but how you get it. Life’s quality is told in tales, not tallied in prizes. So what’s important here is not which girl you end up with, but how you conduct yourself through this conflict.

What you appear to be contemplating is an exploratory expedition to Mexico, a test drive, after which you can decide, based on the evidence, which purchase contract to sign. I would say that in this story you do not get to test-drive the woman. The test drive makes for a bad story because it elevates the object above the narrative; it makes you a consumer, not a man on a quest. And, as I said, narrative provides the structure that reveals the moral life; narrative is the double helix of your spiritual DNA.

But how can you know which woman to consume without testing her? Ah, love. You must love her before you pursue her. Love is independent of the Underwriters Laboratories; it defies the ratings in Consumer Reports. In a sense, love exists independently even of our desires; it chooses us rather than the other way around. And it is what distinguishes a heroic quest from an erotic experiment, makes of the man a quester rather than a wanderer.

I suspect you are not really sure whom you love. Think deep and hard and do not allow yourself to hide or equivocate. Discover whom you love and pursue her.

If your decision is to pursue your best friend, make a clean break with your girlfriend first. Make yourself available to help her in the ways a good friend would help, but end the romantic relationship. Then let six months pass.

All this time, of course, you run the risk of losing your best friend to some other guy. But a life lived well is full of such risks. When you do the right thing, you take a chance on not getting what you want. That’s what makes for a good story.

Dear Cary,

What’s a girl to do when the love of her life refuses to do the one intimate act that drives her wild? After about six months of dating my boyfriend, I asked him one day in bed why he never goes down on me. He became very quiet and would not say anything for a while, and then explained that he is really bothered by the way I smell. I have never been told this before and am having a very hard time with it. I took it very personally and got quite upset, and he naturally felt bad and then said he was sorry, but he thought he should be honest with me but because I got so upset, feels now that he can’t tell me how he feels about things because I will become so upset. He told me that he loves doing that, just not to me, because I smell bad. It bothers him while we do other things too, but he is able to deal with it because it is not in his face. He said it doesn’t stop him from loving me and being attracted to me and wanting to be with me sexually or otherwise. He doesn’t understand why this upsets me so much. But any woman reading this is sure to understand how this is very personal.

I scheduled an appointment with my gynecologist. I talked candidly with her and explained exactly why I was there. She concluded that there was not anything wrong with me and even said that she didn’t detect an odor hardly at all, less than most women.

I am a clean person and shower and wash normally and, until this situation, never felt the need to douche and know that it is not all that healthy to do frequently. My boyfriend claims that he feels I am his soul mate and wants to spend the rest of his life with me, and I am having a hard time getting past this and feeling sexually desirable to him or comfortable in bed, because all I am worrying about now is if I smell bad and if he is turned off by it. I also feel that if we really were soul mates or meant to be together, he wouldn’t feel this way about how I naturally smell. If it was just a matter of him not wanting to go down on me, I might be able to deal with that, but he says it always bothers him and he is trying to get past it. I will add that we have been dating for 13 months and been having sex for 12.

How can I deal with the sexual incompatibility we are experiencing and still stay together and have a satisfying relationship where I don’t have to feel self-conscious about the part of me he doesn’t like but claims he can “deal with”? Or should we find other people to be with, so we wouldn’t have this issue?

Feeling Stinky in Bed

Dear Stinky,

I think you should forget about this guy and find someone else. You can’t change the way you smell, and he can’t change the way he responds to it. At least I don’t think you can. I’ve never heard of it happening, have you? Except perhaps if he were to get a blow to the head or suffer some neurological disorder; but then he might mistake the smell of dog doo for the smell of coffee and toast — like the man who mistook his wife for a hat, you know? He might think you smelled like smoke and ring the fire alarm. Smell, in my experience, is so primal that you can’t fight it. If you find a man who loves the way you smell — I mean all over, not just for purposes of oral sex — I think you’ll be much happier.

By the way, have you ever wondered whether there’s an inner nose? And what about those elusive pheromones? While not directly relevant to your situation, learning something about the aquatic sex pheromone from a male tree frog might be useful. After all, knowledge is power. And power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.

I think too much, probably, about everything. Sometimes just wondering why I’m not panicking starts me panicking. My parents divorced when I was 9, and I frequently feel as though everything good in my life is destined to go bad. I’m sure I’ll have some doubts about her/our relationship whether we’re together for five more weeks or 50 years, but I find it frustrating that these panic attacks interfere with my enjoyment of life.

Sometimes random things will set off my mind — a relationship in a movie, a song, a television show, and it takes me a while to calm down. It wasn’t until about a month and a half ago that I first started worrying. Around the same time, I was switching jobs and hating living with my then-roommate.

I don’t want advice on the relationship, I feel quite confident about that. She’s been absolutely amazing about “my mind,” but I don’t feel that I’m being very fair to her, as she bears the brunt of these panicky moments. She’s wonderful about listening to me, talking to me, and helping me calm down, it’s just that I feel like I shouldn’t burden her with that.

Is there a good method for dealing with these worries, getting used to sharing your life with another person, living in the now, and balancing my occasional doubts with my frequent urges to ask her to marry me while we’re brushing our teeth?

Probably Need a Lobotomy

Dear Probably Need a Lobotomy,

I too am frequently filled with intense loathing and despair, and I sometimes suffer mild panic attacks when I feel trapped in a situation or feel that there are too many items on the shelves in the grocery store. It’s lessened in intensity over the years, but I don’t really have a solution for it, other than to recognize what it is and that it will pass, and to just keep going.

At times I have thought that I was going mad. At other times I have thought there was something wrong with the world, or with the grocery store, something that could be fixed if only people would listen to me. Early in life, before I had accepted that these episodes were just a part of my particular life, I spent much time trying to blunt the sensations by ingesting various substances, and by fleeing, or changing the landscape or the curtains. I believed for a time that I was unhappy because the world had not yet become politically and culturally enlightened. I thought if I worked toward the political enlightenment of others I might stop suffering. I built a social outlook out of my angst; I wore my suffering like some wretched penitent. I believed that my symptoms were a kind of special knowledge.

But now I think I was completely wrong about all that. My problem was simply that I could not handle the pain and ambivalence of being alive and conscious. As I was walking to the grocery store yesterday thinking about your letter, I realized that the only ultimate solution to my unhappiness would have been to be suspended in warm liquid or cotton, weightless, tube-fed, in miasmic darkness, with soothing oceanic music, all the time. In other words, my problem was only that I was no longer living in the womb.

As a young man, I was too arrogant and too spoiled to accept that I had to spend time suffering like every other fool. My suffering had to mean something. I couldn’t accept that it was just random mental bullshit. Now I suffer as a daily routine. Life goes on. I know my suffering is just a phenomenon like any other phenomenon. I might get bitten by a mosquito but I will not blame capitalism. I will put some lotion on it, or maybe ignore it until it goes away.

And, if I recall, that is the kind of attitude that adults seemed to have when I was a child. Remember? We would fall or get stung and cry and cry, but when they had a mishap they just picked themselves up and put on some lotion or a bandage.

So I would suggest that if you are anything like me, you are just a little bit crazy, and a little bit unhappy, and perhaps a little bit sensitive and creative and empathic, and you can live with it.

If it gets really bad, if you’re going to harm yourself or your girlfriend, do yourself a favor and go see a doctor or a therapist. They can help you hold things together during the really tough times. But if it’s just general craziness and worry, I would try to pay close attention to it, learn about it and wait until it passes. And while you’re waiting for it to pass, try to think of something witty and amusing to say.

Dear Cary,

I’m married with two kids, another due in six weeks. My entire marriage has been a series of ups and downs. Before my wife got pregnant with my second child I was having an affair. I ended up moving out of the house and living three miles away while she was pregnant and I dated a few women. But I missed my oldest child. Once the new baby was born I really wanted to move back home to be with both my children. After the youngest turned a year old I moved back home. My eldest child, then 5 years old, was ecstatic. The marriage was still very shaky and it was made worse when my wife got pregnant again. This pregnancy and the second came after the failure of birth control.

So here I am with two kids, another due in six weeks, and in a completely loveless marriage. My wife and I don’t touch each other, we don’t kiss, we avoid all contact with each other. She has asked for a divorce once the “holidays” are over but I don’t want a divorce; I want to live with my children. I can stay in this marriage just to be close to my children.

I know that staying together for the sake of kids is supposed to be worse than a divorce, but I don’t buy it. My kids have absolutely no clue that my wife and I don’t love each other. We still do things as a family, we vacation as a family, eat dinner as a family. I was miserable when I was living three miles away from my children. I know that I will be miserable if we divorce. Yes, I will be happy about being out of a loveless marriage, but the loss of seeing my children every day will tear me apart. My wife has said that we will co-parent the children but that she will insist that the children live with her. That is completely unacceptable to me. I can’t imagine a worse fate than losing my kids again. What do I do?

Loveless in New England

Dear Loveless,

I’ll probably get lots of angry mail about this, but I’m with you, I salute you, I think it’s great that you want to stay with your kids. I hate divorce, especially when there are kids involved. Look at all the letters we’ve gotten lately from young people, the children of divorce, who are bewildered and bereft. Why not stay there in the house and love your kids — if their mother will allow it? Maybe there are some tragic, painful betrayals that you haven’t detailed; maybe your wife has been deeply hurt and can’t stand to look at you. Maybe you left that part out. But if she can accept you in the house, I think that’s great.

But I am curious, if you can’t touch each other, how she got pregnant again. Or maybe that was before things got so cold. So maybe things will warm up again.

Here is some advice: If you can talk her out of divorce, and you are allowed to stay in the house, you really have to live by some rules. You’re making a sacrifice. You have to sacrifice your own pleasure for the security of your children. If you really think you can do that, I’m all for it. But if you’re going to be driving your wife crazy by going out with other women, and your presence becomes more destabilizing than your absence, then you really have no right being there with your kids, because rather than adding to their security, you’re detracting from it.

Good luck.

Dear Cary,

I am a 24-year-old male journalist, in a relationship with a woman a year younger I met in college about three years ago. After a very intense, yearlong friendship, the two of us became lovers in a casual, albeit monogamous fashion. At some point our relationship turned into something I wouldn’t hesitate to describe as love. The two of us moved in together with four other roommates for the next year and a half. Given the nature of our professions (she is a sporadically employed artist) we ended up spending quite a lot of time together, hours and hours of play and deep conversation. Of all the women I’ve dated, “D” is the one with whom I’ve had the most mutual understanding. I think she would be a fantastic mother, that she will eventually find success in her career, and that she is one of the finest human beings I’ve known.

So let’s cut to the chase: The sex is terrible. It’s not a question of certain aspects of it, particular things she does (or doesn’t do) that grate upon me. The situation is more drastic than that. I’ve just never really been attracted to her. I did my best — it may have been a mistake — to hide this from her, hoping I would eventually develop more of an attraction for the woman I love. I consider the problem to be mine. For maybe two years before meeting D, I was attracted, and almost exclusively dated, women of a certain ethnic type, other than that into which D and I were born. I feel ashamed that race should be a factor at all in my attraction. D is incredibly, almost frighteningly intuitive, and I think she sensed the problem almost from the beginning. She is also the type of person who places love before sex. I thought I was too, but now I am beginning to have doubts.

This flaw in our bond, minor as it seemed at first, led me to break up with D about six months ago. I got together with a woman and had great sex but very little to talk about. After a few months the memory of a deeper personal congress led me to break up with that second woman, and reestablish ties — not sexual — with D. Although D no longer seems to trust me as she once did, she seems to want, like I do, our old bond back. We hang out, have fun, but I sense she is fearful that I will run off with another woman again. I meanwhile want what everybody wants in a relationship: everything. I feel like I’m having to choose between two identities, the animal and the spiritual, and it’s breaking me completely.

Does it make sense to stick it out with one of the very, very few people you’ve loved, even if the nookie is dreadful?

Cleaved in Cleveland

Dear Cleaved,

The short answer is that if there’s no attraction there, you ought to get out of the relationship, and try to remain friends.

But over the long haul, you have to understand: You’re never going to find the perfect woman. Eventually, you’re going to settle. You’re only 24. You are likely to meet several women over the next 10 years with whom you are sexually and temperamentally compatible to various degrees. You can hold out for the perfect woman, but each time you break up with one who comes close but just isn’t it, you’re going to take an emotional hit. Each time you take a hit, you are going to be less keen to go through a breakup again, and more motivated to settle down.

At the same time, as you age, the number of possible future relationships will decrease. So with each rejection, the urgency of finding the right woman increases, as does the fear that you will never find the right woman. So at a certain point, you’re going to balance all the factors out and decide that this is the woman for you.

Then it gets really tricky, because you haven’t even consulted her yet. She might have other ideas. She might not have exhausted her search.

Anyway, to increase your chances, I would try to stick to women to whom you have some sexual attraction, even though it might not be the mind-blowing animal magnetism you would like it to be. There’s usually a diminishment of sexual fervor, so you want to start out strong.

Four months before our wedding, he was killed when our bus went over a cliff in Guatemala. He died in my arms about an hour after the crash and was conscious for some of that time. Our conversation is crystalline in my memory — he wanted me to promise him I would have a happy life and take care of his dog. Back at home, I lay on my mother’s couch, went to grief counseling, returned the early wedding gifts, hollered at the universe, fretted that somehow my karma had caused this, bonded with the dog, stopped viewing myself as the wife who almost was, and finally got on with things.

Eventually I stopped comparing every man I met to Rob (who had, of course, become deified in my mind — those who die young and in love at least get to spend eternity as beautiful memories). I also picked up a Ph.D., started a university job, volunteered in literacy initiatives overseas, earned a private pilot’s license, joined a hiking club, took up photography, and valued my girlfriends.

When I was 34, I met Arthur. He’s an avid mountain climber — the kind who takes four months a year to climb peaks only airplanes are meant to see. We enjoyed traveling together, he sent flowers to my mother on her birthday, and he got along with the (by now very old) dog. He taught me to climb, and I took him flying. Two years into our relationship, he proposed. Arthur was as eager as I was to travel and continue our hobbies and, like me, hoped we’d have a child who enjoyed these things, too.

Then, on our first anniversary, he said he’d reconsidered his decision to have a child. That reconsideration deepened into an insistence on not having children and, in the last six months, a decision that perhaps he shouldn’t have married in the first place. I should have seen it coming. He has a Ph.D. in physics, a field that profits from immense concentration and solitude; he was a bachelor until he was 42; he could ride in the car with me for six hours at a time without saying a word. He is kind to my family when they visit, but he refuses to waste his leisure time visiting them. He flies into a rage when I drop a pan or burn the soup. He prefers to eat his meals alone with a book. He backs out of every real estate deal we’ve entered, so we’re still renting.

I believe him when he says it isn’t me, but that he got married only to discover that he preferred Katharine Hepburn’s advice to “live down the road and visit.” I can’t blame him — how could he have known how he’d feel about being married until he was? I honestly believe he wasn’t being disingenuous when he claimed to share my hearth-and-crib visions, but perhaps it was more something he thought he should do rather than something he wanted to do. Now, Arthur has said he’s “willing” to remain married, but it’s a chilly and untenable existence. He went to marriage counseling with me four times before denouncing it as “pseudoscience” and refusing to go back, even when I said it would help me tremendously.

I am devastated. I am not functioning; it’s a good thing my job doesn’t involve punching a clock. Last month, I spent 10 days locked in the apartment with the blinds drawn. I think it was some sort of sick experiment to see if someone would come looking. I damn near slept with a man in my flying club, and I still might. I feel indescribably lonely and horrid. I hate that I feel worse than I did when my fiancé died, for chrissakes. I cry so often I tell people I have pinkeye, but at the same time I know that compared with all of the devastation in the world, I have no good reason to feel sorry for myself. I’ve sought counseling and listened to the variations on the “Sure, you got a bum rap, but you’re still young” theme.

But I am not young. I will be 40 soon, and the hearth-and-crib dream, simple as it seemed, is fast approaching impossible. Yet I don’t understand the depths of my despair. Is it just a midlife crisis? The only real difference is that this time around I can’t hope to meet a man and have a natural child. I had to re-envision and reinvent my whole life when Rob died, and I think I did so capably; why can’t I this time? I can adopt or be a foster parent. I can date. I can sleep with the guy in my flying club. I can travel overseas and help teach women to read. I can become an eccentric professor who takes Elderhostel tours and talks to her cats. I am fully aware that I have no right to feel that life is not worth living but, you know, that is how I feel.

Hitting a Wall at 40

Dear Hitting a Wall,

Perhaps, for a while, you would benefit from doing nothing but grieving and tending to what may be serious depression. I think you need to give up trying to make your life work like a good Swiss watch and face the mess. Ignore your husband. He’s going to be no help at all. Find a tough and intellectually rigorous psychiatrist who can help you through this. See if you can take a leave of absence. Accept that you need help and that sleeping with the guy in the flying club would just be a chilly charade.

Grieving and fighting depression is a lot of work, and with all your flying around and teaching people to read, you probably have never spent enough time on it to do it well. When I say grieve I don’t mean grieving for that poor guy who went over the cliff with you in the bus. I mean grieving for the glittering dream of a perfect life you were foolish enough or idealistic enough to believe could come true. When the bus went over the cliff, you grieved for your fiancé, but staggered on, starry-eyed and invincible, toward the light, and you were betrayed again. But this time it is a more piercing betrayal because it is personal and more subtle; it has no exploding gas tanks and weeping Guatemalan Indian widows in colorful shawls; it is simply that a man you love turned out to be cold, aloof and imperious, and you’re shocked by the barrenness of your life.

You may think now that since your husband has mistreated you, you’re supposed to get up, dust yourself off, and found a school for the blind in Jakarta. That may be what Katharine Hepburn would do. But she was just an actress. In real life, when things fall apart, we sometimes get weepy and shut ourselves in, and the super calls a locksmith or, in some neighborhoods, a Jungian psychiatrist.

Here’s another thing to consider: Just because some people strive to teach children to read and others strive to win big at the track doesn’t mean that one form of compulsive striving is less painful than another. All human striving brings suffering. And, in fact, the hardest striving to give up is the kind that’s cloaked in virtue. If you were a cat torturer, you could find plenty of people to help you quit. But if you’re addicted to virtuous acts, who’s going to take pity on you and help you recover? After all, your suffering looks like happiness and it’s socially useful. Who’s to say you’re anything but an innocent victim with the best of intentions? Only your dark, truth-telling shadow can say.

I’m willing to bet that there is some messy, twisted madwoman in the attic who doesn’t give two shits about teaching kids to read, who finds the professor a royal bore and would rather be playing cards with the maid, but she isn’t allowed to speak. It’s time for her to say how she’s hated all these years being the good girl while anybody could see that beneath that world-saving missionary is a real woman racked with irrational passions.

You’re at a crossroads. You need to ditch the physicist and get a psychiatrist who can help you face the tragic nature of your own striving and help you grieve for your own innocence.

Dear Cary,

Although chronologically I qualify as middle-aged, I’m inclined to sing to myself as I walk to work, I love my job, and I’ve even been known to be civil to people who are mean to me, just to aggravate them. I’m single and mostly happy with that, after two marriages and the subsequent mental housecleanings. I don’t date much or hang out in bars, mostly because I have elderly parents who take up a great deal of weekend time.

So. I’m at this party with a bunch of former co-workers. We worked together over a decade ago, but we still get together periodically because we all like each other, almost like a huge family. One of the guys is someone I have always admired. He was the very best at what we all did, very bright, had time to write plays and movies outside of work, and sometimes regarded me as some kind of intellectual throwback to a bygone era, because I didn’t know much about his particular area of expertise. At the party, he keeps trying to chat me up, we keep being interrupted by arriving pals, typical party stuff. Finally I had to go home, to be up early the next morning. He takes me aside, kisses and hugs me. A romantic kiss, believe me. I would have killed for this 10 years ago, when he was single, too. Now, of course, he’s on his second marriage and has a 6-year-old child. He hasn’t called since then, which is a good thing.

This has happened before with another guy, so my question is: Why do married guys do this? Especially in front of a group of people who know us both so well? Are some men just easily distracted?

Most Sincerely

Dear Sincerely,

Married guys do this because they’re drunk. Sober husbands do not kiss co-workers indiscreetly in crowded rooms. They wait until they’re alone.

There’s also a slim possibility that your civility toward those who are mean to you might not be as aggravating to them as you think. It might come across as flirtation, and your use of it as a form of private amusement may constitute some sort of pattern that has unintended consequences. At least that’s something to consider while waiting for him to pull his head back, open his eyes and give you that startled, sheepish look of a drunk married guy kissing a former co-worker in a crowded room.

Dear Cary,

I am writing because I have some probably unfounded concerns about my current relationship. I love my boyfriend, and he worships me. That is the issue.

First of all, I am not of a worshiping disposition. I had no idea that there were sane people out there who had this particular propensity. I figured that as time passed, when he was more comfortable in the relationship he would start treating me more like a friend, an equal; he is still treating me like a goddess after four months.

It’s not that I am complaining, but it makes me nervous that our relationship cannot possibly continue for the rest of our lives. I do want to spend the rest of my life with him, but is it possible that he won’t just realize I’m a human and be utterly disappointed? Is it possible that he would always worship me? Am I absolutely insane to be finding anything potentially wrong?

Thank you, kind sir.

OMG

Dear OMG,

Men worship God because they fear God. Men worship women because they fear women. Fear of God can be attractive in a man because it is rational: God smites and is thus worth fearing. Women do not smite. They yell and cry and make a man feel like a turnip, but that is the price of love — as a decent fear of God is the price of existence. So worshiping women is irrational and unattractive.

He’s all mixed up if he’s worshiping you. But what can you do? You can’t talk people out of worshiping. It’s like arguing with a turnip. All you can do is cancel the worship service. Get one of those big electric signs that you can haul behind your car, the kind they park outside revival meetings down South that say “Fish Fry and Bible Study Sunday 6 p.m.,” fix the letters to say “Today’s Girlfriend Worship Service Canceled,” and park it in your yard.

Dear Cary,

I need a Cyrano. My story begins about eight years ago in college, when I went out with a wonderful woman. Or more of a girl, really, and I was a boy. She was beautiful, with short blond hair, brilliant blue eyes and an adorable button nose. Someone who laughed easily. Liked to be crazy and act foolishly now and then. She was loyal, sweet, madly in love with me. An incredible, wild, sexy lover that I still dream about all these years later. The only woman I’ve ever felt completely at home with without any of my clothes on. Did I mention she was amazing in bed?

But I wouldn’t be writing if the story had a happy ending. I made a mistake probably millions of stupid men have made before me. I assumed that the passion, the fire, the infatuation that attaches to the beginning of a relationship, would last forever. When it didn’t (after a couple of years), I sought it elsewhere. I broke her heart. She was understandably angry with me. I deserved it. She wouldn’t speak to me. I soon regretted it, but never really had the chance to make up for it.

So the years have passed. I’ve fallen in and out of love. I’ve learned that there are more, even better parts to a relationship than the infatuation that’s there at first. I’ve grown up. I have a good job. I’m a pretty good-looking guy. I date plenty of women who are attractive, successful, smart. Though none recently have provided any kind of inspiration. None that I can see myself with one, five, ten years from now. In bed on a Sunday morning together. Going for a drive with our dog hanging its head out the window. Having children.

And an interesting thing has happened recently. Girl, now woman, and I have started speaking again. On the phone, in person, over e-mail. I think about her a lot. Part of me loves her again — I guess a small part always has. And I think she feels the same way but won’t admit it to herself. But I can tell in a way that one can read a former lover. I know what it means when she looks at me when she tilts her head slightly to the left, when the tone of her voice gets slightly higher, sweeter. I know when her laugh is genuine. Or when she laughs despite herself. And I thought to myself that maybe, if she still loved me after all these years, she would be willing to try again. But if she stopped loving me, and now I am a new guy who she obviously likes to talk to and spend time with, why not start something fresh?

But despite our renewed friendship, bad feelings still linger. Her parents, her friends, would not be happy if we got back together. Trying again with me would entail more than just going on a date and having a good time. It would mean having to explain to everyone in her life that she was giving that jerk another chance. Or maybe dredging up feelings that she’d rather not. She has indicated to me, though not directly, that she is not up for it.

And yet I can’t help but think that if she did give it a chance, it could work again. And I’m not asking her to marry me. I’m not asking her to be my girlfriend. All I want is for her to be open to the idea. To go out on a date. A romantic date. Where at the end of the night I kiss her on the lips and we both see how it feels. See if there is anything. And then decide where we go from there. And I need the words, an idea, a strategy to convince her to try. What do I say? What do I do? Help me, Cary, you’re my only hope. When we get married, you’ll be the first to get the invitation.

Needing a Cyrano

Dear Needing a Cyrano,

Sorry, I’m not in favor of this. I’m not on your side here. You need to let this one go. The worst thing a man can do is claim that he knows what a woman is really feeling when she tells him otherwise. In that direction, my friend, lies only madness and pain. Trust me on this one. That look, that tilt of the head, may signal that she still has some tender feelings for you, but once you’ve broken a woman’s heart, once you’ve betrayed her, destroyed her trust and become a deceiver in the eyes of her family and friends, you are toast. There’s no way you are going to have a romance with this woman again. What’s worse, because she may still have some feelings for you, you might be able to get her drunk and screw her and pretend that it’s a fresh romance. That would be low. Cut your losses and stop bothering her.

Better yet, take it a step further and do the really stand-up thing: Sit her down and tell her that you realize you screwed up, you missed your chance, and from now on as a way of making amends you’re going to be her steadfast and loyal friend, no strings attached. Her girlfriends will be impressed. And when she finally finds the right guy, maybe you’ll be allowed to attend the wedding, where all her girlfriends will be smelling really good and wearing their best underwear.

It’s not something I would break up with him over — we have a great sex life together and are very creative about satisfying each other. But, it does concern me for the future — and I have to admit, there is a selfish part of me that does want him to be able to orgasm while we’re having intercourse. It feels like a “dirty little secret,” something that I can’t really talk to my friends about, because any time I’ve brought up something similar, they say it’s weird or strange. I try not to attach stigma to it, since this has become more or less normal for me — but I’ve generally had to change the whole way I look at sex. I sometimes miss that moment that a guy (of course, with all possible forms of protection in place) reaches that moment, and then pulls you into his arms, breathlessly. We girls always get kind of a thrill out of that moment. I’ve learned to reframe that thrill into the moment where a deftly applied hand job or blow job does the trick, but it’s just not the same.

My best friend, who is the only one I’ve confided in about this, has said that I should just hang in there, be supportive of him, and if it really bothers me, ask him to talk to his therapist about it. I’m scared of pushing him away or creating more anxiety for him.

I’d like to think that there’s something that can be done for him — if nothing else, if he’s “the one,” I’d like us to be able to make babies the old-fashioned way. And I know he does, too. He’s told me so.

Sincerely,
(insert clever name here)

Dear Insert Clever Name Here,

Perhaps the reason he becomes so tense during intercourse is that he is overly concerned about being a competent and efficient love machine. You say that he is extremely conscientious and skilled and so forth; it’s possible he’s a sexual overachiever, to whom the desired result you describe may represent a kind of failure. He may also have had some unsatisfying or traumatic experiences of rejection early on that he never wishes to repeat, and so he has resolved to be an excellent lover in all these other ways but has sacrificed the opportunity to let go, to surrender, at this crucial moment. He may also have some deep fear of making you pregnant.

Or it could be a thousand other things that you and I can’t even imagine, things only doctors and therapists know about. There’s probably a Latin name for it.

You and he have been together only a few months, you say. He may not feel safe yet; he may still fear that if he isn’t the 60-minute man, that if he doesn’t provide the deluxe all-purpose detail and finish job, that you won’t stick around. If it is indeed an issue of trust, or fear of abandonment, if you stick together a while longer he may get comfortable enough with you for this to happen.

The sad thing is, when he becomes comfortable, he may get lazy, and then you’ll be writing to me saying the sex used to be fantastic and now it’s getting boring.

Meanwhile, if it’s really weighing on you, I would suggest that you first learn as much as possible about the issue from outside sources — books, scholarly articles, etc. But if you absolutely feel you must discuss it with him, I would start by asking him to talk about it with his therapist, and ask him what he or she says.

You know, it sounds like everything is just great between you two, and it would be a shame to get all twisted up about this. So go easy on it.

Dear Cary,

I’m a 34-year-old never-married male, living and working in a Midwestern college town. I earn a decent living in IT administration and have settled into a comfortable routine, taking the occasional vacation to break the monotony. My problem: I can’t seem to meet any single women my age.

There are literally thousands of gorgeous nubile undergraduates about, but in general I find them to be vacuous, naive, selfish, arrogant, or all of the above. Also, they tend to see me as a dirty old man. (I take exception to the “old” bit.) Women my own age are nearly universally married, engaged, or living-with.

Part of the problem is the transient nature of the town; people come here to go to school, they associate primarily with people they meet in class, and then leave when they’ve got their degree. At work, I’ve watched the most attractive women in the building marry their longtime sweethearts; these people seem to have the most perfect blissful relationships, there’s not a single crappy one I can even try to bust up. (Ordinarily I wouldn’t consider this an option, but hey, I’m getting pretty bored.)

I’ve tried the bar scene, but they come in two categories: massive sports bars crammed with binge-drinking undergraduates, or smaller, pub-style places where grad students huddle around a table and discuss their classes and professors and don’t talk to anyone else except their waitperson. I’m not much of a joiner, but I took a yoga class last year hoping to meet some women. It worked: I met married ones.

Married women adore me; they generally think I’m good-looking, stable, smart and funny; and they frequently try to set me up with their single friends. This always goes disastrously; either I don’t like them or they don’t like me, right off the bat. Personal ads are just depressing. I think personal chemistry is paramount, so these blind situations have never ever worked for me.

“Sex and the City” seems like a dream world to me, where attractive 30-somethings are actually single and looking. But perhaps that’s my answer: I need to hit the big city. Chicago is just a few hours away, but I’ve done the long-distance thing before, and it was only frustration and pain.

Spinning My Wheels

Dear Spinning,

When a man can’t find any eligible women in his village, he leaves his village on a quest. He goes to Chicago, the windy city of broad shoulders and blues and graduate students in economics. You should move to Chicago. That’s probably where all the women went after they graduated, anyway. They’re waiting for you at the train station, all in a row, with their pretty hatboxes and their stockings with those seams that run up behind the knee and their espadrilles and lipstick and lifetime earnings expectations.

Stop being so damn comfortable. No wonder your married women friends like you. You’re so settled, you probably remind them of a husband, safe and harmless. But no single woman wants a man who has already settled into a routine. Routines are for after you are captured. You must be a man on a quest. You must have a purpose in life. Make your purpose in life to move to Chicago and find a wife.

That should keep you entertained for years to come. And it will be a good story to tell. When you meet a woman in Chicago and she asks you, as she will, what brings you to Chicago, you can tell her, “I’ve come to Chicago in search of a wife.”

That should make life very entertaining indeed.

Dear Cary,

I’m 25. Two weeks before my 20th birthday I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis; it got progressively more annoying, and I’ve spent most of my out-of-the-house time in a wheelchair for the last three years. This was damn hard to deal with, I’ll admit, lots of time in the counseling office at college, but I’m actually doing better than I would have expected even without the extra added bullshit of a major illness. I have a job I like, a fantastic boyfriend, decent apartment, cute cat.

My only problem, and this might sound really petty, is that people in wheelchairs aren’t sexy. Now, I’ve never thought of myself as sexy or even particularly attractive, but there’s something kind of nice about thinking that someone somewhere sees you on the street and thinks you’re cute. And I know the boyfriend thinks I’m attractive, tells me all the time, far more compliments than I’m comfortable with, so I shouldn’t be complaining in the first place. But when I’m in my chair, wheeling my ass around NYC, I can’t help but feel completely asexual, and that’s not a good thing to feel. I’m young and thin and I’ve been told reasonably attractive and funny and such, but I feel like I don’t exist.

So, I dunno. Any thoughts? If you have any brilliant ideas, I’d love to hear them.

Nothing Cute to Sign Off With

Dear Nothing Cute,

What is this sexiness that you don’t feel as you’re wheeling your ass around New York? Is it a feeling you used to get because of how men looked at you, that told you they desire you, and thus that you exist? To live in someone else’s mind as something he wishes to possess, or as a symbol of something he wishes to possess, is indeed a kind of existence, but it is existence that depends on the watcher, the follower, the gazer. It is also a kind of power over them, though limited and dependent, because of the value they place on what they see and desire, because of what they might give you in order to possess you, to experience your sexiness directly.

But the power and dependency of being seen and desired is not the only kind of power. There is some other power and sense of existence that does not depend on any other people, but it must be found inside.

I would say that it is possible for someone to exist even though people confer no value on her, but it requires one to turn inward long enough to cultivate an enduring love of self. You must cultivate a tender sense of awe about yourself, so that in your own presence you beam the way a satisfied wife beams in the presence of her husband. Then you have displaced that empty dependency on the kindness of strangers with a limitless source of amusement and pleasure that is yours and yours alone.

And then, because you seem so complete, because there is a kind of invisible fire in you, then people cannot help but notice it and find it sexy.

Now, I know that’s abstract, so as a practical matter I would also urge you, while you are busy cultivating this inner fire, to join an organization of other people who use wheelchairs. I think that would help you very much. You may not wish to do it. You may wish to accentuate the differences rather than the similarities. But I think you will find it helpful.

Dear Cary,

I met this man four years ago, when I first moved to a new town and was looking for a place to live. We were good friends for a while, then we slept together. Two days later we go out for a drink and he says that he doesn’t want to be with me, doesn’t want to marry me, doesn’t want to have babies with me.

I’d never thought about that, but I said OK and then we went back to being friends. This pattern continued for about a year, with a hiccup when he met somebody else (which didn’t amount to anything): We’d get together, then he’d panic and dump me. After that we got closer — I really loved him — and eventually I moved into his place, a room in a shared house. This was a disaster, no room for my stuff, no privacy, lots of mess. We fought all the time.

After getting some counseling I pulled myself together and got another job. Then, I went to London for a couple of days and he goes out in my absence, takes Ecstasy and gets off with a work colleague. I found out about this soon afterward and he starts to stay out all night at her place, leaving me in our room, in bed, alone. So, distraught, I moved out to some friends for a while and tried to concentrate on my new job and getting a place to live.

He came over to help me paint my new room and we ended up back in bed. So this goes into a year of him going to and fro between me and the other woman and me ending up distraught, a total mess, having panic attacks, unable to drive my car. She generally takes precedence over me in his affections and time, but each time I try to cut him off, he hounds me with e-mail and phone messages until we’re back together. He says that he has little in common with her and prefers my company, but praises her matching underwear, social connections and thinner body. I met a couple of other people during this time, but nothing ever happened, as I was too wrapped up in this man.

I slept with a work colleague on a couple of occasions, but it was a mistake. I told him about this and he went ballistic and very jealous, even though he’s mostly with her. Then she moves back home (she is from Europe). I’m really happy about this and he says that it’s over be between them, but she continues to write (I read some of the letters lying around his room, which was a bad mistake), visit and phone. Each time she visits, or he visits her, I’m totally devastated as he drops me like a stone, but then afterward he makes a big effort to win me back.

Then, earlier this year he hangs around for a bit, unsure about the future. I spend ages being supportive of him and trying to encourage him to do what he really wants to do — he hated his last job anyway and wanted to change careers. He even asks me to buy a house with him — as a business venture — but I decline as I know he’s still seeing the other woman. So he decides that he wants to travel and goes away to Africa for a month. Then he comes back and we go on holiday together. She finds out about this — we have some mutual friends — and according to his story dumps him. So then he moves back home to Scotland and we have three or four months of living apart, spending as much time together as possible visiting or going away together, getting on really well. Then, as is his dream, he decides to go and travel the world by himself, not at any point asking me to go (I don’t have the money to give up my job and travel anyway). In the meantime, my mum has offered to help me buy a house, so I’ve just bought my own place with a great deal of help from my parents.

So we’ve been e-mailing each other (he’s in the Far East) most days and talking and keeping in touch. He says that he misses me all the time and wishes I were there. This is tearing me up, as I love him, but I don’t trust him at all. I think it’s only a matter of time before he meets somebody else, though he claims to be only thinking of a future with me and that he’s changed. He’s going to New Zealand and wants to live there, perhaps permanently. I’m trying to sort my house out, working away, trying to pay off my considerable debts from postgraduate study, trying to work out want I want to do next. I haven’t been totally honest in my relationship with him either. I’ve seen (and slept with) a few other people this year — four to be exact. My ex is an extremely jealous and possessive person and would be devastated if he knew of my infidelities to him. He comes from an extremely messed-up family background (alcohol, divorce, infidelity, child abuse) and I think this explains, though does not excuse, some of his behavior.

He’s also the first person I’ve met who I click with totally: We get each other’s jokes, have the same interests, love to do things together, and we have house-shakingly great sex. We also fight and disagree all the time, but that adds to the attraction. But last week, after a great deal of heart searching, I decided that I should stop having any contact with him and e-mailed to tell him so. I’m 31 and I’d like to meet somebody to settle down with and have babies. I’m sick of all the mess and the hurt that I’ve been through in the last four years. I don’t want to go to New Zealand to live, I’m happy here. But (and most of your letters seem to be about the “buts” in life) I miss him terribly already. I feel empty, but I feel free. Should I be practical and rational and tough and stick this out and hope to meet somebody else who’s more, erm, functional? Should I e-mail him and demand that he come home? Should I just e-mail him, so we can be friends and see what happens? Should I be honest with him? I’m scared that I’ll never meet anybody else that I have the same feelings about, but I’m also scared that he’s the wrong person and that if we stay together, I’ll be unhappy.

Bereft in England

Dear Bereft,

What kind of unhappiness do you prefer? Do you prefer the kind of unhappiness that makes you scream with rage and break windows, or the kind of unhappiness that makes you wander the moors, bleakly wondering if you are alive or dead? The unhappiness of rage leaves no doubt as to your existence but often brings harm to others. The unhappiness of melancholy, or depression, on the other hand, is a kind of emotional suicide, an abnegation of desire, a turning away.

Choosing your brand of unhappiness is a way of beginning to think about happiness. The happiness that is the opposite of rage is ebullience. The happiness that is the opposite of melancholy is serenity. Which appeals to you? You could swing between both. In fact you probably are doing that already. Perhaps what has occasioned this letter is that the rage has tired you out and now you are ready for depression. I would guess that ebullience would appeal to you, and that therefore it is probably what you most despise, and why you would never marry a soccer player.

Does this make any sense? Are you beginning to see that you are at war with yourself?

Being at war with yourself, you must know your enemy. I think that the enemy in your case is the woman who is tired of the excitement and would like nothing more than to sit calmly and drink a cup of tea with her mum. That is such a boring and uninspired thing to do that somewhere in your battle manual you have instructions to destroy that boring and uninspired person, because she is not desirable to the kind of man who is writing you letters from New Zealand. So you have been systematically destroying that woman, in order to keep him happy.

Of course, the obvious truth is that if you win the war against yourself, you die and are thus disqualified. So you and the boring woman you hate have to find a way to peacefully coexist. She does not like this guy who keeps betraying her. You, of course, betray her as well when you accept his betrayal, but she accepts that from you, because you are her twin against which a war cannot be won without death.

The more I talk about you, the more you begin to sound like Sylvia Plath. But she would know what to do. She would go write some poetry and then kill herself again.

So please, don’t kill yourself. Just accept the fact that you have had enough excitement for one lifetime and that it’s time for you to settle down with your mum and drink a cup of tea.