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R E C E N T L Y
Should I worry about my boyfriend's pornography habit? Is seven years without sex grounds for divorce? The woman I love is a Gingrich conservative Dear Windbag: You're no writer -- you're just a schlump who wants to screw a colleague Should I wait for my lovable Silicon Valley engineer who's so afraid of the M-word? ___________________ Love Mr. Blue? Buy Garrison Keillor's books at
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M R . _B L U E
Dear Mr. Blue, After three years of dating, my boyfriend and I just started living together in Manhattan. It's wonderful, but I'm starting to feel anxious about a few things: 1) As a politically liberal/socially conservative Christian I am trying not to indulge our desire to have premarital sex. 2) He's thinking of going to law school, which is good, but I can't imagine waiting another three or four years for marriage. Am I being impatient, or should I press the issue? And is it better to wait until we have enough money to pay for a wedding, since neither of us has parents who can? Figuring it all out Dear Figuring, I don't question your decision to move in together, rent being what it is in Manhattan, but it does constitute a marriage of sorts, and you probably should tie the knot sooner rather than later. If you love each other and don't doubt it, then marry with all due speed; living together and avoiding intimacy is a noble and unnatural exercise, like breathing underwater, not to be attempted for too long. Do you really need to put on a big wedding? They're usually such overblown affairs, a cultural relic, and why not design one that is 1) fun and 2) cheap. Get your friends to help out with the food and the entertainment, have it in a church, come in costume and skip the $3,000 bridal gown and the overpriced caterer and the men in rented tuxes. Let love reign and never mind the decorations. Dear Mr. Blue, She's 27 and has had many lovers and wants to settle and have kids. I'm 22 and want to sow my wild oats for the next five years and then find stability. Things are wonderful between us: The chemistry is good, the sex is great, we are best of friends. Although she understands how I feel, she doesn't want me wandering around. Younger Man Dear Younger, Sounds like a plan. Five years of wild oats, and then plant a lawn. It's nice that she and you are the best of friends, but your urge to roam is an urge to get away from her and the kids she wants to have. Your call, sir. Dear Mr. Blue, I am very attracted to a man at my temporary day job. We met here four months ago, and for a couple of months I felt our attraction to be mutual, but now I'm not sure. We rarely see each other, let alone have a conversation. I am very shy, and I think he is too. I am leaving this job soon and would like to ask him out. I've never done that before, and I don't want to be humiliated. I'm not even sure he doesn't have a girlfriend already. Any advice would be appreciated. Seriously Shy Dear Seriously, If you're attracted to him, you should ask him out. It's absolutely no humiliation if he says no; it's only humiliating to want to ask him and not dare to -- which is the ordinary humiliation that we shy persons endure daily. So take this as a challenge, a sort of game, and sit down and write him a simple note -- "It was really nice to meet you that afternoon and I'm sorry we haven't seen more of each other, but I'd like to invite you to have dinner next Friday night" -- and put it on his desk. See if you can't do that. And then, over dinner, you can find out why you are attracted to him. Dear Mr. Blue, My youngest brother, an aspiring writer, left home last summer to live with his girlfriend. He was 26, the last of the children to leave the nest, and it was hard for him. He's been homesick and broke and not adjusting too well; meanwhile I've been telling him that the only way you can live your own life is just to do it. Now he's been accepted into a graduate school and will have to move far away again. My parents can't help him out financially. I could help and I'm happy to, but should I? I'm torn between the desire to send him money so he can concentrate on writing, and concern that I'd be doing more harm than good and keeping him from getting on with his own life. He's had a pretty soft life so far, and maybe some struggle would be good for him. On the other hand, he's my kid brother and what's a family for anyway? Older Sister Dear Older, There are a number of factors to weigh here, and only you can weigh them. First, do you feel strongly enough about your brother's writing that you want to underwrite it? If you don't, then don't. Second, are you able to give him money and not feel pinched and not cause him to feel guilty? Third, does he really need help? Generosity, though admirable, can be complicated, and you don't want to smother this fellow. Dear Mr. Blue, I am a musician and have been married for several years to a wonderful woman, who I deeply love. When we first met, I wasn't working all that much, so we spent a lot of time together, sunny days and romantic evenings, but a year or so after we married, my career started to get going, and I started working nights and weekends, often away from home. And I spend time during the day practicing, working on new arrangements, rehearsing, etc. Which doesn't leave us much time, and she is getting testy about it. What can I do? If I start turning down jobs, my stock will fall -- fast. I am making enough money to carry us both, but she has her own career and doesn't want to quit. The only realistic solution I can see is to pick up a teaching job. But I'm afraid I would be miserable. I'm at wits' end over this and find it difficult to talk to anyone about it. Alan Dear Alan, A career in music, like any pure entrepreneurial career, can eat up your life, devour it day by day. The odds are against you, the competition is fierce, so you dare not turn down any offer of work; you work your butt off to get any advantage you can and keep trying to create even though exhausted; you live with constant self-doubt and fear of failure; and what so often is sacrificed is the plain comfort and pleasure of a good marriage. If your wife is unhappy, you need to pay attention. Take a closer look at your schedule. Surely you can prune it and create some more space for yourselves. Believe me, it's possible. Don't teach: It's a separate calling and if you think you'd be miserable then you're not called. Cut back. Have a life. Your career will benefit from it. Dear Mr. Blue, I am a freelance writer who has had more than my share of romantic adventures and passionate relationships, but I seem to keep walking out on them even though things seem good. I find reasons to be dissatisfied, then I flee. (I'm 37.) I like freelancing, but I'm always flirting with employers and going to interviews for jobs that I'm not at all sure I want. I am fond of my current boyfriend, but I let some old boyfriends hang out around the fringes of my life, to do handyman chores for me, and to keep me from concentrating my attention on any one man. What's wrong with me? Everyone else seems to have gotten married years ago. Should I investigate antidepressants? Footloose Dear Footloose, You're a romantic and you enjoy the flirtation and courtship and you're bored with what follows, the dailiness of love; but you're getting to an age at which romance becomes harder and harder to support. For one thing, you know too much. The fact that you're single at 37 doesn't mean something is wrong with you. Forget about antidepressants. Just try to visualize your 40s a little bit. If you want to have a man around, it might be easier to get one and hang onto him than to keep auditioning guys for the part. By the way, you don't need to concentrate your attention on a man if you're married to him: That's the wonderful thing about marriage -- it's comfortable and peaceful and frees you to lead your own life. It's romance that's tiring, having to do your big dance number again and again and again. If you marry the right guy, he'll amuse you for years to come. N E X T+P A G E +| Sometimes I can go months without meeting a woman; other times, they come in droves |
ILLUSTRATION BY TIM BOWER
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