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Sunday, Nov 22, 2009
Dear Mr. Blue,
I'm a divorced, middle-aged man with the happiest of problems. Perhaps because I can hold a conversation, cook a French meal, dance the salsa and kiss with some style, I now find, much to my surprise, that I am "a catch." Oh, brave new world! So I'm dating around, a process that entails several walks down the garden path of romance with various women, right? Some walks may stop just past the garden gate, others may lead to the deeper bowers. What I want to know is, why, if you've reached the inner bowers with a woman and then decide she's not the one for you, does it seem the only way out is through the briars? Is there a way to be charming and fun and even intimate while dating, without leaving a trail of broken hearts?
Loath to Hurt
Dear Loath,
One cannot get through life without hurting people, as gentle as you may try to be, avoiding insult and cruelty. Nonetheless, there will come times when someone turns a tear-stained face toward you and says, "How could you?" The bowers of romance are particularly treacherous, as surely you know, sir, and old lovers have a way of becoming bitter enemies. You can find out about this in the pages of fiction, but meanwhile keep your romance on the light side, play it for laughs, don't push and don't make promises you can't keep.
I am a woman approaching my thirties without ever having been in a long-term relationship. I think I know the cause, and in the last year have opened up to people and life as I was never able to before. But. This last spring I became close to a man after only knowing him for one week, which consisted of an incredible night of sex and several passionate conversations. Since then, he has grown increasingly distant, without explanation, and to the best of my knowledge is seeing other women. I know that I should just let go, but I have never felt as strongly or spiritually connected to anyone in my life. The heartbreak from this has pushed me back by a couple of years, but I still want him. So my questions are: Does this kind of lightning ever strike twice? Am I completely deceiving myself? Or should I wait, and hope for the best? Aaagh! I don't know anything about this!
Pining Away
Dear Pining,
Take the gentleman's interest as a compliment to you and move along. Maybe he's terrified of intimacy, maybe he has some dark embarrassing secret (a bird tattooed on his butt, a proclivity for tuna melts, an obsession with surfer rock), maybe after the incredible sex your guardian angel spoke to him and said, "Leave that woman alone." You could take 10 years trying to figure him out and it ain't worth the work.
1) Let go. 2) Let go. 3) Let go. 4) Don't hold on.
Take the heartbreak as a sign that you're a living, breathing person with a big heart and, yes, to those with the capacity to love, the opportunity will come.
Dear Mr. Blue,
How do we tell a close friend that her new beau is Trouble? They met at a bar and she fell "head over heels," she says, in a matter of days, and he is the first man she truly feels "happy, comfortable and safe" with, but one by one, each of her friends has expressed concern since meeting him. He's been staying with her since the night they met, and hasn't returned to his expensive homes or his $70,000+/year job for three weeks, never has any money and none of his "arrangements" ever comes to fruition.
The list of stories goes on, and we've heard his biography listed to us over and over. Some of us think he's about to con her for all she has and then some. We know she probably won't hear a word we say, but we care about her well-being. How do we suggest she protect her heart and her wallet from this guy?
Stymied
Dear Stymied,
If you really care about her and you suspect that he's a con artist, find out who he really is. You do this by befriending him and ingratiating yourself and getting him to talk about himself at great length. You feign innocent fascination with his life story and keep pulling the details out of him and either it adds up or it doesn't. If it doesn't, use whatever leads he provides to track him down. And when you find out who he is, if he is a con man, tell her in no uncertain terms.
