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Saturday, Oct 11, 2008
Dear Cary,
I am enrolled in one of the best law schools in the nation. My first couple of years of school went pretty well. But after this fall things have been going badly. A summer internship that I was very excited about became problematic, with some lawyers at the firm disliking me, because of my strong accent and my total failure at navigating the office social life. Several attempts at summer romance ended badly, and I was denied loans, which put me in a bind.
At that point I entered a state of semi-paralysis I have not been able to get out of. I was in a depression, I cried several times (I am actually a masculine man), a couple of times in front of others (which made me very ashamed). I was not able to do anything during the day, except for being on the Internet away from real life. I have missed most of my classes, was sure I had anthrax at one point and cancer at another.
I have lost contact with many of my friends. It just recently took me a week to call back a friend. Finals are approaching, and I keep telling people that I am studying, but I am not. One of my professors is quite angry at me for not turning in assignments.
I cannot go to campus counseling because I will have to deal with administrators to get there. A week ago I couldn't go out to get enough food. I am more successful in eating now, because a friend keeps calling me and asking me to eat with him.
I have to get out of this. I am an avid reader of your column (and Mr. Blue's before), but the main reason I am asking you is because you are on the Internet, and I can still function on this medium.
Paralyzed in Law School
Dear Paralyzed,
You, my friend, appear to be suffering from depression. It isn't your fault, and there's no shame in it, but it's a serious disease. If left untreated it could kill you. So tell your friend, the one who tries to make sure you eat, that you need to be taken to a clinic to be treated for depression. If he asks why you don't go on your own, explain that it's the nature of the disease to isolate people and prevent them from seeking treatment. And that's why you're asking him to make sure you go. Don't wait until you feel strong and hopeful enough to seek treatment. Have your friend take you to the doctor right away.
Dear Cary,
Due to religious ideas and emotional abuse that I experienced as a child, I am a 28-year-old virgin. I decided three years ago I don't want to be. But because of my previous relationships and personality (very nerdy!!), I find it hard to connect with people. I never thought I would find anybody to love me. I don't expect women to be patient with a guy inexperienced in dating or sex. I met someone and she seemed to really like and care for me. When I finally accepted that, and wanted to commit to her like she asked me to, she called it off. I had never loved anybody before, though I have had women friends.
I love her very much, and her rejection has torn me up inside. Life seems meaningless without her. Right now I am trying to move on and meet other women. I feel that if I don't learn how to initiate a relationship or how to ask a woman for sex, I will stay like this forever. I have started thinking of seeing hookers, hoping that it will take away my shyness around women.
Right now I feel that all my efforts are hopeless and that my whole life will always be half a life since I cannot connect to women.
Hard-up, Confused and Lonely
Dear Hard Up,
Put some gas in the car. Then try to start it up. That is, if early religious training and emotional abuse are at the bottom of what's going on in your life, that's what you need to deal with first. Now, I don't know what happened when you were a kid, but it's still bothering you. If it's the reason you are a virgin, you can't fix it by getting laid. That would be like fixing your situation with the car by pushing it a few feet and saying, Look, the car moved!
Getting laid is the least of your concerns. There's a lot of pressure in America to conform to a highly sexualized image, to make lots of money, to appear rich and successful, and it's easy to feel that if you don't do that, no one will love you and your life will be sad and lonely. But you need to first establish some relationships based on who you really are. You need to find, or rediscover, those sources of power and energy that, perhaps because there is pain associated with them, you have become cut off from.
Remember a time when you were happy and free? Remember what you used to do when you were upset or sad? If you ever got any solace from the church, if any of your religious training had anything positive in it, try to find that solace again. If there was emotional abuse, talk about it. Talk about how you feel and how you want to feel. Talk to your friends. Talk to your parents. If you're using substances to dull the pain, try to taper off. And spend some time describing in detail those religious ideas and that emotional abuse that you referred to.
This will help you become whole again. We become attractive when we become whole. And then when you least expect it, a woman will come and sit on your face.
P.S. You can laugh and say this is too New Agey for you, but I don't care. Sometimes the truth just sounds corny.
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