Friday, Aug 29, 2008
Dear Cary,
The new love of my life is the most easygoing, kind, generous, tender, loving person on the planet. We've fallen in love with each other and it feels wonderful. His best friend and roommate is a woman who is also a close friend of mine. Roommate told me that my new love had been in love with her, but that she was never interested.
A few days ago, after a few drinks, my New Love told me about his feelings for Roommate. He's very self-aware, but he is normally very tight-lipped, so this was quite a confession for him. He said that he had been painfully in love with her for two years. He said they had never kissed and she had never shown him any interest and it was painful. He used the words "pain" and "painful" a zillion times. He says he still has feelings for her, even though he's in love with me and he's very happy with me.
New Love is 21 and I'm his first serious girlfriend. Roommate is his first love, albeit unrequited. I'm 26 and have been around a little more.
I know without a doubt that we do love each other, and that we're compatible together, and that we want to be with each other. But I'm worried that this situation is volatile. Can we all work out as friends? Will he get over her? Or am I destined to get hurt here?
Nice Girl in Love
Dear Nice Girl,
Well, someone is destined to get hurt if he keeps living in that apartment. If you're serious about making a go of it with him, he should move out of there -- but not in with you, that's too soon. He should move in with some guys who work on motorcycles in the garage and have guitars lying around that are all sticky from being played too close to the Cheese Doodles. He's a frigging kid is what I'm saying. He needs to grow up a little. It sounds like his emotional attachments to women are insufficiently differentiated. It doesn't sound like your best shot, frankly, but if you want to make a go of it, like I said, see if you can get him to move out of there. And splash some cold water on his face.
Get Salon in your mailbox!