Dear Mr. Blue,

My relationships with men were brief and unsatisfying until three years ago when I met one who is a tender lover, a soul mate and my playful best friend. We are planning to get married in August.

Last week, I called him from work and asked him to go through some of my files to find some insurance papers I needed, and he happened upon an essay I wrote long ago about one of those meaningless affairs. His eye fell upon the one sentence in which I mentioned the great sex I'd had with this other guy, and he shut the folder right away, without reading on to find out how this guy's carelessness and callousness left me feeling even lonelier.

Now my fianci can't stop thinking about the hot sex with the ex -- that it was better than anything he can offer me -- and I can't seem to reassure him. I am afraid this is going to ruin our relationship. What can I do?

Ready to give up writing

Dear Ready,

You can make love with him. It's better than an explanation in most cases. Of course you can tell him you're sorry he saw your essay, ask him to reread it, tell him you love him and say that you understand his jealousy, but making love is what will calm him down. I hope you do understand his jealousy and take this outburst as a sign of his love. But ruin your relationship over a sentence in an essay? If he's that distraught, he's very confused about more than you and your love, and you should let go. You don't want to have to defend your right to have a past.

Dear Mr. Blue,

Why does everyone who writes to you sound heterosexual?

Amy

Dear Amy,

I don't know what heterosexuals sound like. I do know that not everyone who writes is. I recall, off the top of my head, four or five letter writers who were gay, and many more who, interestingly, revealed their lover's gender by the pronoun and did not reveal their own. I see my correspondent's name in the e-mail heading, so it's clear to me, for example, if it's a letter about a lesbian romance, but it may not be clear to you from the letter. Take the letter below, from "Constantly Confused": Is it from a gay man or a straight woman? And does it matter?

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am 33, a screenwriter in Los Angeles, not yet successful -- I've had a few agents, meetings, some interest, but haven't yet sold anything. I met my boyfriend almost five years ago in a graduate film program that he dropped out of and I stayed with. About a year ago, I moved out of the apartment we shared, but haven't been able to break things off -- I keep going back and forth. I feel he doesn't support my writing: Once when we were with friends and one asked if he thought I was a good writer, my boyfriend just shrugged and said he didn't know. This hurt very much. I feel like my staying with him has not been good for my career. But there are many good things about him, and I do love him. I don't know what to do: give up on him, give up writing or what?

Constantly confused

Dear Constantly,

His remark seems innocent to me; honestly, it does. He was only brushing off a dumb question. You can choose to take it as a hostile remark, but that's your choice. If you feel queasy around him, or feel he doesn't respect you, then it may help to create a little distance, as you did when you moved out. You're in a delicate spot, on the verge of a breakthrough, and of course your feelings are exposed. But why break off with him if you do love him? Surely you won't consider giving up writing, not now, having invested so much.

Dear Mr. Blue,

Why don't men call?

Waiting

Dear Waiting,

They don't call because they know they're in trouble for not having called and you're going to ask them why they haven't in that miffed tone and they won't be able to come up with a good enough answer -- they weren't in Nepal or writing "After The Fall" or practicing for Carnegie Hall. That's why men don't call. Because they haven't. And because they're not sure why either.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am a college student, 6 foot 10 inches tall, tired of people asking me if I play basketball. (I don't.) I am coming home for the summer to work in construction, and it suddenly occurs to me that I have zero social life except for a couple of beer-drinking buddies. I am convinced that people (I mean women) avoid someone who is so much taller than they. Do they? What do I do?

Too Tall

Dear Too Tall,

People do discriminate against the tall person. I'm only 6 foot 3 and I know they do. People don't like to be loomed over, I guess. The vertically challenged naturally like to look someone in the eye, and when this towering person lumbers in and stands over them, darkening the sky, they feel threatened. We're just ordinary people who ate too many string beans and not enough potatoes, but we don't get the affection that smaller folks do. A sad story, but you needn't be defeated by it. Walk tall, and bide your time. Be kinder and friendlier to make up for your formidable appearance. And one day some fine woman will avoid avoiding you.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I don't know what to do. I met a man 10 years ago who was married and we fell in love very quickly and he divorced his wife. We stayed together all this time, though he wasn't sure about marrying me, and I tried to break up several times but couldn't. Last year, we got engaged. Our wedding is scheduled for June. A week ago I came home from work at midday and caught him having sex with a girl 20 years younger! It was so devastating. Just describing it now makes my heart sick! I asked him why he would do something so cruel and he said he was nervous about the marriage. My heart is torn. I have invested 10 years of my life in this relationship. I cannot walk out without breaking into pieces. On the other hand, he says he cannot stop the affair with the girl just yet. What should I do?

Devastated

Dear Devastated,

This is terribly cruel, monumentally cruel, and you simply must turn your back and walk away from it. The reason for such cruelty must be that your fianci wants out of the script. You must, at the very least, postpone the marriage. That is minimal. To forge ahead now is to walk off a cliff. You've invested 10 years, but that's nothing compared to the misery of a misbegotten marriage. Break it off and tell him that if he wants to resume with you, he will need to court you again. You won't break in pieces. It'll be hard, but you won't break, and a little anger would be good right now. Tell the jerk to get lost.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am a 31-year-old gal who has never had a normal romantic relationship. I tend to involve myself emotionally with clearly unattainable men: close friends whom I pine for desperately for months, years even; one married man years ago whom I thought I was madly in love with. Am I Monica Lewinsky? Too insecure to believe I deserve a real relationship? Am I terrified of intimacy? Am I afraid of commitment? Can you point me in the right direction?

Heroine

Dear Heroine,

It's a sweet adventure to make a life with someone real, whom you meet daily with a full heart and a sense of humor. It casts a glow on your day. You say witty things, you present countless little gifts of attention and care, you lavish sexual favors and you are there when the loved one really terribly needs you, in moments of ordinary despair and extraordinary too. The single life surely has its own dignity and rhythm, but there seems to be a general preference for couplehood. There is a continuum from friendship to love: The person you like to talk with and ride bikes with is the person you want to be with is the person you fall in love with is the person you want to have kids with. It all starts with conversation. Maybe you're trying to make a great imaginative leap forward, and you need to start with conversation and bike riding.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am dating a wonderful woman who happens to be a Wisconsin Synod Lutheran. Hence, no sex. In two weeks we both graduate from college. It is spring and one can feel the debauchery in the air. I feel I should spend the last week or two of college enjoying the kind of hedonism that will be denied me later. What I'm saying here is that I want to sleep with as many women as possible before I get out of here. But I'm too cowardly to break up with the WSL woman. Am I a bastard for wanting to enjoy myself?

Minnesota Boy-Toy

Dear M.B.T.,

If the words "debauchery" and "hedonism" and the phrase "sleep with as many women as possible" spring easily to your lips, then you shouldn't be dating this wonderful woman. You should go and debauch, taking precautions so as not to spread or contract disease and letting the WSL woman know that you won't be seeing her for a few weeks. You're not a bastard -- not unless your mother felt this same urge back before you were born, which perhaps she did. Perhaps she thought, "I'd like to get laid about 60 or 70 times in the next two weeks before I go back to Good Old What's His Name, the man I want to father my children." Go have as big a time as you want to have. Your confidence is breathtaking.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am 48, have three darling children and am married to a fine woman whose passion for physical fitness is wearing me out. It's all she reads about and talks about, about risks and percentages. I admire the fact that, six years ago, she took off 30 pounds and kept it off. The woman doesn't have an ounce of cellulite on her. She is a committed vegetarian. She runs, she lifts weights, she knows everything about nutrition and exercise. I just wish I could change the subject.

Normal Husband

Dear Normal,

You don't say what shape you're in, and if you're overweight and sedentary, that might be what keeps fitness on her mind. I only offer that as a thought. Of course, degeneration is programmed into our DNA: Nature seems to want us to reproduce and then fall by the wayside. But your generation wants to hang onto its youth into its 90s, on the theory that if you stay around long enough maybe you can get your life together. My generation is already starting to fall apart, forgetting its own Social Security number, enjoying the sex drive of potted plants. You didn't ask for my advice, so I won't offer any.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am a 25-year-old woman in Italy, in love with a wonderful Italian man (also 25) who has been my best friend and lover for almost four years. He is incredibly sweet, kind and supportive: I quit my corporate job so I can paint full-time, and he is enthusiastic about that. We each want a quiet, simple life, and we speak often of marriage, but I'm afraid. We are so different. He approaches life without ambition, one day at a time, accepting whatever it brings. I am always pushing and planning, agonizing over every decision. He is bright but more interested in practical talk than abstractions. He never has doubts about us, no insecurities or neuroses. He makes no demands. After four years, I am still very much in love and spend days on end smiling for no reason except that I know I get to see him at the end of each day -- but sometimes I feel trapped too, wondering if this is as good as it gets. I am afraid that my feeling of estrangement can only grow. I also feel that only a fool would consider abandoning such a loving, sweet man. I would love to be able to relax into his loving arms for the rest of my life, but I have a tendency to panic every six months or so, threatening to leave him. Is there a way to reconcile my doubts? He seems too good to be true -- is that because he is? Or should I take it easy and enjoy being in love? What do you make of this?

Panic Annie

Dear Panic,

I don't know what to make of this, but maybe there's a medication for it. It could be chronic jumpiness, or youth, or the result of ingesting too much linguini. Or perhaps you've run into a language barrier. (I'm assuming you're American.) Is that the "estrangement" you mean? My best guess is that you have an edgy imagination, and that when the going is easy, you need to excite yourself with visions of misery. That's normal, so long as you don't brood and force these random nervous impulses to become full-fledged thoughts. As for the man being "too good to be true," surely four years is long enough to see through a man's PR. I advise you to talk to a doctor about one of the new happy drugs that alleviate the heebie-jeebies.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I've been involved with a man for the last three years who lives in the basement of a house that we rent together. We are in a relationship, although we've never made it public. We spend a lot of time together, have lunch, grocery shop, raise my son (from a previous marriage), talk to each other constantly and enjoy a very active sexual relationship. But whenever things are going well, he starts a fight with me, says vicious things and then stays out all night with another woman. We don't speak to each other for a while, then make up and start the whole process again and end up sleeping together. I just don't know what to do. I know that I love him, but he says he doesn't feel that way about me. I keep hoping that he'll come to his senses. Writing this letter, I realize I am stupid. How can I have feelings for a man who treats me this way? How can I fix this if we both can't afford to move? Please tell me what I should do to get the sanity back in my life?

Tired of Love

Dear Tired,

This is a miserable cycle. Break it. Don't love a man who doesn't love you: It's not love, it's movie acting. It's easier to take the hard step now and break off than to keep slogging forward in an affair that you know is hopeless. You're not stupid, you're romantic and a little dreamy, but do understand that you can't fix this man. He is playing fast and loose. You have a raccoon in your basement, and you need to open the door and let him out.

Dear Mr. Blue,

It irritates me when someone writes to you expressing fear of never finding a partner, and you advise them to be patient and eventually Someone will appear. I find this conjuring act wholly inadequate. Why not tell them, "Don't worry. Having a significant other is not the pinnacle of existence. There are other wonderful things in the world. Such as learning to live alone. Such as laughing just simply from the joy of being alive. Life with a partner is entertaining, but life without can be even more so." I have friends who've been simply devoured by loneliness and made bad choices trying to escape it. I myself am alone and feel peaceful about it.

Curious

Dear Curious,

I can't argue with your experience and don't question your peacefulness, but my advice has to come from my own experience. I don't believe in Someone appearing, if by Someone you mean Aphrodite in a nightie, and I don't know about pinnacles, but I am happily married and believe in marriage as a heroic quest and as a good way of life. You have friends who made bad choices -- OK, I have friends who made terrific choices, and if people want to believe in that possibility, I don't need to discourage them.

Dear Mr. Blue,

Exactly one year ago, I was suddenly afflicted with a terrible physical disorder, and overnight my life became a series of hospital tests and humiliating and painful therapies. I had five failed surgeries. A few dear friends, my elderly parents and faith in God helped me maintain my sanity through all this, but my job, my colleagues and my "old life" disappeared.

In March, bereft of hope, I had one "last resort" operation, which completely corrected my disorder. On recovery, I began a daily fitness regimen that has helped me to regain my former strength. As of this writing, I am fully returned to health once more.

This summer I will be 45. Here I stand physically whole, but with my life, in many ways, in ashes around my feet. The company that employed me has closed. Many of my old friends are gone. Much of the way I looked at the world and at myself seems gone. I feel like a newborn baby or the Pegasus: naked, spiritually charged, full of questions, on some kind of threshold. Any advice?

Resurrected

Dear Resurrected,

No advice, only admiration, and of course prayers for your future course. To stand whole, healed, at 45, and look around at the ruins of your former life, must be exhilarating, like walking away from a plane crash. People go through programs hoping to simulate this experience, and you've earned yours honestly. Now you get to go out and live your new life. We all dream about doing this, reconstructing our lives. I hope your second life is as long as the first and brings you great happiness.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I have a friend who is intelligent, educated and good company. He does plenty of favors for people. But when it comes to paying the check, he never does; or he plops down less than his fair share. When he comes to visit he never brings beer, though he drinks plenty. I haven't confronted him about his cheap behavior, not wanting to lose his friendship (where I come from, being cheap is a pretty humiliating thing to be accused of), but another former mutual friend has cut him off as a "user," and it is awkward to let the machine pick up calls while one or the other is here, and to have to remember not to mention the scorner to the scorned, to spare his feelings. Any suggestions?

Shaking My Head

Dear Shaking,

We all make allowances for friends, and they make allowances for us. My friends, for example, make allowances for my compulsion to always pick up the check, which is not such a nice thing to do either. If you like this man and find him good company, then that's the main thing. Enjoy his company. And don't try to correct this behavior unless you can do it with an offhand remark ("Next time, bring some beer, OK?"). As for the awkwardness of mutual friends being on the outs with each other, it's not worth worrying about. Their problem, not yours.

Dear Mr. Blue,

For the last two years, I've had indecisionitis and can't, for the life of me, decide whether to dump my deadbeat boyfriend, whether to pursue grad school or a career. Last night I spent an hour obsessing at Office Depot over black file cabinets vs. beige. Writing to you has been the only definitive thing I've done in a long time. Why is this happening to me?

Wishy Washy Wanda

Dear Wanda,

Dump the deadbeat, pursue a career, buy the beige. Indecision is a symptom of narcissism, says moi, and when you break out of your dreamy state and get out in the hurly-burly and get a life, you'll start making decisions a mile a minute. Bang bang bang. Having a child cures this dreaminess, and so does mortal illness, or living in a foreign country, or military service, or farming, or any number of things. Get off your butt, Wanda.

Dear Mr. Blue,

What do you do when loneliness becomes all-consuming? I'm a (relatively) good-looking and intelligent 26-year-old, but I find myself in a long dry spell when women turn away, ignore my phone calls and make excuses. I blame this cold, northern city, but I still think about it every minute of every day. How do you learn to ignore the missing pieces?

Alone

Dear Alone,

It's good to have to deal with loneliness now while you're so young. Some people never confront it until much much later, and it swamps them. You're intelligent and so you know that loneliness is an accident and no reflection on you, and you simply have to be kind to yourself and see yourself through it. You can sustain yourself for periods of time through the imagination -- through books, movies, music -- and you can enjoy observing people around you, and making notes on them and their peculiarities, especially the people whose company you crave and who disdain you.