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DEAR MR. BLUE: For love or money?
June 29, 1999 |
My boyfriend is an incredibly loving musician, but I'm struggling over the
relationship, I think because I grew up in a wealthy family with a big
summer house
where success in business or medicine is glorified but artistic ambition is
pooh-poohed. My boyfriend encourages my desire to write, but at the
same time, I have
sleepless nights wondering how a poor musician could satisfy my
childhood expectation of a big house on the shore filled with big
books. How can I enjoy this kind of love, without such pulls? Am I
confused? Sad Dear Sad, You're not confused at all. Musicians aren't investment bankers, so if you expect to live in a big house on the shore, a musician isn't a
good bet. You've got that right. A few musicians are millionaires and the
rest are struggling to pay the rent. The best hope for you and your
boyfriend is for you to write a big book that will earn about $6 million and another $30 million for the movie rights. You can buy any
house on the shore for that and fill it with first editions. I can't tell you
what sort of book it should be, but probably it should be one with a lot of
spin-off product potential, and that suggests a book with talking animals.
A book that grandparents will buy for their kids. That's a market that's
simply unbeatable, the grandma market. How about a book about a shy
little rabbit who has no friends and then the grandma rabbit visits him and
gives him some wonderful wisdom that can be put on T-shirts. If you
can't write this book, then you can't keep the musician. You'll have to
find the investment banker, an older one who's made his bundle and
dumped his first wife and wants you to adorn his big trophy house, you a
beautiful and sensitive literary wife whom he can show off to his beefy
martini-swilling banker pals to demonstrate what a fine man he is despite
his history of screwing people royally. This marriage will give you
material for a book, but probably not one that grandmas will buy for the
kiddoes. Dear Mr. Blue, I am a professional man in my 20s who can't
sustain a relationship more than a couple of months.
We meet, I fall head-over-heels and can think
about nothing else but her. That lasts about two
weeks. We get to know each other, and my feelings
fade. By then, we've gotten to some stage of
physical intimacy, which keeps me interested a
little longer, but I always end up full of contempt for the girl and we
break up within weeks. It's frustrating. Am I dating the wrong women, or am I treating them
badly? What can I do? Falling Dear Falling, Why the contempt? That's the odd note here. Maybe your
head-over-heels fall is really a case of lust. You want to get into her
drawers and your strategy for getting there is to hurl yourself at the poor
woman and overwhelm her with ardent attention and seduce her and then
the contempt is not so much for her as for yourself. Maybe you need to
write a new script. Skip the initial fall and the physical intimacy and try to
meet a woman, get to know her and be good company for a period of
time, say, six months, during which you are considerate, cheerful,
empathetic and a lot of fun to be with, and you do not ever try to lead
her toward intimacy. Look on it as an experiment in civility. Be a friend. Dear Mr. Blue, My wife and I -- married 20 years, with four children -- have a
"functional" relationship. But there is a woman at work whom I've been
secretly in love with for 16 years. We've flirted. We've accidentally
touched each other a couple of times. I've looked down her dress and up
her dress and through her dress. She used to be married but now she's
divorced. I'm sure she knows how I feel because sometimes I can't take
my eyes off her. I'm going to change jobs soon, so I won't see her anymore. I've
often thought about telling her my feelings. I've never told anyone about
this before. We would never be compatible in an actual relationship. In fact, I think
she's sort of engaged, and I wish her all the best. Nevertheless, I think
about her an awful lot. I have strong feelings of lust in my heart. Am I a
human being or a wicked adulterer? What should I do? In Love Mr. Blue Garrison Keillor's column appears every Tuesday in Salon Books.
Feeling blue about your prose? In the doldrums over your last date? Ask Mr. Blue. Dear In Love, We're all human and, according to Christ's formula, we are all wicked adulterers, so the real question is, What should you do? And the answer is: Do nothing. You're not in love with the woman at work, not if you've had feelings for her for 16 years and kept them secret. You've fantasized about her, and I hope it's given you some pleasure, but don't pursue a romance with her, just as you wouldn't pursue one with Meg Tilly. Change jobs, and let the fantasy fade. And take a new look at your wife. The revival of romance in your marriage is a possibility to consider, and the person to initiate it is you. A loving and intimate and humorous life with your mate of 20 years has vast potential for happiness compared to the slim rewards of looking down somebody's dress. Start by arranging for the two of you to have a quiet meal together after the kids have been fed. Offer to fix dinner. Make risotto and salad and split a bottle of white wine, and sit and talk. That's where the renaissance starts, in conversation, conversation that is utterly devoid of accusation or lament, conversation that is intended to make her laugh. In the course of producing and raising four children, you've understandably lost track of each other. Find her. Get to know her again. And see what this leads to. Dear Mr. Blue, My live-in boyfriend of two years broke up with me two weeks ago, and though I've known for a long time that it would end, I am starting to get very lonely. I've lived here for 15 years and have no friends. I don't even have any casual acquaintances. I have no idea why, except I don't get out much. Ever since sometime in college, I've felt some kind of alienation from other people. I would really like to have children, but I'm afraid I'll never find a guy to marry. I'm fat, which is a turnoff for a lot of men, and I talk too much. I can't seem to lose weight or talk less. I have other good qualities (who doesn't?), but I just don't know. Alone in Houston Dear Alone, Don't retreat into the shadows, girl, get out of the house and hang out in the vicinity of people who are having a good time. You can watch from the periphery at first, and then move in. There are group programs to help you lose weight: Try one. Especially one that lets you sit in a circle of other people and talk about what's going on with you. And one sure cure for loneliness is good works. There are lonely people in awful straits who would be terribly grateful for your company and your concern. There are neglected children whose parents are overwhelmed by life, children whose lives you could change for the better, and if you met them, they would quickly cure this alienation you feel. Dear Mr. Blue, I am a psychology professor in my mid-40s who has published many journal articles and research papers, and now I have the fantasy of writing a novel. How does one get started? I am accustomed to writing articles with definite structures to guide me (Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion). Budding Novelist Dear Bud, Set aside some time when you'll be free to think about this book. Schedule it, like any other project. And then do the work of discovery, to locate the germ of this novel. It's a game, one without clear rules, so there are a thousand ways to delude oneself, but your aim is to locate a realm of imagination in which your writing is quickened. There is enough drudgery in writing fiction: The first step is to find what your imagination leaps at. Dear Mr. Blue, I am stuck in an endless dating pattern. Every man I have seen for the last four years has quickly fallen in love with me. He has been quick to use the L-word, which I have returned only much later, if at all. The problem arises when I give in and begin to return this love. At this point Mr. Romance gets panicky, withdraws and deserts me because he suddenly isn't sure if he wants a relationship. I am an independent, strong women with many outside interests to keep me happy, but I can't help wondering where I'm going wrong. Broken Record Dear Broken, It's an endless pattern until, one day, it ends, and Mr. Romance doesn't panic, he uses the L-word, and the M-word and the B- word. I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that your problem is that you possess a charm, a sweetness, an engagingness, that is irresistible to confused guys, and they adore you, and say so, and then they don't know where to take it from there. You're a shining goddess, and they're a bunch of farmers, and the thought of relating to you is bewildering to them. Accept their adulation, keep things casual, play it for laughs and eventually one will show up who is ready for you.
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