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Caught looking
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Oct. 19, 1999 |
Mom 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 Mom, One of the ugly little secrets of the information revolution is the ubiquity of pornography and its powerful attraction. Especially to adolescents. The reason for the lying is the sheer power of the temptation. You can fight back by using one of the available anti- pornography software programs, but I don't think you should get into a knock-down fight over the issue of lying. It's terribly important for you to keep a close, warm relationship with your son and that is the context for this discussion, that lying destroys closeness, honesty promotes it. But you have to accept, then, that your son's interest in seeing sexual pictures cannot be thwarted by you. Dear Mr. Blue, I have been dating a black man for a month now. He is a great guy, but I'm afraid to bring him home. I really do like him. No one ever treated me as good as he does. I hate to let him go. I don't know what would happen if my family found out. Afraid Dear Afraid, Don't assume your family's opposition to this man. Before you get their opinion, though, you need to find out how you feel about him, which takes more than a month, sometimes much more. If you still are fond of him after a stretch of time, then arrange for your family to meet him. But try to find one sympathetic ear in the family, someone whom you can confide in, so that you have an advocate. Dear Mr. Blue, I'm a 37-year-old woman, getting my Ph.D. in English Lit., single, considered rather yummily curvaceous and beginning to reach the end of my dating rope. I feel like if I never have to share another glass of cabernet and tell my abbreviated life story, it's OK. Should I just enter therapy to eradicate the last vestige of hope I have for finding a mate, or is there some dating strategy I should employ to keep hope alive? Alone and Ambivalent Dear Alone, You're tired of sitting in a bar drinking the house wine and telling a man about your past, and who can blame you? Give it up. Don't eradicate hope, don't look for a strategy. Finish up the Ph.D. Get it, find a job, get yourself settled. And then see if dating looks interesting again. And ask for a pinot noir.
Dear Mr. Blue, Help! I'm losing perspective. I'm 32, and during the two years since my last long-term relationship ended, I've fallen into a bad pattern of dating a new fella for several months and then losing interest. I'm beginning to think love will never happen to me again. My ex was far from perfect, believe you me, but every man since seems to come up short. Even though I have no desire to return to what I had, I miss my ex's kindness and warmth. My life as a single person is rich and full. I have a day job that I enjoy. I do good works, read, write fiction, hike miles in the woods, play with my dog, scuba dive, garden, go to readings and even stay up far too late in smoky rock clubs. Yet as my friends pair up and drift off, I find myself getting a little obsessive about love -- feeling like a carton of milk that's nearing its due date. I hang out with people who are younger and younger, because all the ones my age have significant others to go home to. All the men I meet are younger as well, and as a result not so interesting to talk to, either. As the time keeps ticking by, I worry that I am getting too set in my ways to allow a new person into my life and my heart. I worry that there's something wrong with me, I worry that I am expecting too much, I worry that I am losing my looks (such as they are). In short, I'm worried. I like my life. I just don't want it to go on the same way forever; I want intelligent conversation and a family to make soup for and someone to help me admire those mountain views. Sometimes, I swear, I save up funny stories about my day to tell someone and realize there's no one to tell them to. It's gotten so that I won't even cook for myself, because it depresses me too much to look at that lonely plate. Do you have any words of advice, encouragement or wisdom, as I pass the age at which my mother stopped having children? Tying Myself in Knots Dear Tying, It isn't a bad pattern to lose interest in guys who aren't so interesting. So don't worry about that. What you need to fight is that obsessiveness. Turn your face away from it. Enjoy your life. Embrace the idea of life as a single woman and plan for that. Stop angling for something more. Several women who've found a big romance in their 30s said, "It's when you stop looking for it that you find it." Some goals cannot be approached directly. A fiction writer who obsesses over what her next story will be may, in her anxiety over it, chew up every little bit of inspiration and wind up with nothing. Better to sit and wait and listen. As St. Francis said in his famous prayer: "It is in giving that we receive, it is in forgiving that we are forgiven." Thirty-two is a fine age, and you should enjoy it to the utmost. Write the funny stories in your journal. Quit cooking. Tend to your looks so you don't dread mirrors. You're not a carton of milk, you're a bright and soulful young woman, and you have a long and happy life ahead of you.
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