To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > Books Nov. 23, 1999 URL: http://www.salon.com/books/col/keil/1999/11/23/no_action Healthy urges I don't want to have to beg my boyfriend for sex, but I'm too young to give up on it. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Garrison Keillor Nov. 23, 1999 Mr. Blue learned a few things from the readership this week: first, that bad breath is due to disease, either bad tonsils or sinus infections or periodontal disease or roast beef mulching between the molars, and so I should have advised Holding My Breath to tell her boyfriend to see a dentist or an ENT specialist. (That stands for Elbow, Neck & Thorax, by the way.) Mr. Blue's breath is sometimes funky, but that is due to a combination of french fries, ketchup and a 1988 Bordeaux. Several readers protested my dismissive response to No Follow Through, the chronic procrastinator. One said: "Shame, shame! The problems this person reported are classic symptoms of depression. It's a vicious cycle that I am just now coming out of because of good counseling and prescription drugs. Don't assume when someone says their house and life is a mess that it isn't a living hell for them -- it is." OK. Fine by me. Get counseling and drugs then. Another reader felt that No Follow Through might be suffering from ADD or ADHD, "disorders that can result in great personal stress, low self-esteem, depression, inability to maintain intimate relationships or hold down jobs etc." A book was recommended: "Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping With Attention Deficit Disorder From Childhood Through Adulthood" by Edward M. Hallowell and John J. Ratey, who, according to the reader, are both M.D.s with ADD. As soon as I finish James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake," I intend to tackle this tome. Joyce, by the way, suffered from personal stress and depression and had self-esteem issues, too, and had a hard time holding down jobs. Both he and his common-law wife, Nora, were in great need of good counseling and prescription drugs. It's a tragedy that they lived when they did and not 50 years later when more help was available. And now Mr. Blue's attention is wandering and I must go to another subject. Sorry. There was a lovely fake letter this week, purportedly from a man who took a class in creative writing and fell in love with his teacher ("she is gorjous and she like me a lot") and now he must decide whether to become a "famass writer" or an international opera star (he has a loud voice from "hollaring at pigs") and would I like to hear a tape of his "sinning"? It took me back to my childhood days when I used to think that Orpheus C. Kerr and Petroleum V. Nasby were a real stitch. Dear Mr. Blue, My boyfriend of eight years never wants to have sex, and it's driving me mad. When we first got together, the sex was frequent and fun; we'd do it in the morning, in the evening and midday if the opportunity presented itself. After those early halcyon days, he experienced a rash of health problems (not serious, but aggravating), and our sex life became more and more spotty. For the past two years, we've often gone for two or three months at a time with no action. I have stopped initiating sex because invariably he's not in the mood, and it became too depressing to try. We have discussed this, and he has seen therapists, tried anti-depressive medication, but to no avail: His libido has just checked out. He's physically capable of having sex, and he claims that it's not me, he's just not interested in sex with anyone. I don't want to end the relationship -- he's sweet and charming and talented, and living with him has been a pleasure. However, I'm only 28, I have healthy urges. I don't want to have to beg for it, I don't want to make him do anything he doesn't want to do and I don't think I can look for sex outside of our relationship without destroying it. And I don't like being quietly angry at him all the time. Should I break it off? Fling myself into the arms of other men? Or just get used to it? Eunuch Dear Eunuch, All doors appear to be closed, and short of cutting a hole in the wall, or burning down the house, there's no logical way to make this work. Drugs, therapy, cajoling, nothing works. You can keep looking -- zinc tablets, oysters on the half shell, the right shade of beige lingerie, Chopin waltzes, long walks on the beach -- but you don't have time for that. You're a patient, thoughtful, intelligent person, and, I'm sure, incredibly sexy. His trouble isn't your doing. And he does not benefit from your attempts to help. Let's consider one obvious possibility, that the man may be gay. If he were, and if his background made this an emotionally lacerating fact, he might require years to come around to a reasonably happy solution, and in the meantime, what should you do to help? Crochet pillowcases? Write sonnets? You have a responsibility to carry on with your own life. Start sleeping in a separate bed, be sweet, be charming and start looking for a new place to live. Dear Mr. Blue, I'm male, 19, dedicated to writing, editing my first novel, plotting my writing career. My best friend is a lovely young woman who's 18, and lately we've become really close. I'd love to go beyond just friends. The problem is she respects and listens to her immigrant parents, and the only people her parents want her hanging out with are med/law-school track guys of their ethnic group who'll make a lot of money, whereas I am an American who writes and plays bass guitar, and who is probably not going to make too much money. So I don't know if pursuing a deeper relationship would accomplish anything. Any ideas? Hopeful Dear Hopeful, You have written to the wrong advice columnist, sir. I am the father of a daughter, and though she is only 2, my guard is up and I intend to protect her from bass guitarist/novelist-track guys who can only break her heart and lead her through an emotional morass and into a life of poverty. Bass guitarists do not lead stable, productive lives, sir. I say that on the basis of knowing two guys, a small sample, but fathers must form judgments as best they can. Be a pal to your lovely friend, don't complicate her life, pursue your career and when she finds Dr. Right Ethnic, attend the wedding and make a toast to her happiness. And say hello to her parents from me. Dear Mr. Blue, Our daughter is 9 months old and will only sleep in bed with us, her exhausted and sex-starved mom and dad. We are torn between the family-bed, attachment-parenting people who think it's all fine and healthy to let your child fling her limbs all over you and snore in your ear all night long, and the cry-it-out people who think that if kids can't get themselves to sleep in their own beds they'll grow up damaged. It seems cruel to send her off to her cold, dark room, and cruel to us to keep her with us. What would you do? Bleary Eyed Mom Dear Bleary, A 9-month-old child has no opinion in the matter and will have no memory of this period. If she grows up to be a writer, she won't mention in her memoir the pain she felt when she was torn from the family bed and thrown into a cold, dark room. Frankly, compared to the shock of leaving the uterus, this is not that bad. So I am in favor of the baby discovering her own crib and you and your husband having sex and then falling asleep. Do you still know how to do this? You rip his undershirt off and he makes a low guttural sound and tears your negligee from stem to stern and you fall upon each other moaning and groping and an hour later you lie on your backs exhausted, your naked bodies glistening with sweat. Meanwhile, your daughter sleeps, or she doesn't sleep, she mutters or she weeps a little, but this is not to be confused with actual suffering. The family-bed people are the same ditzy, de-sexed hippies who gave us coverall fashion and promoted bland cooking as high cuisine. The babies of these attachment parents will grow up sleeping with them in their yurts and when the babies are 16, they will turn on the parents with a vengeance and shriek and curse and play bass guitar and get swastika tattoos, while your child, the one who got sent to a cold, dark room, will become a cellist and turn out elegant watercolors and love you with a whole heart. Go figure. Dear Mr. Blue, I have just gotten engaged to a great woman who is everything I need in life. She helped me out of a big mess and I am forever grateful to her. The only thing is that she is a little heavy and not at all like all the starlets and models I run into in my work and social life. These girls are constantly coming on to me. I have not cheated on her yet and I do not plan to. What I do, though, is fantasize about other women when we are having sex. Can I possibly marry this girl when I am doing this during an engagement? Please throw some knowledge my way. Fantasy Man Dear Man, She's a great woman and she gave you a helping hand and you're forever grateful, but this is not enough to base a marriage on. I'm sorry. It's not her weight, it's what's in your heart. You don't have the requisite fervor, lust, whatever you want to call it. If, during your engagement, you are starting to fantasize about other women, you should call this off. Really. "I have not cheated on her yet" is not the note of giddy passion we're looking for at this point, sir. Release this great woman immediately and when starlets and models come on to you, seduce them one after the other, dozens of them, hundreds, and enjoy the pleasures of the flesh, and someday, propped up in your big circular bed with the vibrating mattress under the ceiling mirror, sipping a mineral water and waiting for your fourth starlet of the day to come tiptoeing into your room with the pink carpeted walls, you will say, "Thank you, Mr. Blue, for saving me from a life with Eleanor Roosevelt." Dear Mr. Blue, We are both 28. He wants to have five children, I don't want to have any. He just asked me to marry him. I love him dearly and cannot think of anyone I'd rather marry, but I don't think he'd be happy childless and I am unwilling to compromise with one or two children. Is this as hopeless as I think it is? Non-Breeder Dear Non-Breeder, Of course it's hopeless. Why do you ask? If you were going to London, why would you get on a plane to Dallas? Don't marry this guy. Find one who is child-unfriendly and marry him. Dear Mr. Blue, One of my closest friends told me last night that she doesn't want me to call her anymore. She was apologetic and says it's nothing I've said or done, but that she no longer feels comfortable having a close friendship with a married man, even though we've never been romantically attracted to one another. Earlier this year she confided to me some marital problems, and every couple of weeks we talked as she went through a difficult divorce. (My wife knew about this from the start, and was quite understanding about it.) I'm very hurt and a little angry, and I'll miss her a lot. It was wonderful for me to have a close relationship with a woman without an undercurrent of romantic intrigue or sexuality. So what is it about a married man having women for friends? Bewildered Dear Bewildered, You can only be friends with them what wants to be friends with you. She doesn't. I guess she felt that she was falling in love with you. Who knows? Give it up. Maybe she'll think better of it and want to be friends again in a few months. But friendships are perishable. And they go through periods of drought and dormancy. Let this one go. Dear Mr. Blue, My boyfriend has a former girlfriend who doesn't understand the word "no." He broke up with her last year, but they maintained casual contact, and when she found out he was dating me, she started coming to his house, biking on our route, calling him for advice about the pump, the furnace, the wiring, calling his mother. I told him that this was making me jumpy and he assured me he was only being civil. I want to issue an ultimatum, but that is not my style. My style is to move on and leave the past behind, but I am finding that he has contact with almost all his former loves and it bothers me. Am I worrying over nothing? Is this normal for him to send birthday cards to all his old girlfriends? I feel a big mess in the making. Distrustful Dear Distrustful, Your boyfriend is a nice guy who tries to avoid making women mad at him. I understand this really well. He needs years of professional help and a lot of pharmaceuticals. Or he needs to grow up a little and get a backbone. I mean, how many women's furnaces can a guy deal with? Obviously, he is mechanically inclined and willing to work for cheap, so when you join the ranks of his former loves, you'll probably be able to get good service too. Look at it that way. Dear Mr. Blue, I got an uncontested divorce last year, found a wonderful new boyfriend and am finally going to grad school. Life is good. But what should I do with my wedding dress? It's traditional to use fabric from a relative's dress for a ring pillow or something, but it seems weird to use part of my first wedding dress in a second wedding. It also seems like a "bad luck charm." Should I sell? Scrap it? Keep it around as a warning to future generations? Over-Dressed Dear O.D., Put the dress out of the house. It's a weight, a drag, a barnacle, and a person should divest herself of these encrustations and bestow the dress on a second-hand shop where some young beauty whose heart bursts with love and who is exactly your size will see it and rejoice in her good luck. This is so much better than you opening a closet and seeing it and getting a sour queasy feeling. And good for you to bounce out of that divorce and land on your feet walking forward in a straight line. Dear Mr. Blue, I'll be 27 next month, and I'm tired of having my heart broken. The older I get, the more disillusioned I am with men, and the more I think that true love is nothing more than a big fat compromise. I dated a man for four and a half years and we broke up three years ago over his drug problem. I couldn't take the heartbreak of watching someone destroy themselves. Since then he has straightened himself out for the most part. He will call me occasionally and tell me that he loves me and misses me, and the thought of dating him again just fills me with dread, but no more dread than the prospect of spending the rest of my life alone. Since we broke up, I have found a great job as a writer and had a few flirtations, some random drunken hookups, a handful of first dates and many, many unrequited crushes. I seem to specialize in finding unavailable men. I'm told that I'm bubbly and cute and fun and smart, and I look around at couples and just can't fathom how to make a connection with anyone. I feel desperately lonely, all the time. I just want to give up on dating altogether, because I don't think I can take much more disappointment. I meet men everywhere and they seem interested, then they never call. Will you give me the go-ahead to give up? Weary in Washington Dear Weary, Give up on what? On life? On having fun? Or just give up your anxiety about men? You could give that up in a heartbeat, same as you could stop drinking if it were wrecking your life. You look at yourself in the mirror every day and say, "Today is one more day without a man, so help me," and you'd seek out the company of friends who you feel comfortable with as your lone self, no man needed. And you do this day after day. Consider one possible reason for your woes with men. I don't know that this is it, but consider that your dread and disillusionment and desperate loneliness may be coming across loud and clear to the men you meet, and that they can see, underneath the bubbliness and cuteness and intelligence, this snarling Doberman of misery, and so the only men who venture near are those securely fastened to someone else. If so, the way to cure this misery is to give up the search, which is making you unhappy, and to throw yourself into your job, which gives you pleasure. Work can be a big comfort, and you can safely let your job take over a few empty corners of your life. You know? If they need you to stay late, stay late. Volunteer for the hard stuff. All the things that women with intertwined lives can't handle, you can. And you can be ambitious about moving up the ladder and running the mouse maze and getting the big chunks of cheese. And then one day when you've stopped thinking about dating, you'll hear your Doberman's collar jingle as she wags her tail at an approaching gentleman. Dear Mr. Blue, My girlfriend and I have been living together for two years, and now, tired of paying rent, we bought a house together. We moved in and right away I began to question the future of our relationship. The idea of such permanence has really given me the willies. We're great friends, our romance still has sparkle and everything is fantastic in the bedroom, and yet I can't shake this nagging doubt in the back of my mind. I can't tell if I'm concerned about our relationship or if I'm just afraid of commitment in general. Awake at Night Dear Awake, Calm down. Who's pressuring you to rent a tux and hire an organist? You're suffering from a form of buyer's regret. You plunk down all that money and mortgage yourself to the First Carnivorous Bank and you feel faint and think, What have I done, O Lord who didst cast the money-changers out of the temple? and you reach for the smelling salts. In your case you've extended this case of the vapors to cover your sweet girlfriend. (What have I done, O Lord who didst keep Thyself pure from women?) Get over it. Enjoy Tuesday, and then deal with Wednesday, and then Thursday, and then you live Friday, and after that, Lord willing, it's Saturday. Repeat this cycle over and over. Don't worry about the rest of your life, just keep your lawn mowed. Dear Mr. Blue, My mother is 73 and living here in the same city as I. My older sister moved in with her about four years ago and now my sister's son and his wife have moved in with them. This doesn't seem to be a temporary arrangement. My nephew is 30 and isn't looking for a job. His excuse for not working is that he is too brilliant. My younger sister is ready to start a holy war over this. She is suggesting we have a "family intervention." (The last time we tried this was 25 years ago when one of my other sisters was in high school and acting up big time.) I'm willing to wait out the situation, figuring that my nephew's wife will tire of living with her mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law. In the meantime, I thought I might make good use of my time by turning the saga into a prime-time soap opera. How do I locate a good agent? Getting Some Fun From Dysfunction Dear Getting, You call Mike Ovitz and tell him Mr. Blue says hi and that Mr. Blue thinks this is the next "Ryan's Landing." If he won't come to the phone, call up Mort Janklow in New York and tell him that you're calling from my office and that he left his sapphire cuff links in my beach house in East Hampton and that Bruce is bringing them in on Wednesday when he chauffeurs Mr. Pookie to his therapist. And then, when you have Mort on the line, tell him you've got this terrific idea. Meanwhile, you need to make it more terrific. Your mother needs to become a multimillionaire with amnesia issues, and your older sister a chain-smoking nympho attracted to men of the cloth, and the nephew an evil genius who is stockpiling weapons against an invasion by the U.N., and his wife a conniving gold-digger with a background in estate law, and your younger sister -- let's make her a devout Mennonite, just for contrast, OK? You got anyone else in your family? A closeted gay uncle, perhaps? An aunt with a helpless addiction to crème de cacao? And do you have a place in mind where you can go live when this series airs on Fox, sweetheart, like Barbados, maybe? salon.com | Nov. 23, 1999