| ||||||
|
Arts & Entertainment  BooksComics Health & Body Media Mothers Who Think News People Politics2000 Technology - Free Software Project Travel & Food  Columnists
- - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - Also Today For a full list of today's Salon Books stories, go to the
Books home page. - - - - - - - - - - - - Search Salon - - - - - - - - - - - - Salon Columnists - - - - - - - - - - - - Recently in Salon Books Reviews Reviews Ivory Tower - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
Hurt and confused | page 1, 2, 3
My insides are churning. I am in love with two men. My boyfriend and I live together and
have a really wonderful relationship, save for his obsession with golf and his job that
requires long hours. I travel quite a bit for business, and on one of
these trips met a man online and we talked and flirted, which soon escalated into chatting and
e-mailing each other several times per day. We talked about meeting
each other and I felt a strong attachment growing for him, so I decided I should end it
before it went too far. I wrote him and explained to him that we should not continue as I
was committed to my boyfriend. He understood and we discontinued. I missed
him tremendously but knew I had done the right thing. About a month later, around
Christmastime, I sent him an electronic card, just to say hi and that I still thought about
him. He e-mailed me back, telling me how much he missed me, and that started everything
all over again. I knew where he worked and decided to surprise him one day by phoning
him. He was thrilled and that begot other phone calls. Now, I knew I
shouldn't be doing this, and I felt guilty about it, but I felt like I was
powerless to stop the flow of things. To make a long story short, we have been talking for more than a year, but
have yet to meet each other. He has dated many women during this time, but
he never felt a spark with any of them. We have gone through several
breakups, only to reunite after about a month of no contact. Each time we
stopped talking it became more painful for me, and each time we got back
together, I let myself love him a bit more. It probably seems unfathomable
that I can be in love with someone I have never met. I am a college-educated, professional woman, 30 years old, and up until now,
considered myself levelheaded. Now I have come to the end of my emotional
stores, and something has to be done. My boyfriend wants to get married, my
online boyfriend dreams of the day we will be happily together and I wish I
could just stop all this pain and confusion, but now no one escapes unharmed. I swear I love them both and I know this isn't fair to either of them. What
should I do? Love X 2 Dear Love X, Oh my. The things we do when there's too much free time. This is what
comes of a man getting all wrapped up in golf, if you ask me. In the three hours it takes to
chug around 18 holes, your true love can get herself entwined with another guy on the
Internet. What to do? Well, my gut feeling is that there must be a third guy out there who
you ought to work into this equation, maybe some old boyfriend, someone you went to high
school with, and you could use another medium to get involved with him, maybe sending
pictograms by fax. But probably you ought to straighten out this mess you're in. You're the
one paying the big emotional price, not the guys. They are each happy in their own little
worlds, your boyfriend correcting his slice and taking his gimmes, and Mr. Online feasting
off his fantasy of you as a goddess of pure delight. My gosh, the man must imagine you as a
combination of Winona Ryder, Katie Couric, Joyce Carol Oates and the late Amelia
Earhart, not to mention Helen of Troy and Mae West. You have a choice, dear. Either (1)
you close up your account with your server and go cold turkey on cyberlife and tell your
imaginary friend that it was a long and wonderful trip together but that it Ain't Real, or else
(2) you tell your boyfriend that you feel unsettled in your mind and heart and feel that you
need to be alone so you can figure out what you want at this point in your life. You don't
discuss this, you announce it, and you pack your stuff and move into a little studio
apartment, one of those places that comes furnished, with plates and silverware and a toaster
and a print of the Grand Tetons. And there you spend a week with your thoughts, and
consult your soul, and you make your next choice: whether to meet Mr. Online or not.
That's a separate issue. Good luck with it. And don't let this misery go on and on. Take action. And thanks for
having such an interesting problem. The rest of us struggle with the same old boring issues,
like Who Am I? and Why Don't People Flock To Me? and How Do I Get My Snippets
Published In Book Form?, but you, my dear, came up with a really original way to give
yourself grief. Dear Mr. Blue, I am a bisexual woman, but I tend to get along better with men. I'm presently getting to
know a guy whom I like a great deal. I want to be honest with him about my bisexuality, but
I'm nervous about scaring him off. I'm not interested in having a
relationship with a man and a woman at the same time; but should I tell my new beau
about this? If so, when and how? Walking on Eggshells 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 Walking, Wait until you know him better. Your sexuality is interesting, but the fact that you've slept with women is not the foundation of your very being and ethos. You make an announcement now, and it's like nailing up a quarantine notice. I would tell him about the husband you left in the motel in Nevada, the cult you lived in that supported itself by taking a tithe of the goods in chain stores, the fugitive warrant -- I'd tell him dozens of things before you get around to bisexuality. It's not that you're hiding it from him; you're simply letting this friendship find its way. If it blooms and grows, there will come a time when the two of you are lying on your backs in a dark room holding hands and are telling life stories and that's when you tell him. Dear Mr. Blue, I've been dating a man for a year now who seemed to be honest and upfront, and while neither of us is convinced that this is "it", we agreed to have a sexually exclusive relationship but are free to date others on a casual basis. I've been dating others, he has not. Or so I thought until last weekend. I was going to surprise him by sticking a greeting card in his dresser drawer and there in plain view was an open box of condoms. I am so confused. Do I tell him that I found them? Can I trust him per our agreement? I must admit that while I dated one man for a couple of months, I did start carrying condoms in my purse, just in case things developed further. Maybe that's what he's doing? But he says he's not dating. What do I do? All I want is the truth. There is no right or wrong here, unless he is hiding things from me. I feel like a 45-year-old teenager. In Confusion Dear In Confusion, Tell him you found them. Apologize for the invasion of privacy, tell him you need to discuss the terms of the relationship in plain candor. And be prepared to tell him your condom story. Dear Mr. Blue, I have a girlfriend of five years (I'm 24, she's 26) whose company I enjoy, whom I feel deeply connected to emotionally, who is warm and intelligent, and who is also very needy. Since the beginning of our relationship, I've longed for sex with other women and the adventure of a single life. I've never been that attracted to her physically. She talks about how she fears getting older with nothing but pets to keep her company. This thought breaks my heart. Also, it strikes me as a distinct possibility. For a long time, I've felt tension whether to leave or stay. There's been a melancholy undercurrent to my life for a long time because of this. I'm desperate to achieve some distance from her, but she truly does not have many people other than me whom she's close to. She mentioned a few weeks ago that she'd like to live with me when her schooling is over -- I'm in New York, she's a couple hours away -- and I, in the interest of emotional stability (hers and mine), did not dissent. She has seemed happier since. I, on the other hand, have been quite depressed, like there's this weight bearing down on me, and I'm not sure what to do about it. Do you think I should just break off with her now? Sad in New York Dear Sad, Yes. Do it swiftly, surely, mercifully. This relationship should have ended a few
years ago, in all likelihood. It has become an elaborate charade that you maintain at your
peril. Though your friend seems fragile, it's better for her to find some reality and put her
feet on it. A 26-year-old woman is much much too young to sit and brood aloud about
growing old with nobody but her kittycats: This is purely manipulative and you should
disregard it. It's a very bad sign. Pay attention to this melancholy of yours: It's due to your
feeling trapped. Steel yourself to the task, rehearse the words and then look her in the eye
and say them. Say that you care about her but you don't love her in the deepest sense and
you can't commit yourself to her and so it's best to stop. If you don't break up with her
now, before she maneuvers herself into your apartment, then you are in for a long spell of
sadness and grief. Don't go down that road. You're young and you need to get on with your
life and put this chapter behind you.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - Search Salon | |||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||
