Last week I told Saddened that people who caution their friends against a romance usually pay a price for doing so, and several readers wrote in to say that someone had cautioned them after they'd become engaged and that they had ended the engagement and were eternally grateful for the help. So there. Mr. Blue is always happy if his dark assessment of human nature turns out to be wrong.

Numerous blithe souls were in high dudgeon over my advice to the mother of the sweet 22-year-old boy living a highly subsidized life and spinning his wheels in college. The blithe souls felt I was harsh to suggest that the mother set some stricter limits and coax the boy to take the leap into adult life. I look back and don't find the advice harsh at all, but of course applying it can be difficult. It's no big deal to discipline a 2-year-old and require her to take our hand when we cross a street, but by the time a child is 22 and taller than you, it is awkward. The problem may be exacerbated by affluence: Most of us have witnessed that amiable stupidity of the children of the rich, a dim schmoozy aimless quality that we wouldn't wish on our kids. No need to be preachy about it and I don't hold myself up as any great shining example, but damn, it's great when your kids really take hold of their lives and you can be friends with them.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I'm 29 and love my husband, but he is a disaster financially. He makes more than I do. He's a spender; I'm a saver. He spends a large amount of money each month on marijuana, he wants to have vacations in Tahiti, et cetera, and he refuses to save up for them. I hate this. It's been going on for a year and a half, and most of our fights are about money. He refuses to see a counselor with me, believing "we should work through our problems on our own," and then he plays the role of my "therapist," interpreting my issues as expressions of my "selfishness" and "narrow-mindedness."

I don't see what's selfish or narrow-minded about asking him to not buy Tomb Raider 4 if he can't afford it and to quit spending about $500 a month on reefer, and at least match what I save in our shared account every month. He has gotten to where he inflicts long, relationship-analyzing conversations on our friends, and that's not fair to them. I'm almost to the point of starting to build up a divorce fund if he refuses to go to counseling again. Financially, I'm better off without him, and emotionally I feel insecure and alone in our relationship. I need him to be realistic about money if he's my partner. Please help.

Heartbroken

Dear Heartbroken,

Arguments about money are the meanest kind, and so destructive and awful. Separate your finances and try to save the marriage, is my suggestion. Don't screw around talking about money if you're constantly being misinterpreted and put down. Split the household expenses down the middle and put your savings into an individual account -- do what you need to do in order to stop talking about money. Don't discuss it, don't plead, don't argue, just take the subject off the table as soon as possible.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I'm a single, 47-year-old mother dating a man who is absolutely marvelous in so many ways. We share similar wits and are compatible in just about every area, but my children (12, 15 and 18) despise him, and the feeling, I'm afraid, is mutual and growing. I've tried keeping these two parts of my life separate but with little luck, and I'm growing tired of the animosity. Any suggestions?

Mom-in-the-Middle

Dear Mom,

You can't dump these kids in favor of a guy. God would not be in favor of this at all, and so you must dump the guy. I say that a man who hasn't the wit to get on the good side of your kids isn't worth your while. And a man so witless as to show his animosity to your kids is asking to be given the gate. Throw him to the dogs, air out the house and try again.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am 27 and have a good job in New York. My parents are well-off financially, and still pay half of my exorbitant rent. They have always expected me to go to graduate school, and now I've been accepted into the best speech pathology program in the country, but I really do not want to go back to being completely dependent on my very controlling and unpleasant (albeit generous) father. I want to be free, but I never seem to feel that way as long as Daddy bankrolls my life. I do not feel passionate about speech pathology, and I really want to cut the cord and become a real adult and figure out what I want. Am I being stupid? Am I foolish not to take my father up on his offer?

Daddy's Girl

Dear Daddy's Girl,

Write your daddy a letter and thank him for his generosity to you and tell him you've decided against a career in speech pathology. Tell him this in a definite way that does not invite further discussion. And then start looking into job possibilities in a smaller city where the rent is less exorbitant. You owe it to yourself and to Dad to get off on your own and surely you'll find him less controlling and unpleasant when you do.

Dear Mr. Blue,

Our 25-year-old daughter has informed my wife and me that she thinks she is inclined to be a lesbian. In fact, she has been involved with a woman twice her age who we think is probably a predator. We really aren't sure how to process all this in our heads, and we are struggling to find a way to respond appropriately to our daughter's struggles. We have a very good relationship with her, but it still feels like a death in the family. How do we help her and ourselves?

Concerned Parents

Dear Concerned,

It's an honor to have your daughter's trust and no doubt you are worthy of it and you'll grow even closer to her than before. It's the truth that parents tend to be closer to the kids who are struggling than to the kids who sail through life downwind. This kid needs you to help her keep her bearings. It isn't a death in the family, and don't talk like that. A death involves sitting around in a puke-green waiting room and eating food out of vending machines and enduring other people's sympathy and feeling a bleakness of spirit that goes on and on and on. With a lesbian, you may have to put up with a lot of women's soccer posters and power tools and a penchant for training shoes and hiking shorts and chopped hair, but it's not anything like death. It's not even like a sprained ankle.

Dear Mr. Blue,

My boyfriend and I are very happy together after about a year, and about three months ago we discussed marriage very briefly and decided to "see where things go." We're both around 30. I don't want to be pushy, but how long should I wait before bringing up the topic again? I want to marry this man and spend the rest of my life with him. He, on the other hand, likes the freedom of being single (though he seemed interested in the possibility of marriage), and I think he is scared of having children and sacrificing his freedom. I'd like kids, but if we didn't, that's OK too. I think we need to decide at some point whether to get married or go our separate ways. I'm very happy in this relationship, but these thoughts keep lingering in the back (and sometimes more in the front) of my mind.

Happy, but Confused

Dear Happy B.C.,

Back in the old days when Mr. Blue was young, young people leaped into marriage, propelled by nuclear hormones. You married so you could have sex, simple as that. And once you married, you sought to make the best of the situation, and in a great many cases, this turned out rather well, considering. Nowadays, young people get to enjoy sex first and then they have endless discussions about marriage and torture themselves over whether it's really really really the right thing or whether there's a Mr. Better out there somewhere. Endless shopping, where once we had the explosive impulse purchase. My advice is, See where it goes. You're happy together and that's good and let some more time pass and see what clues you pick up about the relationship. Marriage is not some airless theoretical question: Either you feel the powerful mutual urge to marry or you go along as sexual partners. I don't recommend living with someone who isn't committed to you, though. You get the drawbacks of marriage and miss the advantages of singletude.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I ran wild and free in my teens and 20s before reluctantly settling down at 27 with a guy I wasn't in love with, but he was cute, safe and mad about me. And then when I was 40, Mr. Ka-pow came along, and I shed the old relationship and embraced, for the first time in my life, full-scale romance, mind-blowing sex and a dynamic kinship like no other. After nearly two years, he abruptly dumped me for someone else, saying we were "too right, too alike" and that he wanted more "tension." I was devastated and confused. Four months later I'm still frozen. Friends keep advising me to just pick someone up and get it over with and I'll gain back some of my old confidence. What do you think? Should I wait it out until I feel it's right or just go for it? Life IS too short, right?

Wavering

Dear Wavery,

Why go for it? You've already gone for it and it broke your heart. Maybe you should take this low spell as a chance to reflect on matters. Your friends' suggestion seems vaguely insulting, as if you're an old whore at heart and only need a new trick to make you happy. Life gives us some opportunities to get to know who we are and maybe this is yours. No doubt you're attractive and fun to be with and could pick someone up in 10 minutes, but why not give it a break, put your old confidence aside and take some long solitary walks across the moors?

Dear Mr. Blue,

I'm a 27-year-old driving himself to distraction with indecisive twitterpation. Recently I met a wonderful woman, who is funny, intelligent, beautiful, a computer geek, who seems to enjoy my company and flirts with me and we've spent a few afternoons together just hanging out, and I find her quite attractive and would like to broach the topic of becoming something more than friends. But I am utterly confounded on how to do that without sounding presumptuous and ruining the friendship we have. Our mutual friends all think that she's interested and just waiting for me to broach the topic. What should I do, Mr. Blue?

Twitterpated Twink

Dear T.T.,

You find a moment when the two of you are alone and feel close and there is a sweet lull in the conversation, and you say, "I think I may be falling in love with you." It's sweet, not too stupid, not over the top, and it gives her room to murmur something vaguely welcoming, or shrink back in disgust and say, "You try to touch me, you're in big trouble, buster." And if she says that, then you feign surprise and pretend you were joking.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I'm 24, he's 32. I'm English, he's Chilean, we live and work in Beijing. We've been living together for a year and I love him so much it hurts. He's beautiful like sculpture and he gives me a feeling close to joy. He is affectionate, but I see panic in his eyes if I talk about "us" in the future tense. We will both leave China in less than a year. He refuses to make any definite plans. He has an ex-sweetheart and three kids in Chile and he says he cannot make any definite commitment with me until he has returned to Chile, and seen his children (one of which he has never seen) and "sorted himself out." He says love takes time and he needs my patience. In the meantime I ache with love for this man. Do I keep waiting? Am I being unreasonable? Or am I just gonna lose him in the long run anyway?

L.

Dear L.,

You're in a beautiful romance and it's temporary, like life itself, and don't waste any of the joyful present worrying about the uncertain future. I know this sounds like a second-rate fortune cookie, but it's true. Maybe the romance will have a second act, and maybe not, but that is utterly out of your hands, dear, and it's far too complicated to solve right now, so don't do a thing about the future except to make the plans that are sensible for you and let him do what he must do. He is being honest with you, and be grateful for that. And enjoy the romance to the fullest and when the lights come up and it's time to go back to England, kiss him, turn and walk toward the door and don't look back.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am a 26-year-old guy in a relationship for three years with a man a few years older. I hate my job and want to realize my dream of taking a trip around the world, spending a year, staying in cheap hotels, eating peculiar food, getting lost in ancient cities and being bitten by unusual bugs. I don't mind quitting my job and I can save up the money; the problem is my boyfriend. He is reluctant to take a year out of his life when he should be building his career -- sometimes he wants to come with me, and then he doesn't -- and meanwhile, my plans are on hold, waiting for him to make up his mind. I am afraid that if I go without him, it will be the end of our relationship, but I am equally afraid that if I don't go at all, I will regret it for the rest of my life. What can I do?

Traveler

Dear Traveler,

You're at the absolute perfect point in your life to do this and you should. A person needs to give himself some large experiences. If someday you find yourself stuck in a bad job again, at least you can summon up memories of your Atlantic passage on the freighter, your bus trip across Turkey, your month in India, the little hotel in Alice Springs, the week in Sydney and so forth. And when you do it at the age of 26, it's indelible. Don't let the relationship hold you back. Plan the trip, set a date, give your boyfriend plenty of notice so he can come along if he wishes. And then go. With him or without him. All of us old people who spent our 20s building our careers wish you Godspeed.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I was a poor starving writer who, in a moment of desperation, took a job with a start-up Internet company. Now, just a few years later, I'm richer than my wildest dreams. Poor me, right? Most of my friends are of the starving artist variety, and when we dine out, I'd like to pick up the check, remembering all too well what it was like to live under the yoke of money worries. Is there a graceful way for me to pay the tab without acting like Mr. Big Shot?

Lucky One

Dear Mr. Lucky One,

You can pick up any check you like and probably people will resent it and why not? If they're really your friends, then go to the joints where they dine out and where the check is small and it doesn't matter who pays, and skip the ritzy cafes where the nouveau riche feast on the $18 grilled cheese sandwich and the $32 chili. You can take them to a fancy place and pick up the tab if a Big Occasion warrants it -- say, for your pre-wedding dinner, for the christening of your child, for the publication of your first book ("Call Me Mr. Big Shot") or for the night before you are hanged. But check the NASDAQ first. Those wild dreams may not have quite come true yet.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am friends with a wild, fun woman with whom I work, and we have both recently found ourselves single. So she and I are going out regularly, drinking scotch, meeting various men and sometimes "staking claims" on certain men that each of us fancies in particular. I have found myself thinking a lot about one man that she has chosen for herself. He and I flirted a lot when we were all hanging out, and I know that she isn't terribly serious about him, but I somehow feel that to pursue anything would be to betray the girl code. What do you think?

Hesitant

Dear Hesitant,

Your letter is terribly informative and confirms what we guys have always imagined, that romance is no accident, that women get together and conduct a draft and divvy up the available talent and the next day a guy looks up and a woman is walking across the room and smiling at him. This is why so many guys don't bother to buy flowers or host candlelit dinners or declare their love; they know it's all been prearranged, that a single guy is simply waiting for consignment. As for your question, my dear, you should take your guilty hesitance to mean that it's wrong to pursue him. Your conscience is talking to you, and Mr. Blue doesn't care to get between you and your conscience.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I'm 26 and living in Manhattan, which I love -- love my work as a freelance editor and writer, love my friends, love the city -- and by now I can't imagine living anywhere else. But I haven't had a serious relationship since I moved here five years ago. I'm not horribly depressed about it right this instant, but it makes me wonder what is it about New York that does this to us? All of my non-New York friends (ALL of them) are in love and contemplating marriage. Have I become too self-absorbed and career-involved? Or am I just too contented? I wouldn't mind being an old lady in New York and going to noon concerts at Lincoln Center. But I'd rather go to those concerts with my old husband. What are your thoughts on the conjunction of New York and romance?

Planning Ahead

Dear Planning,

You read Mr. Blue weekly and you still want to have a serious relationship?? Dear girl, enjoy the pleasures of singleness for a while. Walk around the corner to the deli on Saturday morning and get your bagel and coffee and sit and read the paper and plan your day. Go to Lincoln Square cinema for the early matinee of that Bengali love epic you hanker to see and roller-blade through Central Park and shop at Bergdorf's and look at the pictures at MOMA and be grateful for the freedom of movement, the chance to enjoy gallivanting around town without having to explain to some tall literal-minded person exactly why you're doing what you're doing. New York is a city that rewards impulse. You head out on foot, following your nose, and you see odd people leading theatrical lives in public and quirky bookstores to browse in and on a sunny day when you're young and unencumbered, it's almost too good to be true. You don't sound self-absorbed to me. You sound like you're on a roll.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I'm 40 and have been with the same guy for 7 years. I love him deeply and he wants to marry me, but I've been avoiding this because I can't reconcile to being poor. I get up early, work hard at my office job, pay my taxes, keep my car insurance current and feed my little IRA. He is an actor in a Shakespearean rep company: poor, lucky to be working at all, nocturnal, no insurance or driver's license (though he does drive), smokes dope, is cranky and his social skills are ragged. All of my friends and acquaintances are health-conscious upper-middle-class suburban people and are uncomfortable around him, and we are never invited anywhere as a couple. His friends are much kinder to us. But it's hard on my brain to play tennis with my friends one day and sit in our tiny apartment with his friends that night.

I can't picture us married, but I can't imagine being with anyone else, either. He's a financial disaster but a great person --- smart and funny, kind, thoughtful, and we still have fun, go on dates, enjoy the same things and love to talk. But the divided life scares me: the soccer mom world of my friends on one side and the Bohemian Theatricals on the other. What to do?

Stage Door Jane

Dear Jane,

What to do? You love him and he's good company so you stick with him, I guess. But you're right to dread poverty. The bohemian life is a hard life. You can be snide about suburban soccer moms all you like and it doesn't change the fact that a life of bohemian poverty starts to get very very thin in a person's 40s. And in your 50s it really starts to stink. You see old impoverished actors and unpublished writers and failed rock 'n' rollers hit 50 and face the facts and it isn't one bit pretty. The facts are: They loved the way of life and the righteous feeling and professionally they weren't that good. Just because you stay up late and smoke dope and are cranky and don't have insurance doesn't mean you're a great actor. And so you face a midlife crisis of large proportions. Either you find a dignified way to change your life or you become one of those legendary wrecks whom people admire from afar and who are sheer hell to be around. I know artists, dear friends of mine, who wearied of the boredom and drudgery and hard work of being poor and who went off to 9-to-5 jobs and felt rejuvenated by them and the sense of order and sociability that they give. And I know artists who sank deeper and deeper into despair. It's a hard life and there's not much you can do to lighten it. But don't let yourself slip into the role of patron and banker and house mother and apologist: He's grown-up and you can look him in the eye and negotiate terms. And if the bugger can't learn to be charming to your friends, this is a problem.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I recently stopped denying to myself my romantic interest in a dear friend of mine and told her about it. She said she was not at the same point I was but that she did not rule out the possibility that her feelings could change. What on earth does that mean and how should I proceed?

Dazed & Confused

Dear D&C,

She was dazed and confused by your big swoop at her and she fended you off while winking at you. The ball is now in her court. You can only play your side of the net, she has to play hers. You can't manage a romance; you can only hurl a few rosebuds her way and, of course, write her the occasional sonnet, and now and then you could stand under her window with your mandolin and sing her some Renaissance air or other. And if she doesn't return the ball, then look around for someone who can.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am a successful, attractive, single 30-year-old woman with lots of friends and interests, but I find myself uninterested in dating men. I'm not a lesbian, I like men and have lots of male friends who I like to spend time with, but I just can't work up any passion or physical attraction for them. Five years ago, I left my live-in boyfriend, and since then, I have not been able to concentrate on a man long enough to have a meaningful relationship. I spent my late 20s traveling the world, working abroad, having brief affairs, and now I'm trying to settle down and I would like to learn how to love a man long-term. I don't have an exceptionally traumatic past, so I can't figure out why I'm so reluctant to get serious with a man. I date them a couple of times and get as far as a kiss and then lose interest, forget to call and break things off. I don't want to end up alone, having missed out on one of the great joys in life. What can I do to open my heart a little more?

Distracted Dame

Dear Distracted,

Sorry, but I don't see the problem. You were busy in your 20s and now you're trying to settle down. So settle. But a person doesn't open her heart as an act of will, out of principle; she opens it to a specific someone, and you haven't found the someone yet. You're 30. To me, a guy in the gathering shadows of the twilight of life, you seem to have time on your side. Enjoy yourself.