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Hey, big spender | page 1, 2, 3, 4
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
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 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.
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