Mr. Blue is in New York, the return address of many letters in the past complaining of loneliness and heartache, and when you walk a few miles down Broadway from the Upper West Side to Times Square, you do see some forlorn people, the well-dressed kind walking alone and looking on the verge of tears, and the tattered kind, sitting on a bench next to their grocery cart full of treasures. Mr. Blue is not tempted to stop people on the street in New York and offer advice, though. Even when sitting in a cafe and overhearing a New Yorker tell her companion about the latest jerk she dated, Mr. Blue does not lean over and offer counseling.

It is a great city if you're in the right frame of mind, and if you're not, there are places that can put you there, like Bryant Park, on Sixth Avenue between 41st and 42nd, behind the Public Library. It is simply one of the most splendid outdoor spaces anywhere. People with business in midtown come and sit beside beautiful plantings of tulips and irises, and look across a plane of lush grass, in a box canyon of handsome buildings, and turn their pallid faces up to the sun. The sunny side of the park has the crowd, the shade side is practically deserted. It's a diverse crowd, lots of suits both male and female, lots of blue collars, a smattering of tourists, young punks, old coots, two or three disheveled people slumped on benches and talking to themselves, and a few people like Mr. Blue who talk to themselves but for professional reasons. There is a cafe under canvas on a plaza for them what wants it, but it's so much more relaxing and sumptuous to sit in the square and soak up sun amid the grandeurs of New York. A block away is the old New Yorker office where the old heroes toiled and Broadway is just to the west and north and the old RCA studio where all those great original-cast albums were made is on 44th and of course that literary hothouse, the two great reading rooms of the library. After an hour in Bryant Park, Mr. Blue is sorely tempted to tell his letter-writers, "My dear, you really ought to get outside more." A person can sit at a kitchen table and accuse himself of all sorts of failures and betrayals and work himself into a dark mood indeed, and a person can also go outdoors and sit in the park and take the sun and lean his head back and feel somehow lucky. Sometimes life is almost that simple.

A number of readers chided me for my advice to Heartbroken, the wife whose husband is profligate with money (including a monthly $500 marijuana tab), and I'm sure the readers are right. I told her to split up their finances so that he couldn't drag her down. The readers pointed out the obvious: $500 is a lot of money to spend on reefer every month. (I guess it's a lot, I don't know, I'm not active in the market.) "It seemed rather obvious to me that their problem was not about money, but rather her husband's drug addiction," wrote one reader. "Anybody who smokes that much dope has a big problem." Well put.

Another reader wrote: "As a former lover of a habitual pot-smoker, I can guess that money issues are not the cause of the friction; rather, the friction is the result of the pot habit. The money issues would cease to exist if the pot issue went away, and if Heartbroken stays in this relationship, she will continue to enable this person to medicate himself and be unavailable to her."

Another reader said: "I learned the hard way in a somewhat similar situation that one who uses marijuana on that scale is dependent on it, and it totally screws up how they relate to the world."

Dear Mr. Blue,

I'm 31, dating a guy of 32 for four months now. I am not really sure if it is serious or not. I often feel like just some skank he's out to bang. However, he has hinted that he'd like to spend more time with me or even move in together, and when I call him on the carpet for behavior I don't like, he listens and says that he'll try to do better. Sometimes there is improvement.

The behavior that disturbs me:

1) Saying "all women like to be knocked around a little." (He's since stopped saying this.)
2) Very rough physically, sometimes bruising me. (He has since been gentler as he's clued in that I don't like it.) This behavior has included kicking me in the behind when I'm putting on my shoes and "play-threatening" me with a belt.
3) Going through my pockets and wallets in front of me (because "It's fun!").
(4) Being very obvious about "girl-watching" when he's with me.
(5) Sometimes taking 24 hours or more to return my phone calls.

I have tried a couple of times to break things off with him, but I just can't seem to do it. Either I lose the nerve or he talks me out of it. I'm so afraid of being alone. I feel so incredibly lonely, all the time. A year ago, the one good guy who ever loved me decided he no longer wants me. I really don't think I'll ever again be treated as well as he treated me or be really loved again. So if that's the case I might as well stay where I am, it's as good as it gets. I feel so lost. The behavior I mentioned he has worked on so it's not as serious anymore -- but it's so hard to keep struggling. Oh, what to do, Mr. Blue? I want a new life.

Lonely

Dear Lonely,

I don't know what "very rough physically" means exactly, whether he's slugging you or kicking you or if it's a playful boot in the butt, but at worst it's grounds for a battering charge and at the very best it's boorish and idiotic, the behavior of an 8-year-old bully. It isn't something you beg a grown person to change; it shouldn't be there in the first place. I don't care if he's modified some things and stopped saying, "All women need to be knocked around." It's simply abysmal, period, and you are in such pain from the loss of your old love that you cannot bring yourself to stand up for yourself. But you must. It's your life. You can't let somebody kick you around and treat you this way. It isn't funny, it isn't anything, it's just sort of hopeless. The searching of your wallet -- deliberate humiliation. The ogling of other women. The coolness to your messages. Don't struggle with this. Don't accept it. Walk away from it. You can have a new life. The moment this idiot is out of the picture, life is going to look very new and a lot more fun.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am a 33-year-old woman engaged to a very sweet, dependable 30-year-old man. We've been together for five years, weathered some storms, and last December he asked me to marry him. I agreed, thinking it made sense, but now I feel I may not be ready. I love him dearly, but we don't connect on an intellectual level: He enjoys motorcycles, surfing and reruns of "The Simpsons," while I am more of a books-and-art-films type. He is also a bit, well, boyish.

To complicate matters, shortly after the proposal, a very attractive man at my fitness club became very friendly. We have been spending a good bit of time together, working out and running. Recently we went out to lunch and ended up kissing, and for the first time in years I felt real passion. The problem: He is married with two kids. While I know that a fling would be emotionally unsatisfying and immoral, I am very tempted. I find myself thinking about this man constantly, and am deeply disappointed when he cancels plans we have made. I feel depressed and very torn. Please help!

Anxious

Dear Anxious,

Here's a new storm for you to weather. Don't try to make headway. Lower sails and ride it out. The storm is inside you, in your heart, not caused by these men, and the $1.95 opinion here is that you're not in love with the sweet dependable man, but you can't bring yourself to break off with him, and you have grasped onto the great kisser as a crowbar to pry you loose. Sometimes we need drama to shake us loose of a life we're dissatisfied with, and this is your drama. The attractive married man, however, is using you in a dishonorable way, toying with you, playing a game, and why should you accept this? An affair with him can be worse than "emotionally unsatisfying" -- it can bum you out 10 ways from Tuesday and leave you saddened, ashamed and emotionally scorched. Nobody who cares about you would give you any other advice than: back up, quit the club, cut off all contact with the married man, put the marriage plans on hold and sit tight and let yourself calm down. If you have doubts about marrying the surfer, then listen to them. Don't let yourself be sold a marriage that you aren't wholehearted about.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am a guy, 24, who recently moved to Los Angeles with dreams of fortune and fame. Four years ago, I dated a wonderful girl back east who I still can't get out of my mind. We never got serious back then, I was too immature, but two months ago she told me that she is going to move here permanently. I have to try and make something happen between us; I will regret it forever if I don't. She is beautiful in every way, inside and out, but I have no idea how to go about doing this. I also don't want to make her move uncomfortable. I am her only friend here, and I don't want her to think that I'm trying to put the moves on her, even though I am. What is the best way for me to go about this? Should I bring it up before she gets here or should I wait? And finally, what is the best way for me to let her know how I feel without making her uncomfortable?

In Love

Dear In Love,

Help out with the move, be a pal, tote the boxes, help pick out the sofa, show her where to go to get the nice tableware cheap and invite her to an occasional lunch or dinner, perhaps a movie, and in the meantime, don't hurl yourself at her or proclaim your feelings. Let friendship segue gracefully into something else. She'll be able to sense some of what you feel for her, so don't rush her, don't make big gestures. Chances are, you're reading ahead in the script and she's still in the flashback on Page 5, so be cool. And then when you're ready, take her to the beach at sunset where it's the most natural inevitable thing to turn to each other and kiss -- a person can hear the music swell on the soundtrack and feel the camera come in for the close-up and it would take a hardened heart indeed not to do the right thing.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am in love with a wonderful man. He's a little older (52 to my 40), enjoys the same hobbies (sails, enjoys the outdoors, great food and wine), plays nice with my 15-year-old son, who also gets along very well with Mr. Wonderful's three teenage children. We spend lots of time together laughing and playing and enjoying life together. The problem? He's incapable of throwing stuff away. He collects newspapers, books, magazines, scraps, old mail and leaves it in messy piles in the bedroom, the family room, the kitchen on the stove, etc. It's a niggly sort of thing I know, but I am a neat freak and we can't resolve it. I've tried isolating the disaster, but it creeps out everywhere! I'm finding lately tension in our conversations about the house, the "stuff," and recently, I'm not relaxing during sex! Help! We've been together for less than a year, but we both want to marry and make it work. He says he'll try, but he hasn't, really. Am I just anal?

Surrounded

Dear Surrounded,

Even those of us who throw fistfuls of stuff away hourly find ourselves beleaguered by stuff. It simply accrues. I sympathize with your passion for clean surfaces, but there's a certain inevitability about flotsam accumulating in backwaters and perhaps one needs to make peace with it. Mail flows in, catalogs stack up, unread books multiply and it's tough to make them all disappear. You could certainly trade in this guy for a man with zero junk who eats from a paper plate while leaning over the sink so as not to dirty the kitchen, but would he have three teenage children and sail and laugh? If you work up a balance sheet on Old 52, I think most people would feel that the guy is operating in the black. But we're not taking a poll here, you're not them, you're you, and if junk on the counters makes you so tense that you can't enjoy sex, then maybe you need to do something freaky. Put the stuff in shopping bags and stick it in the basement. Give him his own room where he can wallow in papers. Give him two rooms. Three.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I've been with my significant other for about a year and a half. Recently, he told me he needs some space to figure himself out, and that right now he needs me as a friend. That's fine. My issue is this: He has decided to seek solace in a mutual friend (I've known her for six years and he and I met through her). I believe she is in love with him. I know she's manipulative and out for herself. I promised myself I would take a step back, but this week I've been a complete basket case. Is there any hope? Am I too much of a jealous and controlling girlfriend? Think I've lost him for good?

Utterly Lost

Dear Utterly,

This sounds like a wishy-washy breakup to me, and I'm sorry it's causing you grief. "I need some space to figure myself out" is a euphemism for goodness knows what, and why try to figure it out? It's his problem, and you simply have to take the man at his word. He vants to be alone, or be with the evil stepsister, and when a man vants to be alone, dollink, alone is what you should allow him to be. This week you're a basket case, and next week you'll feel sad and depleted, and the week after that you'll be sitting up and taking nourishment, and in a month you'll be back at the dance. Let him go.

Monsieur Bleu,

I'm engaged to a fabulous boy who knows my human frailties, but is willing to spend his life with me nonetheless. I adore him as well, but there's another love that refuses to budge. It's for a friend I've known for years, and while we dabbled briefly in flirtation, love Number Deux is the type whose true romance radar jams beyond a 30-mile radius. So while I'm secure in the fact that love Number Un is the man I should marry, would it bode unwell for me to let Deux know that he'll always haunt my heart? Or is all of this sounding like a bad "Ally McBeal" repeat already?

L'amour

Dear L'amour,

Uh-huh. OK. Whatever. But like, is your heart truly haunted by Deux? Or are we only being dramatic? And why make Deux miserable by blowing a kiss at him as you march down the aisle with Un? This is too farcical. Next thing you'll have guys hiding in closets while your husband dashes through the chateau waving a blunderbuss and the servants cower in the pantry. My dear girl, the beauty of passionate love is in the way it simplifies one's life. Believe it or not. Love is meant to bring order to our lives. (Stop tittering, you in the balcony.) To enter into marriage with a divided heart is to walk into chaos and unhappiness. And who is Ally McBeal? Never heard of him. Doesn't sound French to me.

Dear Mr. Blue,

Here I sit, a 34-year-old working on his 14th year of wedded bliss, married to a woman who I certainly consider a saint but who is a big fan of routine and comfortability and less interested in sex, heat and sensuality. Her list of good qualities is long, but I'm wondering if I should try adultery or hope that chastity will ennoble me? Is it wrong to want it all, or is it necessary to "settle" for the next best thing? And how do you tell someone they are sexually dysfunctional?

Perplexxxxed

Dear Perplexxxed,

This could be a deep-seated problem requiring years of therapy with people in white lab coats listening to both of you recount your childhoods, but let's assume it isn't and you and St. Immaculata are simply in a rut and aren't thinking about sex at the same time. She thinks about it while you're shaving and you think about it the rest of the time. I don't think you can tell your wife she is "dysfunctional" and expect her to react with anything but resentment and perhaps make a few remarks of her own. Much more fruitful, to my way of thinking, is to start dating her again, doing what you can to break the routine, and the classic method of doing this, of course, is the Journey, or Pilgrimage. (You're much too young to go on a cruise.) You choose an exciting destination, and a pleasant means of getting there, and a series of romantic inns en route, and there, among the potpourri dishes and the herb-scented candles, in dim light, you remove the mints from your pillows and climb into bed all warm and moist from your Jacuzzi and you let the old magic go to work. Adultery is a perilous choice, and for you, I don't recommend chastity. I recommend a nice hotel room.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I'm in a quandary. I'm 35, an editor/writer, love my work, and live in Boston, which I love and where I moved three years ago to get to know a man I met at a wedding in Vermont. He's a reporter, smart, kind, a good friend, but is afraid of commitment. We still live about an hour apart. Though I really love him, I can't get him to move forward on planning a wedding, home, family -- and there is a major lack of spark in our relationship. I feel really frustrated sexually.

Then when I was feeling really frustrated by all of this in February, I looked up an old flame on the Internet, a lawyer in D.C., incredibly smart and cute and sexy -- we met one night four years ago in New York, had dinner and then he kissed me and totally swept me off my feet; we necked in his car for two hours, and then when he didn't call me for three weeks I gave up on him and met the guy I'm with now.

Anyway, the lawyer says he still has thoughts about me too. He told me he just broke up with someone, hints that he wants to settle down and start a family in a year when his government job ends and says he loves the West. He is amazing -- our conversations completely turn me on, in a way I haven't been for four years. I really want to see him, but I fear he is going to dump me and of course I'm betraying my boyfriend. But part of me wants to take the leap, throw caution to the winds, fly to D.C. and let go of all my logic, just enjoy him and how he makes me feel. I'm scared I'll fall in love with him and mess up my life here, which is based on a real friendship. Yet this lawyer intrigues me. What do you advise? Is he really interested in me, or is he just toying with me?

Tempted

Dear Tempted,

He's really interested in seducing you, and by gosh the gentleman has done a good job of it. A lawyer who can get an editor to want to let go of her logic is quite a Casanova and obviously a heck of a good necker. Did you cry out in pleasure and rake his back with your fingernails? Four years later, you're still swept off your feet. But is he swept off his? Can you get the Learned Counsel to throw caution to the winds and fly up to Boston? Somehow I feel that you should be the home team and he be the visitor. Maybe this is just old-fashioned courtliness on my part, but why not set the bar a little higher? There's a Ritz hotel overlooking the Boston Public Garden and I'll bet they offer a fine weekend package. Send him the ad. Let him do the flying and reserve the suite and fall in love with you, and you enjoy him and then dump him. Unless of course you fall in love with him, in which case you can both go out West and start ranching in Wyoming. As for the reporter, his transmission is in neutral, he doesn't know what he wants. You've done everything but propose to him and he is waiting to see how he feels next year or the year after. He lives far enough away that he needs to make appointments to see you. Just close your appointment book for a few weeks.

Dear Mr. Blue,

On the surface, everything is fine in my life -- I'm in a prestigious Ph.D. program, have many friends and a loyal, devoted live-in boyfriend and even a dog. The problem? I am bored. I gave up a chance to write for a living so I could earn big bucks in the biotech industry, and now I regret it. My boyfriend is kind, supportive, affectionate, and yet I am intensely attracted to my lab buddy. He and I got drunk last weekend and admitted to mutual overwhelming desires to make love. Am I crazy to question my safe career choice and Milquetoast boyfriend? Or should I throw away everything I've worked for to feel some excitement in my life?

Restless

Dear Restless,

It must be spring at last if ladies in doctoral programs are getting drunk with their lab partners and thinking about getting out of science and into lit'rature. This couldn't have happened in February. When the arctic winds blew through the cracks, a loyal, devoted boyfriend and a kind, supportive dog looked pretty darned good to you, but now the flowers are in bloom and pheromones drift through the air and it's rutting season in the laboratory. And you're asking Mr. Blue for permission to get excited? Honey, I am no advocate of boredom. I only recommend that 1) you don't impulsively chuck a program you've invested time in and that you run this past some friends and an academic counselor before you come to a decision; and 2) be a pal and tell the live-in that he and the dog are now a couple and you are a single and then find a place to live that isn't your lab partner's. And then, my dear, you're free as the wind.