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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
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 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.
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