Ciao Mr. Blue,

I am married and very happily so. My husband and I have had many ups and downs and love each other very much. The problem is my in-laws. I come from a very warm and affectionate Italian family, and when my husband visits it is always fun and rowdy. His relatives never seem interested in us, although we were always trying to tell them what was going on in our lives whenever we got the chance. It got to a point where they were actually hostile and rude, accusing me of not caring about their family, though I am always friendly and supportive. No one calls to see how we are doing. When we go out with his family, no one takes any interest in me, and I'm tired of trying to win approval. Invitations to visit our house are turned down politely, but hastily. My husband is disappointed and I am confused; as far as we know, I haven't done anything to offend his family. What should I do?

A Roman Expatriate

Dear Expat,

What grim miseries a cold family can inflict and what can one do indeed? People's attitudes get dug in and the poor sister-in-law is cast in the role of evil alien or human furniture and sits in the corner wearing a wan smile and it's so unfair. When you're treated unjustly, the first rule is: Let it be their problem, don't let it cow you or sour you or give you conniptions. Three suggestions. 1) Try to get to know some in-laws individually rather than taking on the whole clan. The women are the social arbiters, I'll bet, so get to know a couple of them. People often behave badly in groups but warm up when culled from the herd. 2) Give the in-laws an invitation they can't turn down -- say, your husband's birthday -- and get them inside your house. Very important. You be the host and kill them with kindness. 3) Don't discuss this situation with your husband. It'll only cause grief and become a major issue and lead to dissension. Speak well of his family to him, even if you have to search hard for things to say.

And remember, my dear, that you have the ultimate advantage: You will be the mother of their grandchildren. This is the ace in the hole. If they don't care enough to make nice with you then, they're not worth worrying about.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am 25, married to a wonderful man who adores me and whom I love with most of my heart. I recently got back in touch with a man I was engaged to marry years ago. He ended up marrying my best friend. We talk nightly and agree that we are both still in love with each other. He planned to come visit me secretly, which I canceled at the last minute, wanting to be faithful to my husband, but I just can't let him go. I think about him constantly and feel like I must tell my husband what's going on. I believe my problem is guilt. However, nothing has happened. What should I do?

Confused

Dear Confused,

This is destructive behavior on the face of it, the getting back in touch and the talking nightly and the toying with the idea of a secret meeting, and if you're a rational person, you stop doing it. You don't tell your husband about it, and you make sure there's nothing to tell him about. The road you're on leads to Miseryville, and if you don't want to go there, get off it. The happiness in marriage is the happiness of the whole heart, the undivided love. You can find this if you hang up on the ex-fianci.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I'm 46, have two teenage children, have never been married. I have a history of relationships that didn't work out, with men who were either unstable or unavailable. Now, I have met a really great guy. And we've been together for only a couple of months. However, I'm full of fears that it won't work out. He is separated, filing for his divorce after 30 years of marriage and has this major fear of getting stuck in another bad relationship. He wants to take his sweet time and I feel like my time is running out. I'd like to settle down. How do I know if I am wasting my time? I have this fear that he is using me for sex and to find himself. I have already found myself. I know who I am and what I want. How long should I wait? And am I a hopeless fool?

Scared and Lonely

Dear Scared and Lonely,

Two months is barely time to learn how he likes his coffee in the morning and whether he starts with the sports page, the comics or the stock prices. He is still figuring out what kind of jokes make you laugh and how much you want him, to talk about his marriage. I know you don't want to hear me say this, but it's all one can say: Be patient. Make the time as sweet as possible, focus on work and the kids, enjoy the blooming romance, don't overwater. Don't rush him, don't study him, don't initiate deep discussions about the future, don't keep asking, "Are we almost there yet?" You'll get there. Or the car will break down. Who knows? Enjoy the spring, the summer, the fall, and maybe next winter you can revisit this subject.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am a woman in her early 30s who is at odds with her life. Work is great, and I just moved to an amazing new apartment. But I have been dating someone for three years who keeps saying he wants to be with me, but has made no moves in that direction. I have an ex, with whom I am still friends, whom I have never gotten over. And lately I have men expressing interest in me. I want to marry and have a family, but I cannot for the life of me decide what to do. I told Mr. Current I was not happy and felt like I was running in place, and he said that if I wanted to break up, I'd have to do it myself, because he refused to.

At Sea

Dear At Sea,

If a woman I was dating referred to me as Mr. Current, I'd know that it's all over and time to move on. A relationship such as this can be a convenience, I suppose, like take-out food, but for three years? Why make it four? It shouldn't take grown people three years to figure out whether they're crazy about each other or not. He's not. Neither are you.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I grew up in a house of free-thinkers, a loud, messy household where you had to shout to be heard over the bustle of people and animals and laughter. I have a boyfriend whom I desperately love, but he recently asked me to marry him and, frankly, I'm dismayed at my in-laws. They're very, very normal. They jog. They write thank-you notes and live in suburbia and have dinner parties. They smile serenely and talk about the weather. We are from completely different worlds. Am I just immature?

Engaged and Worried

Dear Engaged,

This will be a good foreign-exchange experience for you, dear, and what you may discover is what travelers have been discovering for centuries, that our preconceptions of people are often wrong. Middle-class manners often conceal thoughtful, original and witty people who choose not to wave their individuality in your face, but who possess it nonetheless. (And some of the most shallow, hidebound and thin-skinned people I've known have thought of themselves as crazy iconoclasts.) What dismays you about the thought of someone writing a thank- you note? Or the fact that outside a city there are clusters of smaller communities economically dependent on the city but politically separate? Or the thought that people invite other people over for dinner? You needn't stifle your free-thinking there, you simply learn not to shout. Speak softly and don't chew with your mouth open.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am 33, an artist and sailor, with a wonderful wife and beautiful young children, and I want to sail our vessel straight out of harbor and live a free life, but I'm trapped in a long-established family business and find it hard to escape. I have enough dough, I have the resources to make a living in just about any civilized port and I have the right vessel. I have detested the family business since childhood and feel I was manipulated into joining it, and if I left now, I'd risk being ostracized. I want my dad to pat me on the back and tell me how much of a help I have been, hand me a big-ass check and wish me luck. Life is not a dress rehearsal. What to do?

Let My People Go!

Dear Let,

Sounds like a plan to me, and the only question is whether to accomplish it more responsibly or less responsibly. More responsibly takes longer, but minimizes the long-term pain and guilt. Family businesses are tight and complicated arrangements, as you know, and you're undoubtedly a crucial cog and not easily replaced, and your overnight departure would cause real suffering, but with two years' notice, the family might be able to weather things. You drop the bomb as soon as possible -- announce that you're leaving -- and get the shock and anger over with, but with a departure date far enough in the future so that they can recover. Don't bring up your feelings about the business, unless you're pressed hard. Try and keep a smiling face on it. And don't touch the issue of your being manipulated in the past. Look to the future.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am a 21-year-old woman unlucky in love. Disastrous, actually. I haven't had any kind of romantic relationship since little Billy passed me a note in the seventh grade. I believe myself to be somewhat attractive, funny and intelligent. I don't have large quantities of emotional baggage or "issues"; I am passionate about my work, art, writing, etc., but I seem to have the sex appeal of a nun. I talk and flirt, but this never goes beyond a kind of friendly banter. I get the standard leers from aging drunks, but I do have my pride. What is the message I'm sending? Help me, Mr. Blue, or else I really will have to go off and join a convent.

Ophelia in California

Dear Ophelia,

The word "somewhat" leaps out here, a telling lack of confidence for a young woman, and somehow we need to get you to remove that qualifier and move up to Attractive and thence to Beauteous & Fair. Everyone gets in a rut appearance-wise sometimes and needs to break out and do something different. Decide you're going to change your hairstyle and go to a real stylist to have it done, someone who takes hair Very Seriously, not Bob's Butcher Shop. Then you go to the makeup counter of a good department store and get a makeover. (If you don't like it, wash it off and start over.) And then you get one of the store's personal shoppers to help you pick out some clothes. You say, "I want to spend $300 and get a classy pile of stuff that can be combined in various permutations." ("Permutations" is a good word to toss into almost any conversation.) And off she runs and gathers up thousands of things in her skinny arms and brings them to you in the dressing room and you dress and undress for the next couple hours and maybe you hit on something that makes you feel terrific. You know it when you find it. The aim is not to make you a new person unrecognizable to your own mother, but simply give you a loose, light, jazzy feeling that makes you glad to be in the company of others. We all want this. Mr. Blue is stuck in the navy-blue suit, white shirt and black shoes rut, but he is an old man. You're young and cool. Shed the blues and have a great summer.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I'm 26 and have dated the same girl for eight years. She is the only girl I've ever dated. We are best friends, but I am not physically attracted to her. I've been too weak to end the relationship, and now the pressure to get married has become intense. I'm not sure whether to get married or leave her. I've never experienced passion, and I can't help but feel that I'm missing out on life. She would be a good companion and mother. Breaking up with her after all this time would destroy her. Should I be selfish and look for the girl of my dreams, or should I settle for the passionless stability of a life with her?

Troubled

Dear Troubled,

Whatever happened between you in the past eight years was the work of both of you, not you alone, and if you've been too weak to end things, then she's been too needy, or too passive. You can't marry someone for whom you feel no physical attraction; it would be dishonest and take you down a path of misery and loneliness that is unthinkable. Get free of this situation so you can think clearly. Write her a letter and tell her you're in the midst of a personal spiritual crisis that only you can deal with and you need to be alone for a while. Do this right away. If she is concerned, fine, but you don't want to discuss it. Tell her you need to get a clearer fix on your life, that you feel you've been drifting, that you don't want to find yourself still adrift when you hit 30. That's as much as you need to say about this. Anyone on God's green earth is entitled to some time alone. Take your time, and see how you feel. If you decide to break up, don't worry about it "destroying" her. It won't. And if she is that fragile, then there is no hope of having a real relationship with her in the first place.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I'm 34, educated, a woman starting a new career with good prospects. But my personal life is a mess. I don't seem to have a great talent for making friends, and my long-term friends are scattered around the globe. I had a short failed marriage, and no romance to speak of for several years now. I've taken up pottery, learned to play guitar and I'm still alone -- no romance, and few friends. Why? How do I figure it out? I feel I'm wasting the best years of my life. Any advice?

Lonesome

Dear Lonesome,

Where are the old-time matchmakers when you need one? This situation calls for kind people to invite you to dinner parties, introduce you around, let you shine, let you enjoy the talk, the jokes, the arguments over politics, the b.s., the flapdoodle and hokum, the give and take around the dinner table. Talk is where friendship and romance start, and if you've been off by yourself, feeling lonely, strumming your old guitar, throwing your pots, then maybe you need to get back in the conversational pond and splash around. And if nobody is inviting you to their soiree, then make your own and invite people from work. Loneliness is a bad habit. I suffer from it, so do most people from time to time, and the great remedy is the rambunctious company of people you like to talk to.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am a freelance journalist who is finding it harder and harder to dig up work in this town, and I think it's because I've gotten a reputation (largely unfounded) of being "difficult." There's never a complaint about the quality of my work. In fact, there's a lot of praise for it. And most of the time I'm pliable as a kitten. But I've had a few fallings-out with prominent editors about town (and the media circle here is tiny and incestous) about their mistreatment of me or my copy, and now I find myself blacklisted. Friends of mine have confirmed this. I'm thinking of moving to another city and getting a full-time job, maybe in journalism, maybe not. Is that cowardly? What's the right way to deal with this?

Pariah

Dear Pariah,

It isn't cowardly to walk away from trouble that you can't do a thing about. You sense a chill among the bosses and you think you know why they're shutting you out -- because you were impertinent and talked back -- and this is nothing you can fight. It's a tar baby. So you walk away and use your sense of being wronged to goad you to do better things. And then one day you write a novel about journalism in Podunk and you kneecap them, one after the other.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am a 28-year-old woman, a reporter at a small-town paper that seems far, far removed from true journalism. I commute over 100 miles each day from a larger city where I live in an attempt to retain my sanity, but it isn't going very well. My one real attempt to be hired on at a larger newspaper failed, and I am terrified to apply for anything else because I can't face the prospect of more rejection in my life. I have never had a very active social life -- a few friends who are peeling away from me and one brief sexual relationship four years ago, though I have no idea what was different then and no reason to believe it could ever happen again.

I am seeing a therapist and psychiatrist, but very little progress has been made. I'm terrified of failure. The main thing that has stood between me and suicide all these years has been a paralyzing fear of death, plus the guilt involved with being the only child of parents who didn't do anything obvious to screw me up. Is there anything, anything I can do?

Suicidal

Dear Suicidal,

Three things to do. The suicidal thoughts need to be made absolutely clear to your therapists. (I assume you trust them and are seeing enough of them, that you're not caught in one of these hellish HMOs with the terrible rules cooked up by accountants.) You're walking through the dark over rough terrain and you need a steady hand. The main cause of suicide is depression, which is treatable. A dear friend of mine killed herself 13 years ago and I still miss her and think about her with acute pain almost every day and wish I had intervened at one point when I had a brief glimpse into how she was suffering. Second, you need to keep in contact with your family and your closest friends. Let them know you're going through a rough patch and make a point of talking to a human being at least twice every day who is close to you. It's important not to be alone. Third, write a detailed account of what you're going through so that you can read it someday and be grateful for having weathered the storm.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am a single, 29-year-old professional woman in Philadelphia, where I have lived most of my life. I manage to make a living, but I am feeling unfulfilled and restless. My family is wonderful, but I desperately want a rewarding career, a marriage and children of my own. Nothing in my life right now is exactly what I want. What I truly believe I want is to move to California. I love my family and would miss them terribly if I moved, but I feel the desire to strike out on my own and build a new life for myself. I am afraid of moving far away and feeling lonely in an unfamiliar place, but my greatest fear is of getting trapped into staying here forever -- alone, unfulfilled, longing for a life I could have had if only I had taken a risk.

Is it unwise to think of leaving what is familiar and safe (and unrewarding) to start over again, more or less from scratch? Maybe it's already too late. Am I brave or insane?

California Dreaming

Dear C.D.,

Hey, it's America, kiddo, and this is the American saga in a nutshell. You feel dissatisfied one place, you pick up your marbles and move to some shining city on a hill. You get a jolt from it. Big drama. A new start. Sometimes it's cathartic: You get away from the place where you were schlumping around feeling sorry for yourself and arrive in Zion and lo and behold, your schlumpiness and self-pity are reduced 20 or 30 or 40 percent. You put away the sad rags and put on the glad rags. Of course you'll be lonely in California, but it will be a thrilling loneliness. Take it as an adventure.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am 25 years old, attractive and smart, living with an older man whom I love. Here's the problem: Every month or so we talk about breaking up. We can't seem to make up our minds as to whether we should be together. We love each other but sometimes we want the freedom of being single and we feel insecure about our relationship. We just can't make up our minds. Does this mean we're both afraid of commitment?

Confused

Dear Confused,

You shouldn't be living together if you keep talking about breaking up. Maybe you want some other arrangement. Maybe you want to go back to dating. Maybe you just want to be friends. But this conversation is a broken record. Change the person you're conversing with. Get a new person with whom the subject never comes up.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am a 26-year-old woman in a long-term monogamous relationship with a man who is charming and gorgeous. He is also a procrastinator with no discernible social skills. We have agreed on exclusivity with one another, but I am naturally polyamorous. I am bisexual and am attracted to my best friend, and although I refuse to act upon my urges, the urges themselves bother me. I vacillate between deep unbridled love and feeling trapped and depressed. I can't imagine my life without him and I could not bear to hurt him. We separated once, and were both unimaginably miserable. Help!

Twittering

Dear Twittering,

Sorry, I didn't hear the question. You have bisexual urges, which trouble you, but which you've decided not to act on because you and Mr. Charming have an agreement. Where does Mr. Blue come in? If I were nearby, I'd make tea for you, but I don't have an answer if there's no question. I personally doubt that this is a long-term relationship, but it's none of my business.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I'm 32 and have spent my entire life as a rolling stone. It's been more than a decade since I spent a whole year living in one place. I was raised overseas, attended three different schools, and worked on short-term temporary-duty assignments in Asia. I've spent the last year bouncing around Southeast Asia getting by on freelance work and street smarts.

My dear, eminently responsible family wants me to come home and settle down. Get a job and a "real" life with a "real" future. I on the other hand feel (and hope) that my calling will find me wherever I happen to be roaming. I like it out here and most days I'm perfectly happy, but there's this nagging fear that I'll wake up one day alone, poor and too old to remake myself into the respectable citizen of my middle-class origins. I am way behind my peers in terms of career progression and still have little if any idea what I really want to do. Academia scares me, I have no solid work experience and no capital to start a business. Is too much travel too much of a good thing? Am I a pathological wanderer? Or am I just taking an exorbitant amount of time finding myself?

Grasshopper

Dear Grasshopper,

Frankly I think you're bragging. You like your life just fine and you feel pretty much OK about it. Of course you have nagging fears of waking up poor and old, but so do us pitiful boring middle-class citizens back in America. It's all well and good for you to look down on us for leading "real" lives and to sneer at our respectability, but don't flaunt it by asking phony questions. What you're missing out on in your gypsy life is the experience of living in a culture, American culture in this case. You're a tourist. Good luck.