Living In Sin

Living In Sin: I'm In Love, Kill Me Now

Dear Jen,
I am only writing because I feel like I need an external, separate source to tell me that I'm right, and that all of my bad feelings from this 'relationship' are my fault, which means I need to get out fast fast fast.
I've been sleeping with this man I know for the past five months or so. Everything was great in the beginning - the sex was fun, he's into trying new things and experimenting, etc. He was so good that I did the inevitable no-no: I started to have feelings for him. Worse, I fell in love with him. I know, right? Kill me now.

Soon after learning of my demise, I took it further (like, why not hang me while I'm already dead) and told him I wanted to be committed and didn't want to just f*** around any more. To my dismay, he said in so many words and actions that he didn't want the same. He felt we needed to 'get to know each other better' before taking it to the next level.

Well, it's been several weeks since I told him how I felt. And since then, I've been pulling away, simply because it's been emotionally awkward and draining for me to have sex with him when I know that I want a committed relationship. My friends think I'm crazy. They tell me I have to take it slow and that I should enjoy spending time with him. Frankly, I think that's a bunch of bull and that any woman who sticks around for the enjoyment of spending time with someone while not getting what she wants is better off shooting herself in the face with a be be gun. On top of that, I don't think there's much to wonder about, so I'm pretty frustrated with his whole 'get to know each other' b.s. I'm a great person, sexy, in tune with my sexuality, funny, good-spirited, socially conscious, smart, and did I mention sexy? So I'd rather walk away from this one than spend my precious time ‘getting to know each other.'

That was the 'this is what I should do’ side of me talking. But, of course, there is that little part of me that wishes, oh wishes, that my friends were right. That this guy would come to his senses, or better, that he is already in love with me and is waiting to tell me in the right moment. Or that he'd come around one day and tell me he wants to be with me. If I can just stay a little longer…

Recently, he wanted to meet up. Clearly, he sensed something was up just when I was about done with him, and wanted to have a talk. He mentioned a sense of distance—sharp guy. He didn't want to lose what we had—whatever that means. He said he missed me. Mhmm. Excuse my sarcasm, but it's because I feel I know that he's talking about my tits and vagina. But Jesus Christ, talk about hormones and pheromones! He just gets to me, like I want to jump his guns even if I already had a good orgasm. And even though I know it was wrong wrong wrong, I couldn't resist saying yes to his offer to come over to his place the following week. Now I'm regretting it terribly.

So, tell me that I'm right about being wrong, wrong, wrong, and that I should walk. I need some team support to get over my infatuation with this man. Thanks.
- Lust to Love

Dear Love,
I had an interesting talk with a friend of mine the other day. He’s a great guy in his late 40’s who’d love to meet someone special around his own age. The problem is, he says, is that women his age are in a race against time. They’re either panic stricken by the deafening toll of their biological clocks, too damn tired to be out there running around playing the field or, I don’t know, instantly smitten by his manly man ways. It made sense to me, but I forgot to ask him what his version of quick was. Are these babes demanding the title of girlfriend within weeks? Months? The moment after he provides them with their first orgasm? And what does he consider to be a reasonable amount of time to get to know someone?

In general, I do think that men and women are biologically predisposed to want different things: men want to spread their seed, women want someone to stick around. That said, I have witnessed this very same guy fall ass over teacups for someone and want her to be his, all his, about fifteen minutes after meeting her. So what’s my point? Excellent question. What the hell is my point?

My point is that we know nothing. There are no rules, each situation is different and trying to figure out what someone else is going to do or feel is a total waste of time. You only know what makes you happy, and it sounds like your current set up isn’t. Having sex with someone who doesn’t love you back is a great way to feel like crap all day, every day, so yes, I agree, you need to make some changes. But rather than shoot yourself in the face with a be be gun, why not give him a chance instead? If he does indeed want to get to know you better like he says he does, hows abouts going on some dates, talking about stuff on the phone, keeping your horn dogs penned up so you can hold hands and think pure thoughts for a while? If he can’t be near you without being in you (especially after you’ve told him how you feel) get rid of him. And if you can’t be near him without jumping his bones, you’re going to get what you ask for. I know it’s hard, but there comes a time when your misery outweighs your desire, and you are clearly there my suicidal friend. Take lots of cold showers, never get drunk around him, focus on your heart, not your groin, and you’ll soon know whether to stay or go without having to break out the noose.

Living In Sin: Lust Hangover

Dear Jen
I was on assignment last week with a junior colleague (she’s 25, I’m 29). Every time we go away she insists we get drunk together, and I've gone along with it because I have this secret fantasy that she'll take advantage of me. Anyway, we were busily doing so the other night, and I can't exactly remember how, but we ended up in bed, naked, going for it as best we could in our respective scotch-induced stupors. This continued well into the morning until our shy, painfully-awkward farewell. I'm not sure when our next assignment together will be and what could happen.

I'm married, but my husband has no problem in theory with me sleeping with chicks (this is one sided, I don't want him sleeping with other women, and he's not into dudes). In fact, he loves the whole idea. She's single but infatuated with her flatmate. Right now I can't eat, sleep or think about anything else and I want to see her again, or at least talk about it (or drag her into the nearest bar/toilet cubicle/alleyway and have her up against the wall then and there). She's not a talker, and we work in different places, so getting her alone again isn't guaranteed. There's no future in this and I feel it’s unfair to her and my husband to pursue it. Yet I’m sitting in my office thinking how soft her skin felt and how I wanted to scream every time she kissed my neck.

Here's my question: how do I live through however long it takes to get her out of my head?
- Jonesing for Junior

Dear Junior,
I would like to take a moment to applaud all the fine people in the S&M world who take great joy in torturing themselves. They don’t whine and moan about the fact that they repeatedly find themselves pinned beneath a stiletto heel, hog tied and degraded with jumper cables on their nipples. Instead they say, “thank you ma’am, may I have another?” They show off the hand prints on their asses with pride. They have parties in dungeons about it.

The rest of us also walk into our various torture chambers wide awake and aware of the consequences, only we emerge guilt ridden and bemoaning our pathetic situations. Makes me wonder who the real masochists are? It’s like eating an entire cherry pie while freaking out about how someone could sail across the ocean on your ass. What’s the point?

You are doing much the same thing, only you’re adding an extra helping of self-imposed guilt. Your lady friend is a grown-up, you’re a grown up, your husband is bragging about it to his buddies as I write this – so why are you asking me how to stop thinking about her? Aren’t you really asking, “can I do it again, ma? Huh? Can I?”

Your trepidation about getting too sucked in by the whole situation makes sense, but you already are, no? So what do you have to lose? I’d have a serious talk with your husband, and yourself, about the risks involved. You say he has no problem with it “in theory” – how about finding out how he feels about it in real life? You may be pleasantly surprised.

As far as the girl goes, as long as you’re honest with her, she’s responsible for her own decisions. The real issue is with your marriage. If it turns out that it is indeed too much for you guys to handle, you will live through it. You’ll just be living through it with your hand down your pants.

Living In Sin: Breaking Up Is So Easy To Do

Dear Jen,
My relationships all tend to follow a frustrating pattern, something along the lines of:
1) Meet guy and decide I want him.
2) Get him.
3) Lose interest in him.
4) Stay in the dying relationship for way too long before finally breaking it off.
5) Start dating new guy and, when interest in him fades, begin thinking about the last boyfriend constantly, and missing him a lot.
6) Break it off and meet new guy.

I also tend to plan escape routes from every relationship before they even begin to go bad, usually centered around moving or travel or something. And I stay in some sort of contact with my exes, on a friendly level. Is this a fear of commitment?

It seems to be getting to the losing interest point in my current relationship, but I don't want to check out again only to regret it in a few months. Plus I really like this guy, I just don't know how to be present when it matters. What is this cycle and how might I break it?
- One Foot Out the Door

Dear Foot,
I was talking to a porn actress the other day about her hopes, her dreams and why this particular career path called to her. “The money,” she shrugged. “And the fact that my mother is a twat.” Apparently her mother had pretty much left her on her own her whole life, and when she was around, she either berated her or ignored her. So although her latest DVD touted her as a hot horny bitch who craved giant monster meat, in reality, she was there so satisfy a different craving, one more along the lines of: Hey ma, look! My vagina! In your face!

Pretty much every crazy thing we do can be traced back to some dopey adult who dropped the ball when we needed them most. I can only guess who ditched you when you were little or told you you were a giant sucking thing unworthy of love or who just didn’t love you the way you wanted them to. I can only guess, but I’ll bet his name rhymes with Shmad.

As is the case with most things related to our childhoods, dear old therapy is the best way to go. I also recommend hypnosis as a great way to re connoiter your subconscious wiring. Whatever you do, you have to do some work if you want to have a successful relationship, because until you get over whatever it is that you’re holding onto, you’re going to continue acting it out in your relationships with men.

Hopefully you can deal with it without losing your present boyfriend, but if not, what say you to the idea of not dating anyone for a while? Give yourself a chance to really purge your system of all the old boyfriends, all the need to fix whatever’s wrong through your relationships and wait to hook up with someone new until you really want to for the right reasons?

There are books aplenty on fear of commitment. It’s a common problem (because lousy parenting is a common problem) so you are in very good company. I don’t know of any great ones in particular to recommend, but I just googled it and there are countless books, websites, organizations and hypnotherapists dedicated to your cause.

Now your challenge is committing to getting over your fear of commitment.

Living In Sin: Magic Melons

Dear Jen,
I have a question. Sometimes I think I might be able to have an orgasm from someone sucking my nipples. Do you have any experience with this?
- My Nipples Rule

Dear Nipples,
I’m sorry to say I don’t. Unlike you, instead of teetering on the throbby edge while someone is smoking my areolas, I’m trying to figure out how to get him off of me so I can get to the kitchen. Because nipple play makes me thirsty. Insanely so. Pretty much one little suck and all I can think about are hoses, water coolers, clear running streams – sexy things like that. I’d have to breast feed wearing a camel pack.

I’d say there are a couple of things at work in your case. One is that you’re reacting to Oxytocin, which is a hormone related to breast feeding, bonding and uterine contractions. It’s secreted when someone sucks on your nipples, as well as when you have an orgasm, and can make you feel all sexed up and happy. I’m still amazed that someone hasn’t figured out how to extract it, cut it with speed and sell it at raves.

Also, people can do pretty much anything they to want if they put their minds to it. If you wanted to have an orgasm while sitting in an economics seminar, for example, you could. The brain is our biggest sex organ, so whatever you latch onto up there can get you excellent results down there. In fact, I’ve taught myself to have an orgasm with zero physical stimulation. Hands free. I just get a filth fest going on in my brain, concentrate real hard, and there she blows. I’m confident that with a little hard work and a good lesbian gang bang fantasy or two, you could make your knobs go to 11 as well.

My question for you is, why are you still at the “sometimes I think I might” phase? Whyfore have you not affixed someone to your magic melons until the mighty threshold is crossed to find out for sure? I think that sounds like an excellent way to spend an afternoon. And a great trick to have up your sexual sleeve…

Living In Sin: For the Love of Feet

Dear Jen,
I recently learned that a good friend of mine has a foot fetish and I’d like to learn more about it. Here are some of my questions:
1. What is a fetish?
2. What are some fetishes besides foot fetishes?
3. How does one get a fetish?
4. Is it wrong, bad or weird to have a fetish?
5. Is there any connection between having a fetish and addiction to drugs or alcohol?
6. Can a person who has a fetish ever truly have a sexual relationship with someone who doesn't have a fetish or who doesn't share their enjoyment of said fetish?
7. Why do people keep fetishes a secret? Why do people need to be ashamed about being attracted to feet (for example)? Why is this considered a bad/weird thing by society?
8. Once a person has a fetish, does it ever go away or does it increase and/or morph into other fetishes?
Thank you.
- Friend of the Fetish

Dear Friend,
A good friend of mine is into fetish too, and I, like you, was compelled to find out more about it. You know, to be a good friend. So I went on this personals site called bondage.com and set myself up a profile. That was where she’d met her boyfriend, the one who attached clothes pins to her labia and made her sleep in a body bag and stuff, and she said it was one of the best.

Alrighty, let’s see. Question number one: Are you into Acrotomophilia (aroused by amputees)? Acrophilia (turned on by heights)? Agalmatophilia (hot for statues)? Branding? Brown showers (give)? Brown showers (get)? I hadn’t heard of half the stuff on there, and when I got my purity rating (how kinky are you), I only scored a 67% - 0% meant you were Kinkzilla and 100% meant you were Snow White. I couldn’t believe it. Here I thought I was all badass, and by common test-taking standards I’d basically failed. So, as any model student would, I went back on and attempted to up my score – yes, yes, I could see how using a chamber pot instead of a toilet could be hot, yes I absolutely could – but in the end, when I got mighty real, I had to admit it. I’m a 67%. And I’m okay.

Here are some answers to your questions. In my humble, 67% opinion:
1.) A fetish is a condition where sexual arousal is achieved through objects, actions or “non-sexual” parts of the body.
2.) See above.
3.) This is a large question. Some theorists say fetishes come from early associations with sexual stimulation. Freud said they’re linked to fear of castration. Personally, I think you could develop some interesting ones just by living in the right neighborhood in San Francisco. Here’s a good, eyebrow-raising article I found on the topic: http://www.oldandsold.com/articles09/sexual-emotion-54.shtml
4.) Please. This is a free to be you and me column.
5.) No, but I bet a lot of fundamentalist types would like you to think so.
6.) If the fetish is important to them, I’m going to say no. It would be like marrying someone who didn’t like to have sex if you did. Or being with someone you weren’t attracted to. You could stay with them, but it would be quite the snore.
7.) Because society is a dumbass.
8.) Anything is possible when it comes to fixations – for example, I’ve had a lifelong attraction to guys with speech impediments, but no longer find guitarists with severe marijuana habits attractive. Same goes for fetishes. And having one fetish doesn’t necessarily lead to another, but it can give you exposure to others simply because in the fetish world, things often overlap. For example, you could go to a fetish party in search of feet, witness someone running around in a diaper for the first time and get totally turned on. I had no idea! Or not, but how are you supposed to know if it’s hot or not if you’ve never seen it?

I think your curiosity about your friend is fabulous, and who knows, maybe it’ll lead you to some discoveries of your own. Hmmm? Maybe you’re a 56 percenter just waiting to happen?

Living In Sin: A Vagina by any Other Name

Dear Jen,
My daughter is two years old and occasionally, when I change her diaper, she touches her genital region.  When she does this I talk to her about it using real words, like “vagina.”  A friend recently overheard me and said that I’m doing long-term damage.  She thinks that if my little girl goes to school and falls and says that she hurt her vagina, all the other kids will ridicule her.  My friend insists that calling it her “pee-pee” or her “cha-cha” would be a better alternative.  What do you think?
- Midwest Momma

Dear Momma,
Just yesterday I hit the road for my beloved New Mexico where I lived for many years before moving to L.A.  I was telling a friend about all the excellent people I was going to get to see when I got there – Flowers, Burgy, Gautch, Kimo - while my friend, Goldie, looked after my place.  I also told her that she should go see my friend Gecko’s art show while I was gone.  All she said was, “Are all of your friends stuffed animals?”   

Lots of my friends have weird names.  That’s because lots of my friends are weird and made them up themselves.  I also know people named Starskee, Storm, Bedouin, Mojo, and Dagmar and used to get followed around by a strange lady in a filthy skirt who called herself Bumble Bee.  I think it’s because my friends are creative and unconventional, not because they abhor their parents (the majority of my friends, anyway).  It’s like naming the person the grown-up you relates to, rather than the one that was beholden to your parents.  You get to define yourself.  It’s like giving yourself a Mohawk.  Or a pet name. 
What people call themselves, and parts of themselves, ain’t nobody’s business but theirs.  Especially if it comes from a healthy place which, if I can get mighty real here for a moment, all this vagoglossing does not.  For the most part, it’s about shame, denial and embarrassment.  I mean, a knee is a knee, an ear is an ear – why does a butt need to be a po-po?  It’s these seemingly innocent and playful little suggestions that drill some hugely negative crap into our psyches.  So if you want your daughter to be loud and proud about her vagina, good for you.  You’re sending her a much more positive message than suggesting that any part of her beautiful body is a dirty thing that is called a dirty word.  Tell your friend to put that in her long-term damage pipe and smoke it.

Besides, your daughter is going to get ridiculed anyway.  They could just as easily crawl all over her for calling it her halla lalla instead of her poonana.  Kids are ruthless, and no matter how much you try and watch her back, she’s gonna get it from somewhere for something.  Instead of fearing what might or might not happen to her, your time would be much better spent teaching her that she’s hot shit, to stick up for herself and that she should tell anyone who makes fun of her for not using the term “cha-cha” that it’s a vagina, not a Mexican restaurant.

Living In Sin: Newlywed and Underlaid

Dear Jen,
I am a 21 year-old male who lost his virginity to the girl who is now my wife at 19. I want sex 24/7 just like when we first met, but now everything seems to have switched. We only have sex like once a week and it's always the same thing where she gets her way, always missionary and no position change. We used to be so open sexually - we experimented with anything and everything. I have only slept with her and still feel I have so much experimenting to do, meanwhile I’m the 8th person she’s been with so I feel like she is finishing her sexual career and I'm barely starting.

What can I do to jumpstart things? How can I help her open back up? Is it something I'm just completely missing? Anything that can help me reclaim my sex life would be a great help because now I find myself masturbating 3 or 4 times daily and it sometimes affects my work. Thank you for any help. – Cut Off at the Starting Line

Dear Cut,
When you get to be a certain age, a terrible, terrible thing is going to happen to you. You are going to wake up one day to discover that all your friends, all those fun, spontaneous people who were always game for hikes, concerts, dinner parties, trips to India, hours of pant-wetting laughter, deep discussions, creative projects and brilliant brainstorming sessions have disappeared. They have wandered off into the abyss of new parenthood.

They have traded in precious time with dear sweet you for those things with giant wobbly heads. They’re now focused on those projectile vomiters who roll their freaky, unfocussed eyes at you and envelop you in vague gazes that speak of their fresh arrival from (and, no doubt, partial residence still on) “the other side.” For me, it’s not terribly appealing. Babies are extremely wiggly. Some are born with lips that have enough sucking power to deflate even the oldest and strongest of friendships. And all of them have soft spots on their heads where their fragile baby brains lay unprotected. Squich squich. If that’s not fully creepy, I don’t know what is. I don’t care how cute their feet are.

Yet whenever my married tell me about their big news, I'm genuinely excited. Because what more could you ask for than to see the people you love get what they want? But my excitement is the same excitment I feel when I hear someone excellent and nearby is moving to another country, or has fallen madly, obsessively in love or has started going to AA – it’s fabulous for them, it’s back to the drawingboard for me.

Because I don’t want children, and because the haves and the have nots tend to live lives that only cross paths at the occasional farmers market, I have tried to talk some of my most treasured friends out of reproducing. And I have yet to succeed. I have also failed at talking my neighbor into trading in his surfboard for paddle tennis with me and was ignored by my mother year after year when I suggested that she get us a horse instead of a dog.

Here’s the annoying thing about other people: You are not in control of deciding what they want. You are not the boss of them. You are only the boss of yourself.

That’s why when it comes to getting your wife to have wild and crazy sex 24/7, if she doesn’t want to, there’s not a whole lot you can do about it other than let her know how it makes you feel. If she’s willing to work with you on it, great, if not, you have to decide if you’re willing to stick around.

As far as your constant fiddling goes, keep in mind that nothing obsesses us like that which we cannot have. While I think that being young and horny is normal, it sounds to me like you’re obsessing over it because you can’t have it. Sex, like smoking pot or over eating or compulsive traveling, is an excellent distraction from dealing with other parts of your life. And I don’t blame you for not wanting to deal, because it sounds to me like you could be in a doomed marriage. To still be in the honeymoon phase and begging for sex is not a good sign. Her lack of enthusiasm could just be a phase, but it could also be about something much deeper. I strongly suggest you guys get some counseling and figure it out because if it continues on like this, you’re in for a lifetime of resentment, frustration and some serious carpal tunnel.

Living In Sin: Fan of the Fur

Dear Jen,
I was at a dinner party the other night and the topic turned to sex. I’m a fairly conservative guy and have never really done anything that would be considered kinky (unless you count 69ing as kinky) but was intrigued by some of the things people were talking about.

I was fairly educated on the majority of topics, but had never heard about this business of dressing up like stuffed animals and having sex. I was at once horrified and intrigued and you are the only person I’m telling this to (and even this is difficult). Apparently people dress up in full animal costume, cut holes in the appropriate places and go at it.

Where would I find such a costume? And how on earth do I bring this up to the person I’m dating? I’m single at the moment, but am really hoping to try this out at some point and am sure I’ll scare a prospective partner away. Thanks for your help Jen!
- Feeling Goofy

Dear Goofy,
I was walking on the beach the other day, getting lost in the meditative sound of the waves like the good hippie I am, until all of a sudden I was gripped by panic – what if a sneaker wave comes up and drags me out into the middle of the ocean to my watery death? This happened to a friend of mine, or rather to her little boy, or rather it almost happened…they were walking down the beach, he closer to the water than she, and this massive, solitary wave came out of nowhere and pulled him out to sea. He was miraculously able to latch his skinny little boy arms around a rock and hang on until the waves returned to normal, but it was a mighty close call. And as someone who doesn’t live on the Oregon coast (where there are rocks aplenty to cling to) and who could easily get her ass kicked in an arm wrestle with a six year-old boy, I was suddenly terrified.

Meanwhile, if I’d never heard of sneaker waves, I wouldn’t have known to be frightened. And that’s the way it is with about 90% of our fears – we learn about them and then either choose to take them on or choose to focus on something else. We could all walk around freaking out that the earth will get slammed by something large and hot flying around in space or that our appendixes might burst at any second. There’s enough material out there to spend a lifetime doing nothing else. Meanwhile, it’s only the quality fears we need to pay attention to, which are the ones our instincts, not our minds, flare up about. That’s what instincts are for. It’s their job. But the mind is a meddling, insecure, over-achiever that demands we pay attention to it and all it’s whoop de doo ideas.

If you were just going along, doing what felt right, natural and made you happy, and didn’t know that dressing up like Scooby Doo and doing the wild thing was something to worry about, you’d just do it because it felt good. And none of your instinct alarms would go off. But you were raised in a society that for some reason has decided that all sorts of things that make people happy are bad and should be hidden, ridiculed or not allowed to marry.

As I was poking around the internet looking for some sites to send you to to educate you on your new-found fetish (you are a furrie, btw.) I found a great quote from dear old Dan Savage that made me laugh out loud (as usual):

“As far as we're concerned, there's nothing wrong with getting off on fursuit sex or fucking stuffed animals or anything else that doesn't involve grave bodily harm, real animals, children or Ann Coulter.”

There are entire websites, chat rooms, conventions, videos and costumists dedicated to perpetuating a furrie lifestyle, and lots of prospective partners out there who would love you to poke around beneath their furry flaps. Here are a couple I found:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,11000-2007140884,00.html
http://furries.meetup.com/
Life is short. Find your people. Get your gorilla on.

Living In Sin: Falling off the Solo Tour

Dear Jen
I’m one of those women who never has a boyfriend. I’m 35 and have had several relationships, but none of them ever rang true to me or lasted very long. Usually we were pretty poorly matched or one of us was much more into it than the other or some other lame, non-workable situation.

I’ve felt ready to find someone for a few years now but just keep falling into the same old bad situations with the wrong guys. I’ve been dating online, getting set-up, looking good, putting myself out there, etc. but it’s been a couple of years now and I’m starting to wonder what’s wrong with me. Am I doomed for a life of spinsterdom?
- Where is he Already?

Dear Where,
Very often when people say “I want a boyfriend/girlfriend” it’s much the same as when little girls say “I want a pony” or a stoned person says “I want a Big Mac.” They have this vague, idealistic idea of this excellent thing that will vastly improve their present situations, never make them feel sick to their stomachs or lay a turd in the middle of their birthday parties. Meanwhile your subconscious knows who’s going to wind up paying for it and cleaning up after it and that ponys will let anyone with a cute little ass ride them because that’s exactly what its pony did.

This is why it’s crucial that you and your subconscious have a little “us” talk. Like it or not, you are your subconscious’ bitch, so no matter how great something sounds to you, if deep down you can’t handle it or are scared it will bite you or know that it’s really bad for you, you are not going to let yourself have it. Or you will but you’ll be rill fucked up about it.

So how do you reprogram your subconscious? You can meditate, read books that make you say “aha” a lot, go to therapy, get hypnotized, pay attention and learn from your mistakes, pay attention and learn from people in happy relationships and do this exercise:

Say the following things out loud to yourself:

I trust men.
I want a man in my life, in my face, in my heart.
I love men.
Being with a man would be a positive addition to my life.
I want to open up and deal with my issues.
I want to deal with someone else’s issues.
I deserve to be with somebody excellent.
I (insert biggest toe curler here and reverse it).

Repeat these everyday until you can say them without the little voice in your head screaming “spinster, please!”

Then make a list of what you want. Be super specific and only use affirmatives. If you want a guy so you don’t grow old surrounded by cats, then you will grow old surrounded by cats because that’s what you’re focusing on. Write down the details of who he is, and what your life together looks like, and read it often. And then open wide your tiny mind - things come in unexpected packages and you could miss the cowboy of your dreams just because he pulls up on a scooter instead of a horse.

I have a friend who used to be a wild workaholic, travelaholic, can’tsitdowncuzmyassisonfire woo hoo type of person. Then one day a spider sat down beside her, bit her and she got a weird infection that traveled to her heart and rendered her horizontal and confused for two years. It completely changed her life and, among many other things, made her take notice of this quiet, gentle, lovely guy who she would have merely left a footprint on in her other life and who is now her husband.

You have the power to get anything you want. You just have to be mighty clear, really truly want it and push through a couple of lessons before you and your pint of ice cream will have someone to join you on the couch.

Living In Sin: Spring Breakus Interruptus

Dear Jen,
I'm 22, pretty, smart, witty and completely fabulous. I've been dating my current boyfriend for almost a year. We've been living together for about 5 months and he's driving me crazy! This is my first real relationship...

Before we started dating I was a wild party girl. Once we starting getting serious, I calmed down and changed my ways because he said I wasn't single anymore and I needed to stop acting like it. He did have a point.
Now I'm working hard taking care of my two 90 year old grandparents and trying to finish my last year of college.

My problem is that he hates all my friends because they're single and still like to have a good time. Did I mention that he's a "glass half empty" kind of guy? He's been cheated on in the past and all these issues are projecting into our relationship. Lately he's been super controlling and I feel like he's trying to change me into the girl version of him...did I mention he's a workaholic?

It's currently my spring break and I want to go out with my friends, but when he heard this he said it was inappropriate for me to get all dressed up to go to a dance club. I like to dance and have a good time, but he won't take me dancing and doesn't want me going out with my friends. Meanwhile I've never given him a reason to not trust me, ever!

I love this man, but I've always hated seeing my friends in these kind of relationships and I refuse to let myself be in one.

IS BREAKING UP PRETTY MUCH MY ONLY OPTION???
- Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Dear Should,
Shouldn't you be busy removing yourself from the kind of relationship you allegedly refuse to be in instead of writing to me? I can't tell you how many letters like yours I get from people who already know exactly what they need to do, they're just too scared/insecure/into the sex to make it happen. The difference is that they pretend there's some big mystery they have to solve before they can leave their miserable comfort zones and let themselves be happy, while you admit to knowing that if you stay with this guy, you'll be watching all your friends, energy, self-confidence and joie de vivre slowly swirl their way down the toilet bowl and out of sight. Which is why I'm being such a hag about it. You know exactly what you have to do. You even put it in all caps so that maybe, just maybe, you'll listen to your completely fabulous self. So....um....what do you want me to do? Put it in a bigger font?

I one time had a conversation with this woman who got really crippling period cramps, the kind that make you feel like there's a squirrel in your gut trying to chew his way out. While jabbing you with his little squirrely fists. And making balloon animals out of your large intestine. I used to get the same kind, and according to the 453,285,129 gynecologists I went to, there were three solutions my pain: Go on the pill, go under the knife or have a baby. As all three sounded equally unappealing, I decided to read up on nutrition instead and learned that drinking coffee was basically pumping fuel into my cramptank. So I quit drinking it. A short lived headache and some undeserved crotchiness aimed at my friends later, the sun came out, the birds started chirping and I could leave the house in something other than an ambulance when it was my special time of the month.

So I tell my big news to this woman and instead of weeping with joy for being set free, she gets all mad at me. "I can't give up coffee! I need it to stay awake!" She was adamant and humorless, convinced she'd be fired for snoring through meetings. So I left it alone, but was once again amazed at how we're all so attached to routine that we'd rather flop around on the bathroom floor, blue lipped and twisted, than make a change for the better.

Quitting coffee is a lot easier than breaking up with someone you're in love with (even if he is a giant sucking thing), but it all falls under the same heading. This isn't your first real relationship. It's your first crappy one, and we both know you're smart enough, and self-assured enough, to make it your last. So be a good example to your friends and cut The Prince of Darkness loose already.