I say thanks for the title because it drew me into an article that I might otherwise have skipped over due its subject matter, it's a subject that I might have thought would be too far outside my world to really be interested in enough to click on and read among the thousands of articles available to me and everyone else on the internet.

That said, even though I am a slightly younger (39) man who is straight and not HIV positive, so much of this article and its wit and humanity resonated with me. In my own mental and physical (health) life I have crossed one or two of the same bridges that the author describes, and I feel better after reading the article to know that we are not all so disconnected in our fears, occasional joys and revelations.

This woman at work who I don't particularly like had that a few months ago. It does make you look really odd. Others who did not like her were happy that she got it. I actually felt sorry for her despite the fact that she's a rather unpleasant person. But then I saw her a month or two later and she had completely recovered. So now she's back to her old physical self (but still unpleasant).

I know this isn't what you wanted to hear. That said,there's only one reason a normally-functioning adult male would feel offended by this type of behavior: he is so turned on by it that he doesn't know how to process it.

Don't get too down on yourself. Don't think you're some sort of pedophile. You're probably not. It's not as if you're obsessing about the dress of elementary school kids. You simply seem to be dealing with your uncomfortable attraction to girls who are physically developed but who legally are not individuals that you can or should have any sexual relationship with. I don't think you even need counseling. I think you just need to realize what your true feelings are and just forget about it (until next Halloween at least).

I, like many of those posting, am a lawyer. I have been one for about fifteen years. I went straight from undergrad to law school and was, like you, immediately kicked in the gut by the marked difference between the learning experience (and overall pleasantness) of undergraduate liberal arts education and law school.

One of the problems that many (most?) law students face is that going in they view the law as sort of a quasi-humanities discipline (sort of an alternative to post-graduate science or business degrees). But law school is almost scientific (and mathematical) in its approach and in its way of sorting out the top students from the middle or the bottom. It can be unpleasant. It's rigorous. It's competitive. There is little to no reward for independent or idiosyncratic personalities or thought. By the time most students figure this out, they are $25,000 to $50,000 in debt to their law school masters and failure (or even deciding not to continue in the study of law) is not really a practical option.

That said, the law can be (although rarely is) a rewarding profession. I work as a public defender, make a six-figure salary even as a government employee (in California), can look forward to retiring with a pretty generous pension in my mid-fifties if I somehow survive fifteen more years, and work a normal 40-hour workweek. When you pass the bar (and you will eventually because you have the drive and the intelligence), try to find some area of the law that will actually make you feel like you are contributing something to someone, somewhere. That is a lot harder than it sounds. Legal professions drown people. They often kill spirits; bury people under billable hours and repetitive, mundane tasks; and can reduce you to a robotic billing machine where imagination and soul are nothing but liabilities that distract you from your primary objective in life: getting largely meaningless tasks done that you can bill to someone, somewhere.

Don't go down that route with the same ignorance that you may have had (in part) when you decided to go to law school. Carefully consider what each legal path will mean to you as an individual fifteen or twenty years down the road. Don't just go for the money unless you are one of those rare individuals who can actually be made whole or "happy" by the money alone over the long term. Don't expect climbing the corporate or firm ladder to provide you with any long-term satisfaction. If you are in the statistical majority, it simply won't.

In other words, just be careful this time. And good luck.

Sorry. But your instincts were correct. I have been married for over ten years and have been through marital counseling. You are no more qualified to counsel couples in crisis than a blind man would be qualified to compete in an Olympic archery competition.

It is inconceivable to think that someone who has never even attempted to conquer the mountain that is a successful long-term marriage would be so presumptuous as to think that he or she could counsel those in the devastating chaos that emerges as a marriage becomes unhinged. Casual nature hiker, teach us how to summit Everest. Weekend paintball warrior, teach us how to survive in house-to-house urban combat in Iraq.

I believe it is safe to say that you are not just a fraud, but a dangerous person as well. If you are going to continue the irresponsible ruse that is your profession, I would beg you to at least disclose the fact that you have no experience and no idea what you are even talking about to every client. He or she can then at least make an informed decision as to whether he or she should undertake the equivalent of learning advanced calculus from a kindergartener. Sorry (for you, and your clients).