I can boil this down pretty fast:

"Dear Cary, I am one of the most remarkably gifted geniuses that the world has ever had the grace to know. My ex boyfriend? He too is one of the most remarkably gifted geniuses the world has ever known. My current boyfriend? He is a lazy slob because he won't finish a thesis in Philosophy.

To again prove to you (and everyone reading this) how remarkable I am, I will pepper my own thesis-length letter with dazzling anecdotes about world travel, lofty goals and Henrik Ibsen. See how smart I am? I'm awesome. The boyfriend thing, secondary.

Love, LW"

If the LW is this excessively critical and self aggrandizing at the age of 25, I fear for how shrill she may become in the future.

The best practitioners I have met - in any field- are the ones who quietly and diligently go about their work. Not the ones who stand on the table shouting their self perceived genius.

Or as Henry Ford once said, "You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do."

So you don't like women, or more specifically you don't like American women. You know what buddy, we don't give a rats ass. I know you don't realize it because your brain is the size of a pea, which is the same size as your every so small penis, but your dislike of American women is more about you than it is about us.

Just speaking truth to the situation.

"Or how about, "Dear black guy, don't even think you have a chance in dating,...yak yak"

Too wordy. Try "Once Black, never back".

"Fuck you."

What is wrong with you? Why on Earth would you write something like that in a public forum?

Shut up about how smart you are, and demonstrate it. Shut up about how practical and serving of others you are, and demonstrate it.

Do what one of my sons is doing: teaching in the JET program for two years, THEN joining the Peace Corps (he'll have his student loans paid from the JET program, not so much from the Peace Corps) THEN going to grad school in International Relations.

See, if what you want to do is work in other countries, it helps to, I don't know, actually WORK in other countries.

Two of my four do. ALL of my four are brilliant, caring, compassionate young adults who would never dream of telling you how smart and practical they are. They have a mother to do that for them. They just go about their lives, being intelligent, having witty conversations and leading people to think--WOW this person is intelligent.

See how it works? You live a life of caring and compassion and intelligent actions, and people know that you are caring and compassionate and intelligent because you show them. Works every time, I tell you. By the way? Unless your desire to help others is limited to working in Scandinavia or to BAs in literature, quit with the Ibsen references. You'll just continue to come across as pretentious.

I think it was me who first mentioned trust funds in this thread. OK, maybe I mis-spoke, but what I was really meaning was that the attitude of many of the confused graduate students who write in to Cary suggests a lack of familiarity with the working world, that in turn suggests that probably they have a financially supportive family.

Oh, I know EXAAAAAACTLY what you mean. I will elaborate further. These are people who:

- grew up in a pleasant suburb of a major city

- went directly from high school to college to grad school

- have never held a real job ("internships" at megacorps don't count)

- don't, and have never, meaningfully interacted with people outside of their own middle-, upper middle-, or upper class social group (they may have collected coats for the homeless or poor, but have never talked to anyone who is or was)

- have never personally known adversity

- if push came to shove, even if they aren't trust funded, they could turn to their families for support

My partner, who just finished his grad degree, went to school with a number of such people, some of whom were indeed creating similar romantic intrigues for themselves (boredom? to avoid having to come up with a dissertation topic? some combination of the above? who knows!). The older ones who'd worked and/or been kicked around a little, were often interesting people with whom I genuinely enjoyed spending time.

as someone who has lived abroad and done the quitting grad school at the last minute thing, i can tell you that all three of you are in a moment of transition in your lives.

i couldn't tell when i was in that moment that i was there, but twelve, fifteen years later, it sure is clear as crystal what was going on with me ... and with my drama-filled relationships.

you're about to leave your home state for a graduate program that will lead you straight into a career abroad. your ex-ex just came back from an extended waver, caused by immaturity and burning man (was that redundant?), which resulted in him recommitting to his original plan. now he's about to go back to grad school to execute said plan, which will also take him straight into a career abroad. your recent-ex is about to finish grad school, but has no further plans and is freaking out.

you're all standing in front of a huge life transition. it's not unreasonable to say that the decisions you make now will determine the course of the rest of your lives. all three of you. whether you HAVE a plan or purpose (as you and the ex-ex do) or whether you DON'T (as the recent-ex doesn't), you still feel like you're standing in front of a precipice.

i don't have any advice as to which boyfriend you should take up with. i WOULD advise you to cut them both loose and move on, but you might not be able to see this until you've actually moved and started grad school. in a few months, this dilemma will seem very small and far away. so do what you do, but remain open to cutting them both loose in a few months when you realize that you are moving away from them both, geographically and emotionally, and you need to give yourself room and space to do that.

the path you're embarking on -- one of international service -- is famously destructive to relationships. it's not just a matter of long distance relationships; you'll also be traveling a lot and meeting tons of new and fascinating people. the relationships that last are the ones where you can take your partner with you, or where your partner serves as an anchor and port for you. either way, until you're in place (which will be years from now) you won't know how to find the right person for you.

so try to recognize this as soon as possible, and let these guys go. you're not going to be any good to them, and they won't be any good to you.