And word to the wise, they probably don't love you all that much either.

You have them.

Clearly, it wasn't working with either of those two guys, that much is obvious from your letter. It was never going to work. But because you're afraid of being alone, you're torturing yourself about it.

The pain is natural. Don't fight it. Don't expect to feel better tomorrow - you'll only disappoint yourself. Just take things one day at a time. Read a good book. See a play (no Ibsen!). Reconnect with some old friends.

A lot of people on here are making fun of you for over-thinking your problems, but I think that this over-thinking is a defense mechanism as much as anything. Dealing with your emotions organically can be a real challenge to some people.

Just focus on yourself for a while instead of focusing on dudes. Being in love is awesome, but it has it's drawbacks too, and one of those drawbacks can be losing sight of who you are. So enjoy the solitude. Get to know yourself better. If you do that, it will be much easier on you when the right one comes along.

This is the most unbelievably pretentious letter yet. I generally stay out of the fray here in the Since You Asked message board, but this time I couldn't help myself.

...do these letters always sound so obviously contrived and fake?

Look in the mirror, for starters. Who IS this obnoxiously self-congratulatory person? What is she hiding from herself by the sheer verbosity of her story?

Here's the story I read: young woman doesn't quite know what to do with her life. She's intelligent, has good basic instincts, but is, you know, YOUNG, and hasn't yet settled on what she wants to do with her life, other than a vague idea of "helping others. " (How an advanced degree in International studies will accomplish that is the subject, apparently, of another novella.)

She mistakes sexual attraction for a relationship, intelligence for knowledge of self and one's future, moves in with men too soon, and when the initial attraction wears off...gets bored.

Solution: spend enough time alone with herself to get to know this person. Find out what she really wants, in life and in men. Learn to accept self and others for things outside of intellect: kindness, responsibility, sense of humor, willingness to put the cap back on the toothpaste.

One's intelligence, one's career, the number of degrees one has, all those are part of one's whole. But they do not make up the whole. Learn to look past them, and if you can see who YOU are as a whole, you may avoid screwing up so royally in your relationships.

The LW and her original ex sound immature. The ex was younger, and she's only 25, so I suppose his trek to china was just an immature dreamer's move and maybe now he'll grow up and be stable.

The LW is a twit. Her recent ex was not overly jealous, he was justifiably concerned with her immaturity and fickleness. She did look down on him, she was in love with what she thinks is a "better man." Instead of triggering the response she wanted (2 men chasing after her), he responded like the smartest one of the 3 and dumped her. Now she is suffering the trauma of being dumped, even though she had no interest in the guy who dumped her at the time he dumped.

The LW is shallow, selfish, fickle, and immature. I;m sure she'll cry a little and then jump back in with her original boyfriend, and then get antsy when he gets too busy for her in med school. Grow up, and try to be a little less selfish.

AAAUGH! It sounds like these eggheads deserve each other. I'm sorry, but it is a tremendous red flag when people feel the need to TELL you how intelligent they are. Neuroses of a feather flock together, apparently.

Because sometimes when you date someone it doesn't work out. This is not a drama. This is not profound. This is not a giant moral dilemma. You dated a guy who you thought was right for you, but upon getting to know him better you realized he wasn't right for you after all. So the two of you broke up and now you are looking again. I'm sorry for your loss and totally confident that within a year you'll be dating someone else. But seriously, get over yourself.

I also want to know why :

- every letter writer is highly intelligent.

- every highly-intelligent 25 year old thinks their lives should be wrapped up at this point.

Don't get back together with the ex. If he ever actually gets in to medical school, he'll then be surrounded by all these new med students who he thinks are brilliant doing the right things with their lives because its the same path he's chosen, and he'll be back to looking down on you because you're not one.

And don't be so sad about the way things ended with your latest boyfriend. That was the best possible way really, its so much worse to have to dump someone especially because you're getting together with someone else, and leaving him with no chance to work things out if thats what he wants to try. This way he's left, there's no messy horribleness coming to worry about.

In short, change your attitude. You're creating your own misery.

Although I don't doubt that you love--or feel strongly--about both men, I wonder if perhaps there is a part of you that is also viewing them as "set pieces" in your future life, without regard to who they really are as people and what they may need in a relationship.Are you rushing ahead in your mind, envisioning "the perfect life" that you have been told you deserve, with the brilliant doctor husband? If so, some of your reluctance may be more about your disillusions about who you want these men to be, rather than seeing them for who they really are. You may be wanting to cram them into an imaginary place in an imaginary future, and you get depressed because a part of you senses that they won't fit there.

You're young, and no matter how smart you are, things are going to fall apart in small or large ways over and over again in your life. They do for everybody; things shift and change. That's growth. You can't control every aspect of your future. Maybe it would be helpful for you to spend time just being present--present to yourself and truly present to these men when you are in their company. I feel a sense of rushing here; a sense of trying to push something forward, to make a choice, to shoehorn the direction of this into something that "looks right" so that you can soothe your anxiety and show people something that looks good on the outside.

Just let things be what they are. Let these men be who they are, and do the same for yourself. There is no hurry in any of this. Whatever will happen will unfold in it's own time. The only thing you're ever really going to be able to control is your own authenticity.