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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I admit, I'm not that much older than the LW, but boy, she does sound young!
LW, of course you're sad. You were dumped. It's normal. It does not, under any circumstances, mean that your relationship with your former live-in boyfriend was going anywhere. I mean, just read your letter. You two were miserable together.
You admit that the attention from your just returned from China going to med school ex, especially his regret for treating you like crap, was heady. Now admit that you used your med school ex as a way to break up with your live-in ex, without having to admit that you wanted to break up with him. That you're now ducking phone calls from the med school ex should tell you that.
You're starting grad school soon. Now is the perfect time to take a step back and just figure yourself out, before you plunge into a relationship with either of your exes, or even with someone new. Figure out what you want, from yourself, from your life, and from your romantic partners. Figure out how to be alone.
as someone who went a long time ago and am still rolling my eyes.
...a bunch of self-important stock characters who think they're living a Zach Braff movie.
-The "highly intelligent" young woman supposedly "intensly practical and focused on various goals" but still can't seem to get away from the same "brilliant" emotionally stunted man-boys who couldn't care less about her but she's just too scared of being alone and cultivating an identity for herself without male validation.
-The mindset that everything foreign is more "exotic" and more meaningful to explore. The mindset that everything middle-American is backward, stupid and full of toothless rednecks who couldn't possibly relate to someone so enlightened.
-A bunch of directionless, purposeless people with too much time watching television shows from their youth and propagating an image for themselves on social networking sites.
These are my peers.
I'm a neurotic person with neurotic friends, & I don't have much time for the "back home in Minnesota, we all lived the simple life!" line of argument. Nevertheless, I hate this letter. "which was sharply curtailed after I fractured my foot." "Needless to say, I was dissatisfied." BARF. This person needs advice about her prose style, not her relationships.
Oh my, this sounds like my life at 25, right down to the scene of coming home to the sweet-but-ambitionless boyfriend passed out on the couch with a beer in front of a Simpsons rerun. In my case, boyfriend #2 was a brilliant, charming, sexy, and probably sociopathic addict.
What did I do? I ditched both of them. I moved across the country and got my Ph.D. I'm now a successful academic. I never looked back.
Lesson: you're 25. You're smart. You have ambition. You have no use for either one of these losers.
Graduate students don't have "trust funds." Folks who can afford a trust fund for their kids are among the richest of the rich; grad students are generally just poor. Where do you people get your ideas?
There's a very good book about triangulation and the emotional politics of that by a woman named Harriet Lerner. It's called the Dance of Anger. (She has a bunch of other books called The Dance of Something and I think they all deal with triangulation, but I think Dance of Anger is her first book).
Anyway, it's good to learn about and especially about how having a third leg in a relationship can prevent you from confronting issues in your primary relationship, sort of having your cake and eating it too.
Everyone wants something they don't have. My advice, don't get married. Inevitably it will become less exciting, you know comfortable. But if you always expect someone else to make you happy, well it just won't happen. Happiness isn't about your partner nor is it about their profession. Happiness is about you and your willingness to be happy with yourself, only then can you be happy with someone else you know for who they are not for who you want them to be.
I think what's thrown her for a loop is that inspite of all her thinking she didn't want this man, he went and dumped her first. That's what's confused her. It happened before she was entirely ready, so the rejection hurts and that's even more confusing. Why would it bother her to lose this guy she didn't much like anyhow? Not because she lost him. But because he rejected her. So LW, I don't think you want this man. You're just bruised. Leave him alone. Trust that you didn't get to the point of wanting to dump him yourself by accident. If you try to hook up with him again, you'll just find yourself frustrated all over. Don't put him through that again.
There's no 'we' here...there's just the LW confused because she thought all the choices were hers to make.
In a mind so obviously full of self. But that's not why I'm writing. I'm writing because I am continually stunned by the patience and compassion Cary shows his LW's, no matter how self-absorbed, twenty-something they may be. Cary, you are so damned kind. I guess that's why you are writing this column, and not all of us would be flame throwers out in the great readership.
My advice to our stunningly intelligent, gifted, would be saver of humanity is just this -- feel it all. You can't think your way out of emotional traps, you can only feel it and let time do it's wondrous magic. If you really intend to work with the disenfranchised diaspora of the planet, getting through heartbreak will be a useful skill.
My hunch is that you aren't meant to be with either of these boys. More likely you will continue your work toward your goals... and while in the midst of some overseas service job you might just find yourself side by side with a grown up man who shares your goals and dreams. You will never know until you are well on your own way.
My remaining advice is to let yourself be single for awhile, while you pursue your own future and find, in the process, who you are. You might be lonely, but loneliness is another side effect of roaming the planet that you would do well to manage.
Lastly, Burning Man is wonderful! Can't wait til September. See you there, Cary?
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