Good Advice: Don't Date Jerks

Amy Alkon gives it to us straight:

I'm a 39-year-old woman, dating a guy 10 years younger for about a year. He swears he's in love, can't live without me, says I'm the best woman he's ever been with, and makes me feel great when he's with me. However, he rarely answers the phone when I call and has stood me up numerous times. Whenever I get mad about being stood up, he'll call after a couple of days and either say he was in the hospital or someone died. Should I move on, or is it possible that he does care but needs to grow up? I would like to add that our sex life is out of this world. The truth is, I am turning 40 soon, and I guess he makes me feel young. — Confused Or Stupid?

Okay, so your sex life is out of this world. And don't tell me, when you call the guy, his message says, "If I'm not here, I'm probably on the mothership..."
Actually, he has so little respect for you that he can't be bothered to come up with original (let alone plausible) excuses, or call you in a timely manner to deliver them. In fact, he's got you trained to call him and wait a couple days to hear which of his two excuses it'll be. What? Somebody died? People die every second — almost all of them strangers to a guy who isn't exactly living out his final days at Whispering Pines nursing home. Oh, wait — was he in the hospital again? Perhaps insurance companies are finally recognizing being a complete jerk as a legitimate medical condition — or did he just sprain an ankle walking all over you?
Sure, mistakes happen. Like, once. A good guy works 16 hours, lies down for a five-minute nap, and wakes up five hours after he was supposed to pick you up for your date. He'll be mortified, call you pronto to tell you how sorry he is, and clean out the corner florist to say it again. Should a date who's a no-show fail to call right away, or claim he was held hostage by bank robbers, the reality is almost certainly one of two things: He isn't a good guy or he isn't a good guy. Do feel free to believe otherwise — the moment you turn on the local news and see a familiar face bound and gagged on the floor of the bank.
Since anybody with an I.Q. over freezing is too smart to put up with the excuses you do, it's got to be a profound lack of self-respect that keeps you coming back for that 26th helping of crushing humiliation (or, as you prefer to call it, "out of this world sex"). Of course, you have your reasons, like how young he makes you feel — but do you really need to relive that time you waited alone in the rain when your mom forgot to pick you up from ballet? You have to be blocking out your true feelings, and reality, too, probably out of desperation to be loved — which is about the best guarantee you won't find anything remotely resembling love. You'll only be ready for a relationship when you can take or leave being in one. Go work on yourself until you don't need to hear how wonderful you are from somebody else — that is, just as soon as he comes out of this week's coma, and the waitress in the nurse outfit releases him.

I don't really have much to add. It makes me sad to see people consistently being treated poorly by those they care about. The good news is, that it's never too late to say, "Hey, wait, you're not nice to me. Goodbye."

When a door closes, somewhere.....

I can never seem to resist when Advice Goddess Amy Alkon really takes someone to task.....

Last year, I fell for this guy, "John." We hung out and flirted via e-mail, but he never asked me out. This fall, after he left on a month-long trip, I started dating "Mike," later discovering he's one of John's best friends. Things with Mike started getting rocky. John then surprised me by e-mailing that he'd heard about Mike and me and was a bit hurt and jealous. At Christmas break, Mike left town and John returned. John and I planned to get together, but John lives with a friend of Mike's so I had to sneak in through his window. I soon realized I had to break up with Mike. Mike was devastated, and it didn't help that I couldn't tell him why. John and I kept meeting secretly, but the guilt was getting to him, so we called it quits. Now, I'm torn. Do I settle and give Mike what he wants (me), or wait and try again with John? Or, is it worth it to think of either of them? — Hopeless Romantic

Oy....when you can't follow the plotline of the love polygon, the answer is almost always "stop dating everyone until you better know yourself, your values, and what you're looking for in a relationship." Sound advice, I think, typically delivered with varying layers of sympathy/contempt, depending on the emotional state of the writer and the patience of the columnist. And Amy Alkon is, in general, not known for suffering fools lightly. Ahem.

The course of true something-or-other never did run smooth. Two people — one of whom is really kind of apathetic about the other — torn apart by fate, or whatever you call it when you rip a perfectly good pair of panties sneaking through your boyfriend's best friend's window.

An actual "hopeless romantic" is somebody in love with love. You just seem confused: Paper or Mike? John or plastic? Cheeseburger or big steaming plate of raw sewage? "Or, is it worth it to think of either of them?" Now, I'm all for people asking me for advice — especially because I'm fond of eating and my landlord likes me better if I pay my rent — but you have to come in with a bit more of a base: I'm this kind of person, and here's what I care about, and here's how the two guys I'm considering stack up. Probably because you lack self-knowledge and values, you're seriously considering settling for a guy. Yeah, there's a romance right out of "Romeo and Juliet": "He's here, he wants me, whatever."

Spanish philosopher Fernando Savater said one of the greatest mistakes you can make in life is being a "moral imbecile" — somebody who doesn't bother figuring out who they are and what matters to them, and instead relies on other people to tell them what to do.

When nobody's around to ask, a person like this can end up doing some really dumb things — say, climbing in a guy's window on the first date. Ever hear of bars, restaurants, coffee shops? Many people who date use them as meeting places — especially if they're women looking for more than a hookup, because guys tend to use and lose women who sleep with them on (or especially, before) the first date. In the future, when a guy you're seriously interested in is picking you up, see that he does it in a car, not by grabbing you by the arms and yanking you over the sill.

Of course, until you find it completely nuts to be with a guy simply because he wants to be with you, you're the only person you should be dating. (Maybe grope yourself at the door for old time's sake.) As you get to know yourself better, you'll get a better idea of what kind of guy is right for you. In practice, deciding who to get involved with should work like Santa — the "making a list and checking it twice" thing, not hauling off to the mall and plopping yourself down in some fat guy's lap.

Dry-eyed and bushy tailed

Advice Goddess! Huzzah! This (second letter down) is one of her less snarky, more encouraging columns. I've included the punny title, because that's usually one of the best parts. Also this column receives extra points for the Sound of Music reference.

Asleep On The Sob

I just broke up with my boyfriend. He was self-centered, and we had our share of problems. Still, we dated almost six months, and I feel nothing — no sadness, no anxiety; just a little relief. What's with me? I've always been so depressed when I've broken up with somebody (mainly guys I cared for who cheated on me). — Comfortably Numb

No, it never plays out this way in movies and songs. As Elton John put it, "Love lies bleeding," not "Apathy sits around yawning, then contemplates turning off the lights, crawling under the covers, and hoping the gloom will descend." It is pretty unglamorous to go through a breakup and be all ho-hum about it. But, it isn't like you can't cry; you just don't feel like it this time, probably because the guy never did anything more egregious than being self-centered and tiresome. While feeling nothing probably makes you worry that the relationship didn't mean much of anything, it could become very meaningful if you use it as a reminder to choose better and get out of bad relationships faster. And, if you can do that, you shouldn't be feeling nothing; in fact, it's cause to do as they did in a famous movie: Make a dress out of the drapes and skip through the Alps singing.

I guess I don't really understand why this woman is concerned that she's not torn up about this break up. Shouldn't she just be relieved? Wait...she is relieved, and she's concerned that she's relieved....yikes. It must have taken a lot of messy break ups to put her in the mind set that this new feeling (or non-feeling) is somehow wrong. That, or just a lifetime of magazines on how to recover from the trauma involved in any parting of ways. If none of the multiple choices from the Cosmo break up quiz describe her (because it would be way too boring), is she a freak???

I'm not going to lie, I think if I made a pie chart of emotions after each break up that I've had, relief would be the dominant emotion in almost every case. I was more often really torn up in the month or so before it ended, when trying to wrangle with whether to stay or go, work it out or not, address the problems or ignore them. It's understandable that this woman would have been hurt, angry and betrayed by previous guys who had cheated on her--and presumably if the relationship ended when she found out, she hadn't had time to process this pain and anger until after the break up--thus a painful recovery period and perhaps much seeking of "closure." But in this case, it's just "I'm no longer dating someone I don't want to be dating." Yay!

I think sometimes you've just put in all the energy and emotion that a relationship is worth to you before it ends, and when it's done, well it just is. There's nothing left. And not because you're so drained and exhausted from the pain of it all, but because you're simply Over It. And isn't that the goal, anyway?

The Giving Spree

Amy Alkon ("The Advice Goddess") and I see eye to eye on this dude...but I don't think she was hard enough on him (and Amy is no softie).

Here's the letter. Discussion to follow:

I always tell my wife I love her and buy her gifts I can't afford. I know she loves me. She works so hard at school, and works to pay her tuition, and still washes my clothes, cooks, and cleans. And I never ask her to. When I buy her things, I don't expect anything in return; I just like to see her happy. I buy her roses for no reason. Recently, because her friends wear so much jewelry, and I know she wished she had some, I bought her a second diamond ring. For our four anniversaries, I've given her a gold bracelet, an iPod, a laptop, and most recently, a cell phone she really wanted. In return, she gave me a card with a letter promising to go to the gym and get back in shape. (She's not fat, but knows it means a lot to me when she's looking good.) I loved the commitment, but this is something she owes herself, not a real gift. I'm not materialistic, but it hurt that she didn't take the time to get me something...I don't care what...a couple T-shirts.
— Let Down

I made it poo-brown to express my real feelings about this guy. To summarize Amy's answer:
not everyone shows love the same way, don't take for granted the deal you've got, and the fact that you're so desperate to buy the love of your wife for pete's sake, doesn't say a whole lot about your own self-confidence, and by overcompensating inappropriately, you're probably eroding hers.

Point, point, point, point, and point. To which I would like to add, when you're married, "buy her gifts I can't afford" really means "buy her gifts WE can't afford." Even if your particular partnership functions best by keeping bank accounts separate, if one of you goes into debt, won't that affect the other's credit rating? Not to mention day-to-day standard of living? Again, even if you shop seperately, you live and eat together, right? So if your extravagant gifts are keeping you on bologna and milk crates, that negatively impacts both of your lives.

Consider this: for every $500 dollars you don't spend on ridiculous presents, she can cut back on her work hours and enjoy her life with you, right? Or you could hire a cleaning service to do a magic number on the house every few months? Or take a trip? Or pay off her "just because" Columbus Day bracelet. So many options.

Buying your wife gifts you can't afford is not an act of loving devotion. It's irresponsible to yourself, your wife, and the life you share. And it is probably this sense of making up for your irresponsibility that keeps your wife from responding in kind. People don't give letters of commitment to their significant others in lieu of gifts unless they are really concerned about over spending. If you shopped more carefully, maybe there'd be something left in the kitty for her to treat you.

I worship at the altar of the Advice Goddess

I seriously enjoy the advice stylings of Amy Alkon, aka the Advice Goddess. It takes a lot of the right kind of sass to make yourself a deity, and she's got it.

She successfully fulfills one of the major advice columnists functions, namely, calling writers on their bullshit and seeing straight through their justifications, rationalizations, descriptivations, and all their other ations.

We need advice columnists for this sort of thing, because our friends too often love us too much to call us on this stuff, or they do it in such a gentle way we don't recognize it, or they do it clearly, and we get mad at them for interfering (usually when we've asked for their help).

So three cheers, Amy Alkon. Not to mention her awesome, puntastic column titles.

If I were an advice columnist (someday....) I'd want to be this kind. Think I'd have to dye my hair red and wear a bad ass high-collared jacket?

I hope so.