I have been with my boyfriend for a little less than two months now. We are both freshmen in college and for both of us, this is our very first relationship.

When I am with him the thought of having sex with him is fantastic and makes me happy, but I’m so so terrified we are moving too quickly. That and terrified of what having sex with both of us being virgins will be like. He says that no matter what, he will wait until I am ready.

I love him and he loves me, yet I don’t know if this is BECAUSE neither of us have dated anyone else. I’m just not very sure of myself and I would love to know what you think. Thank you!

You’re adorable, that’s what I think. First love. First relationship. First time having sex. It’s all too precious for words.

Enjoy yourself. Just be present in the moment, and don’t worry so much about getting it right. It’s not gonna be perfect. Not even close. That’s okay, though. You’re supposed to be clumsy and clueless and terrified. Enjoy that part too, because as ridiculous as it sounds, one day you’ll miss it.

You don’t get to be sure of yourself yet, but don’t be afraid. Everything has a beginning, middle, and end. You’ve got a lot of beginnings going on right now, and that’s a beautiful place to be.

Don’t be afraid of any of it.

I’m just gonna be blunt and say this: my boyfriend is suicidal, and I’m probably a selfish bitch disguised as a girl trying to protect her own heart. I worry that he’ll break up with me because when his head is in a bad place he pushes everyone away. And I worry he’ll then off himself and it will be like losing him twice. To me, love is about communication and commitment, but I feel like we can’t have either right now because I worry that if I say something about our relationship, he’ll push me away, off himself, and I’ll have lost him AND feel like I’m the one who pushed him over the edge. I realise that when it comes to something like this, his life is way more important than my heart, so should I just shut up before I make things worse, or is there another option?

Wow. It’s all about you, isn’t it? You’re just the center of the fucking universe, a brave heroine embroiled in a tragic love story ready to sacrifice her heart for a suicidal boy.

Ugh. What a drama queen. Listen, your boyfriend isn’t going to kill himself. You know how I can tell? Because you’re enjoying this. I know you think you’re miserable, but you’re not. You’re romanticizing the possibility that your boyfriend might be suicidal, and you’re wallowing in it.

I’m not calling you a liar. I’m sure you believe everything you’re telling me, and I don’t doubt that your boyfriend has a ton of problems (you included.) Still, you’re not talking to me about his past suicide attempts or his specific plans to kill himself. You’re not really even talking about him at all.

Basically, you’re just asking for my permission to be a martyr. Stay with him or break it off, you get to climb up on the cross either way. Well, fuck that shit. Everything isn’t about you. Even in the highly unlikely event that he actually attempts suicide, it wouldn’t be because of you.

Get over yourself. You are not responsible for his emotional state — not now as his girlfriend, and not in the future as his ex. Never allow someone to hold you as an emotional hostage in what is obviously an unhealthy relationship.

Curious, Coquette! In the horror film 30 Days of Night, the heroine, confronted by a creature clearly bent on her eventual destruction, whimpers, “God! Please….” The creature pauses, stares at her, and says, “God?” It then scans the heavens calmly before pronouncing: “No God.” Is this chilling only to the believer? I don’t mean this to be any sort of “catch” question. I just want to know how this scene affects (or does not affect) those who do not believe in any god.

Horror movies scare you by tickling the reptilian part of your brain. They engage your fight-or-flight response and put you in a state of hyperarousal without putting you in any actual danger. That’s the whole point, really.

The reason the “No God” scene from 30 Days of Night freaked you out is because the director went through all the motions to amp you up into this state of hyperarousal, but then he paused. He held you there for an extra moment so he could drop an existential grenade.

Deep down in the dark sticky corners of every believer’s brain, right next to the rational acknowledgement of the inevitability of your own death, is the most horrifying question of all: “What if there really is no God?”

During that brief moment of pause in that heightened state of awareness, the director forced you to reflect on the very existence of god, and it scared the shit out of you to such a degree that you felt the need to write me a letter.

I get that you’re trying to reconcile how it made you feel by asking me how the scene affects non-believers, but I can’t help you with that. After all, it doesn’t matter whether you believe or not.

The horror is in realizing that there are no answers.

What we call the Law of Attraction is just a name to describe cause and effect (for every action there is a reaction). In quantum physics this is referred to as the ‘observer effect’ and is well documented. In our every day world it can be observed by the way our body responds to negative emotion by contracting and going into ‘fight or flight’. In short, the Law of Attraction is hardwired into the universe, but it works on the level of vibration, i.e., raise your emotional vibration and you attract an equal reaction.

Raise your emotional vibration? Ugh. You are so full of shit.

Listen, you are free to believe whatever silly nonsense makes you happy, but Newton’s third law of motion already has a name, and you don’t get to allude to the phenomenon of wave function collapse in quantum mechanics as if it’s somehow evidence of your bullshit metaphysics.

You do not understand science. You don’t even understand pseudo-science. I hate to break it to you, but the law of attraction isn’t hardwired into the universe. Confirmation bias is hardwired into your brain.

What do you think of The Secret? The Law of Attraction?

I think it’s a ridiculous pseudo-philosophy that fills a certain existential void for a particularly shallow-minded and materialistic set of middlebrow Americans who enjoy the narcissistic delusion that their own positive thoughts might somehow have magical properties.

Dear Coquette,

How does one win the internets? Or, better yet, the game of life?

Thank you in advance,

Anonymous 38 year old man-child

Dear Man-Child,

Death is the only game, and one day you will lose.

Thank you in advance,

The Coquette

I am seventeen and lost my virginity a few months ago, when I was still sixteen. I lost it to my boyfriend, who I love very much and have not regretted it at all since it happened. Of course, I didn’t tell my mom right away to avoid the awkwardness and just because I felt it really wasn’t her business. A few weeks ago, I did finally tell her and what ensued was the most awkward, hurtful conversation ever which had me feeling like a worthless slut and for the first time having doubts about losing it. She still makes offhand comments that hurt, and I don’t know how to respond. Was I wrong for what I did? And how do I get her to respect me more again, and not treat me like a criminal for losing my virginity?

Ugh. It really fucking hurts to be slut shamed by your own mother. Let me be loud and clear about this: YOU DID NOTHING WRONG.

You were ready to become sexually active. You made a thoughtful, conscious decision to have sex with a loving partner, and you don’t have any regrets about your first time. Well played, kiddo. You did a better job than most.

Obviously, your mom wasn’t ready for you to become sexually active, but you know what? That shit ain’t up to her. She reacted poorly, and whatever her reasons, it was wrong of her to make you feel worthless for having sex.

Your mother isn’t perfect. Those hurtful comments she’s making are merely an expression of her own internalized misogyny. She seems to believe that sex can somehow devalue you as a person, and that’s total bullshit.

Do your best to forgive your mother for fucking this up. Whatever her issues are, they don’t have to become yours. Try and recognize that she’s the one who failed here. I know you feel like you’re the one who needs to earn back her respect, but really, she’s the one who needs to earn back yours.

When is/are the right time/s to ask where the relationship is going? How do I know whether I’m only adding unnecessary pressure to a good thing by asking?

“Where is this relationship going?” is a horrible fucking question that puts your partner on the defensive. It’s a needy and self-defeating expression of weakness and insecurity. Don’t ask it.

Instead, try an expression of vulnerability. “I think I’m starting to fall in love with you,” can prompt the kind of conversation you want to have without backing your partner into a corner.

If you have a little strength of character, you can also just say what you’re thinking. Go ahead. Try, “I want things to get more serious.” After all, you should have as much input as your partner about where the relationship is going.

Your stance on Christopher Dorner’s manifesto is relieving to hear – it is unsettling to listen to those dubbing him an “antihero”. On the other hand, what do you think about the way the police force have handled this? Does the obvious lack of “due process” being administered unsettle you?

Christopher Dorner is an antihero. Being an antihero is a bad thing, but the world is full of morally bankrupt fucktards who don’t realize that you’re not supposed to root for antiheroes.

As for the way “the police force” handled this, I don’t even know what you mean. The San Bernadino Sheriffs have nothing to do with the Riverside Police, and the Riverside Police wish they had something to do with the LAPD. There is no singular police force at work here.

There is also no obvious lack of due process. If Dorner had surrendered, he would have received a fair trial. That’s all there is to due process. You’re trying to suggest that Dorner was summarily executed by the San Bernadino Sheriffs Department, and that’s bullshit.

Dorner was never going to surrender. That was the whole point of this very elaborate suicide.

What do you think of the Christopher Dorner Manifesto that was released a few days ago in which he states his reasons in clear, precise terms, why he’s going on “asymetrical, unconventional warfare” against the Los Angeles Police Department?

This excerpt from The Last Psychiatrist’s post on The Rage of the Average Joe (which was written in response to Joe Stack flying his plane into an IRS building in 2010) brilliantly sums up everything I want to say about Christopher Dorner and his stupid fucking manifesto:

“It’s natural to look at this from your own perspective (“he has a point about the rich” etc) but this isn’t a manifesto, it’s a suicide note. The information of suicide notes are not reliable.

And it’s a suicide note, not a homicide note, because it is about his life/death. Everyone else doesn’t matter.

The reason why he’s so hard to pin down as right wing or left wing (or patsy) is that it’s not important to him, writing the note. The purpose of the note isn’t to convey information, it is to convey mood, and the seemingly random and contradictory positions he takes on issues is all in an attempt to win you, the reader, over to his side. He knows for sure he is angry, he knows for sure he feels wronged, but he can’t logically and realistically link the real world events to his level of anger. So he confuses you with words while blanketing you with mood. You have no idea what he’s talking about, but you definitely sympathize with the frustration. Boom— he got you.

If you simply look at it as a “type”, then he’s a mass murderer, akin to a guy in a tower with a rifle. So the form of the note will be impotence, paranoia, displacement, a feeling of rejection/invalidation, and, of course, narcissism. I’ll make the simple observation that as obsessed with rules as he was, he didn’t think and didn’t like that they necessarily applied to him.”