Best-Of Advice

On being a joan

So, I’m pretty excited about Mad Men’s new season. Are you a Joan, do you want to be a Joan, or do you just fantasize about being with a Joan?

I don’t mind if you want to hurt my feelings by telling me what her image does to my existential reality or unestablished self-esteem, but she’s the imaginary woman I never knew I wanted to be.

 

I don’t have high hopes for this season of Mad Men. I’ll watch it. Of course I’ll watch it. I might even enjoy it, but let’s all be clear that the show jumped the shark after season three.

That’s what happens with all great serial shows — The Sopranos, Sex and the City, Nip/Tuck, Weeds, Californication — you name it, and I can point to how it was all down hill after season three. (What about The Wire, you say? Yeah, yeah. The Wire is essentially five sets of mini-series with a number of reoccurring characters. It’s the exception that proves the rule.)

When Weeds jumped the shark after season three, at least Jenji Kohan had the foresight to (literally) burn down the whole universe of the show, steal away the main characters, and create what is essentially a spinoff of the original.

Good for her. Matthew Weiner tried to pull off the same trick, but unfortunately, he didn’t go far enough. He stole away the main characters from Mad Men‘s original universe, but the new one he created was an exact replica with more modern furniture. Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce was no different than Sterling Cooper, and the show really started to sag.

I don’t expect Mad Men to get any more interesting than it’s already been, because the only place left for Weiner to take his band of merry narcissists is on a downward spiral. Don is finally divorced from an idiot. Joan is finally married to an idiot. What now? Guess things will have to start getting weird for no reason. That, or really boring.

As for whether I want to be a Joan, all I can say is fuck no. It’s not that I have anything against Christina Hendricks or the character she plays, but the whole idea of typing myself as a fictional personality is more than a little bit creepy.

This kind of shit used to happen all the time back in the Sex and the City days. Bitches couldn’t help but ask, “are you a Carrie, a Samantha, a Charlotte, or a Miranda?”

“Fuck you,” I’d say.

“Oh, you must be a Samantha. I’m such a Carrie!”

“Of course you are,” at which point I’d excuse myself to the bathroom mirror to check that there wasn’t any blood leaking out of my ears.

Point is, everyone wants to be either a Carrie or a Charlotte. Everyone wants to be either a Joan or a Peggy. And if right now you’re saying to yourself, “Wait, wait! I’d rather be a Betty Draper or (god forbid) a Miranda,” then you’re double fucked. Not only are you missing my point, but you’re fantasizing about being a two-dimensional cunt.

I know I’m rambling at this point, but this shit bugs me. I hate hearing other women say they want to be like fictional characters on television. Real life role models are hard enough for me to condone, but tailoring your personality after some idealized bit of pop culture fiction is as shallow as it is dangerous.

This applies just as much to all you guys, by the way. Yes, you. The ones wearing fedoras and drinking rye whiskey cocktails like they were some kind of Don Draper starter kit. Stop it.

No, I’m not telling you what to wear or what to drink. I’m telling you to stop buying what television is really selling: your identity.

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Best-Of Advice

On greatness and killing your ego

Dear Coquette,

How do I accept that I won’t ever be great or outstanding? I always thought I had talent, and maybe I’m not bad, but a great many people are far better. I can’t stop thinking this and it’s causing me great anxiety.

 

Kill your ego, because nothing you do will ever matter. That’s okay, though. It’s not just you. It’s all of us. It’s taken 100,000 years for our species to hump and grunt its way into momentary dominance on this pale blue dot, but nothing we’ve accomplished is all that outstanding when you consider that a Mall of America-sized asteroid is all it would take to turn humanity into the next thin layer of fossil fuels.

Greatness is nothing but the surface tension on the spit bubble of human endeavor. On a geological time scale, our measurable effect on the planet is a greasy burp. We are seven billion tiny flecks of talking meat stuck to an unremarkable mud ball hurtling through space in an unimaginably vast universe for no particular reason. There is no difference between kings and cripples, my friend. We’re all the same hodgepodge of primordial goo, and the pursuit of greatness is a fool’s errand.

Pursue happiness instead. Find peace in your insignificance, and just let your anxiety go. Learn to savor the likely truth that the sum total of human achievement won’t even register in the grand scheme, so you might as well just enjoy whatever talents you have. Use them to make yourself and others happy, and set aside any desire to be great or outstanding.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t do your best. You should. If you’re talented, by all means, exploit that talent to the fullest extent possible. Just don’t do it for the sake of greatness. Do it for the sake of happiness. If the distinction is a little hazy, that’s because your ego is doing its best to get in the way. Your ego wants to put you on a pedestal at the center of the universe. It wants to convince you of silly things like jealous gods and life after death. Your ego would never allow you to believe that you are anything other than a special snowflake, which is why you have to kill it.

Annihilating your ego is the quickest way to happiness. Embracing your insignificance will make your anxiety suddenly seem ridiculous. You’ll recognize petty emotions like schadenfreude and envy for the childish tantrums that they are. You’ll stop comparing your talents to others, and you’ll be able to enjoy being good at something without the need to be great.

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Best-Of Advice

On the nice guy

I’m “the nice guy” that is best friends with girls but never has sex with them. I had two girlfriends in high school for a month each and none since then. Every time I try to hook up with a girl she stops and leaves. I’m shy, so I have a hard time meeting girls. I know I’m my own worst enemy. I don’t drink and I don’t do drugs, and its hard to meet people at parties when they’re shitfaced and you’re sober.

I don’t get it. I try my best, I drop everything to help girls out, but no one wants to stick around. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I get a girlfriend?

You’re not a nice guy. You’re a whiny little bitch.

Girls don’t need your help. They deserve your respect. Quit dropping everything for them and learn the difference. While you’re at it, stop behaving like getting laid and getting a girlfriend are the same thing.

Oh, and not that you asked, but quit announcing your sobriety at parties. I can tell, you’re that guy. No one likes that guy. Just walk around with a solo cup filled with soda and shut the fuck up about it.

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Best-Of Advice

On letting him go

Dear Coquette,

My boyfriend of four years has decided he wants to move to Texas to become a police officer. We currently live in California. I have just bought my own house, and I have a full ride scholarship to a university in California. He has applied to be a police officer in California, but they aren’t moving fast enough for him. I offered to give up the home I just purchased and my education to follow him. He said he’d break up with me if I did, that he would feel bad if I did, and wouldn’t allow me to do it. If he goes, I’ll stupidly try to work through it, no matter how miserable and resentful I am that all of it was his choice.

 I’m not asking him to sacrifice anything — he can be a police officer here just as much as Texas. He told me he is doing what he has to do for him and his future, that we aren’t married, but getting married has always been the plan, so why should that matter? (Because we aren’t married gives him a free card to do anything he wants and not consider me?)

If he loved me and wanted to marry me, he would stay, there would be nothing more important to him than to be with me. I am lost, and the more I try and convince him to stay, the farther away I push him. We are in serious trouble in our relationship. How do I convince him that he’s making a terrible decision for both of us? Am I being stupid? I’m terribly lost and hurt and I don’t know what to do. All I know is that I love him, and the four years we’ve been together should mean something. Please help.


OK, I’ll help, but you’re not gonna like it. Sit down and strap in, because it’s brutal truth time.

Your relationship is over.

Let that sink in for a second. I know the thought just terrifies you, but someone needed to tell you in plain and simple language what your boyfriend is too much of a spineless douchebag to admit.

You made it four years. Well done. That’s longer than most. Unfortunately, now it’s time for you to be heartbroken for a while. It’s gonna suck. There will be a lot of tears, a good bit of wallowing, and a sizable amount of resentment and anger, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s stay focused on the present moment and see if we can’t at least get you past this initial denial phase.

Your boyfriend does not want to be with you anymore. In fact, he probably checked out of the relationship well over a year ago. He’s just been going through the motions, encouraging you to plant roots in California so he could make the jump to Texas without you following him. It’s the only way he knew how to end things after almost half a decade.

It’s a harsh reality to face, but the good news is that you’re getting rid of an emotionally stunted coward who’s just gonna end up being another jerk cop in Texas. The bad news is it’s too soon for you to see it that way.

It’s perfectly natural for you to be a hot mess right now, but I highly recommend you steel yourself up and take control of the situation. If you have it in you, summon the dignity and break up with him yourself. Make it hard, fast and clean.

If you can’t bring yourself to end it, at least prepare for the inevitable. This is not the man you’re gonna marry. He’s just the man you spent the first chunk of your 20s loving, and there’s no shame in that.

Don’t worry. You’ll be fine. In fact, you’re in a good place. You’ve got a home, a scholarship, and a couple of years to focus on your education. You’ll get through this, and eventually, you’ll find someone else.

For now, though, just take a deep breath and realize that you are not lost. He is.

Let him go.

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Best-Of Advice

On special snowflake disease

Dear Coquette,

How do I deal with the realization that I have no special talents, nor am I as intelligent as I thought to be? I feel like I am not going to be able to accomplish anything I wanted to do in my life.

You’ll be fine. You’re just going through the withdrawal phase of a self-esteem addiction. It’s a natural part of your recovery from Special Snowflake Disease.

Let me guess: You’re young, white and a product of the American suburbs. From preschool through senior year, you were fed a constant diet of self-esteem-boosting, feel-good encouragement. You were told you could be anything and do anything, and that everyone was a special snowflake.

Sure, you grew up as one of the good kids. You took an AP class or two, your report card usually had a couple of A’s in it, and you weren’t bad at whatever sport you played. You even got accepted to a decent college, but when you showed up for freshman year, you promptly had your ass handed to you by the brutal reality that no one cared anymore. 

You were suddenly surrounded by people who were smarter than you, and there was no one there to make sure you showed up and did the work. As a result, your grades have been in the toilet lately, and you find yourself struggling for what used to come so easily. 

No, I’m not psychic. This is simply what’s happening to most of your generation, especially from your little slice of the socioeconomic pie. All of you special snowflakes are coming to terms with your own raging mediocrity. Yes, that’s right. You will not cure cancer. You will not win the lottery. Worst of all, you will not have your own reality show.

Don’t worry, though. You’re gonna be OK. Sacrificing your dreams at the altar of reality is a rite of passage for everyone but a handful of rock stars and ballerinas. You can’t ever let it get to you, or else you’ll end up leading one of those lives of quiet desperation. In fact, it’s good that you caught this early. The sooner you face the harsh truths of the real world, the better off you’ll be.

The first step is taking comfort in the knowledge that you’re like most people. You’re not the best. You’re not the worst. You’re just average. The next step is getting cozy with the notion that no one cares. Right now, that kind of bums you out. You’re still a bit of an encouragement junkie. Soon though, you’ll mellow out and realize that there’s a certain kind of freedom in no one giving a crap. You’ll start taking strength in your own independence, and you’ll learn to validate your existence through internal rather than external criteria. In other words, you’ll stop caring what other people think of your accomplishments.

Not to skip ahead a few lessons, but maybe one day you’ll even discover that it doesn’t matter what you accomplish with your life. None of it matters, but that’s okay too, because at the end of the day, if you’re able to surround yourself with good people and find a few things that make you happy, you’ll have lived a good life.

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Best-Of Advice

On unexamined monogamy

My girlfriend and I have been together for six months, and it’s a great relationship. She had to travel overseas for three months for work purposes, and I’m stuck at home without enough money to travel. She’s been gone for more than a month already, and it was all fine up until recently.

She was caught out by an overseas friend of mine being kind of flirty in public. Every day for the last week or so, my girlfriend tells me she’s so horny and doesn’t think she can last the length of her stay without cheating; it’s “so hard” and “the distance is getting to me, so hard.” She tells me how guys approach her in clubs and try to sleep with her, but also makes it out that I should be proud of her for saying no to them.

She has a history of sleeping around while over there and not in a relationship, and saying “no” to guys is something new to her. I give her credit for that. I also admit she’s one to usually get what she wants, when he wants, thanks to a rich mother and forgiving father, and now’s a time where she can’t get all of that without hurting me.

However, it still messes with my head. I’ve spoken to two of her friends that have since became my own, and they’re disappointed in her. I’m sorry if this is long, but you seem great with advice. What options are available for me? Is she doing a normal thing? Am I right to be so cut up by it?

This isn’t about you being right or her being wrong, and this certainly isn’t about doing the normal thing. This is about coming to terms with your petty jealousy, addressing her potential lack of integrity and recognizing that you’re in a self-made prison of unexamined monogamy.

Having sex with other people while you’re in a relationship doesn’t always have to be cheating. So many people are in a constant struggle — to cheat or not to cheat — and it never occurs to them that in order to cheat, they have to accept a set of rules before they can break them.

Why accept the rules? Why not make your own? It’s so much healthier to simply reject the underlying assumption that monogamy and fidelity are interchangeable concepts. They’re not.

Yes, that’s right. Monogamy and fidelity are not the same thing.

It’s such a simple statement, but there is so much freedom in it. Being true and faithful in a relationship has no inherent connection to how many sexual partners you have. The connection is self-imposed.

Why do you care if your girlfriend has sex while she’s overseas? Why should she care if you do the same? What are you proving to each other by not having sex for three months? That kind of behavior isn’t strengthening your relationship. All it seems to be doing is building resentment and mistrust.

What am I suggesting here? Well, it’s not all that salacious. Really, it’s about integrity and strength — the integrity to be totally open and honest in a relationship, and the strength to allow yourself and your partner to pursue happiness wherever it may be found.

Obviously, your girlfriend shouldn’t be having any love affairs while she’s away, but physical and emotional intimacy are completely different than getting your rocks off. Come on, dude. You’re not a doe-eyed grade schooler. I shouldn’t have to tell you this.

Take some time to re-examine your romantic fundamentals. Lust isn’t love. Flirting isn’t intimacy. Sex isn’t passion. As long as you two keep the love, intimacy, and passion to yourselves, do you think you can handle letting her have a little lust, flirting and sex when you’re not around?

If not, that’s fine, but understand that the reasons matter. You aren’t talking to me about your girlfriend being undignified, unsafe or disrespectful. All I’m hearing from you is petty jealousy. You are jealous and insecure in the relationship, and that’s not healthy. Jealousy is a symptom of larger trust issues and fears. Throw in the long distance and a girlfriend with a healthy sex drive, and that’s a recipe for things ending badly.

And come to think of it, this advice goes for all couples, gay or straight, in any combination of girl or guy. There is no double standard here. Fear-based monogamy is a terrible foundation for exclusivity in any romantic relationship. Instead, exclusivity should be based on physical and emotional intimacy.

Of course, sex can be a beautiful expression of both physical and emotional intimacy, but that doesn’t mean it always is. Is your girlfriend looking for intimacy while she’s overseas for work, or is she just looking to get laid? Be honest. You know the difference. Are you being jealous out of deep insecurities? Again, be honest. 

Listen, I’m not saying you should give your girlfriend an international hall pass. That kind of thing is entirely up to you. All I’m saying is that you need to take a step back and open up a dialog with you girlfriend about fidelity, and focus on being true to one another where it really matters.

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Best-Of Advice

On philosophers and fools

Heartbreak is not inevitable…why are you so bitter? Sure there are hard times but some people who say “forever” mean it. I’m sorry that has not been your experience. Every time I read your articles I end up thinking about you and how miserable your existence must be and what horrible life experiences you must have had. I am so sorry for you!

Sweetheart, I’m not bitter. I’m just not a candy-headed twit. Please save your shallow pity for sad puppies in Sarah McLachlan commercials, because I certainly don’t need it.

I’m over here leading a charmed life of self-realized happiness, but you aren’t equipped to spot something like that. I’m sure you’re a decent enough person — earnest, Wonder Bread wholesome, sweet in a saccharine sort of way — but you couldn’t find enlightenment if it was in the rollback bin at Walmart.

That’s okay. I don’t need you to understand that what you consider bitterness, I consider a healthy dose of pragmatism. What you consider sin, I consider a celebration of the human condition. What you consider bliss, I consider ignorance.

I welcome heartbreak as an inevitability because I have no childish illusions about true love or happily ever after. That doesn’t mean I don’t love deeply. I do. I just don’t need it to be a fairy tale.

And yes, some people who say forever mean it, but forever is a word for philosophers and fools. If you’re using it to describe your love life, I’ll let you guess which of the two you are.

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Best-Of Advice

On the drug war

What are your thoughts on ruthless violence of the drug cartels in Latin America? That shit is almost entirely funded by our greedy demand for and mindless consumption of cocaine. I just spent two weeks down there and got a much better sense of how grave the crisis really is. I’ve now decided to kick the habit and stick to good ol’ California-hippie-grown pot from now on and I think you should hop on board.

Just sayin’…

Two whole weeks? Wow, you’re like an honorary Latin American or something. I guess I should really listen to you. You’re like an expert. I bet you even know how to ask for bottled water in Spanish.

Listen, when you’re done patting yourself on the back for supporting your local pot farmer, maybe you could set aside your smug sense of self-appreciation for going on a field trip and take a hot minute to learn the basic principles of a black market economy.

When it comes to cocaine, it’s not our greedy demand nor our mindless consumption that’s causing the ruthless violence. It’s prohibition. The law is to blame. The illegality of cocaine is what vastly inflates its price above the cost of production creating an artificial price bubble worth hundreds of billions each year. That money is the ultimate cause of all the violence.

If the United States ended the war on drugs tomorrow and the DEA became strictly a regulatory agency, the market price of cocaine would collapse and the cartel violence would end almost immediately. Not only that, but the demand and consumption of cocaine wouldn’t really change all that much. It’s not like the drug war actually keeps people off drugs.

You’re an idiot if you think there’s any moral superiority in saying no to blow for political reasons, because as a citizen of a country waging this kind of war on drugs, you’ll always have blood on your hands.

Just sayin’…

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Best-Of Advice

On being a grown-up

Dear Coquette,

I’m in my mid-20s, but sometimes I fall into the habit of acting far less mature than my age when I’m around other people. It’s something I find myself regretting later on when I’m finally by myself. I feel childish just asking this question, but is this really what it’s like to be a grown-up? Wasn’t I supposed to get married or something?

Yep. This is it. 

Welcome to 21st-century adulthood.

You’ve been out of college a few years now, and you know what it’s like to put in some of that entry-level grind. Maybe you’re waiting tables. Maybe you’re in grad school. Maybe you’re bucking for some junior-level corporate gig. Whatever. Point is, you’re not the new girl anymore, but you aren’t management yet either.

Take a good look around at the view, because for better or worse, this is all you can expect out of being a grown-up. Sure, you might squeeze out a child of your own in a few years, but other than that, the American experience isn’t gonna come along and saddle you with any life-changing, pillbox hat-wearing, polyester blend responsibility that would otherwise clearly indicate you’re not still one yourself.

Sorry, kiddo — it doesn’t work like that anymore.

Your state of emotional maturity might seem stunted by previous generations’ standards, but we Millennials have been blessed and cursed with an unusually extended adolescence filled with social networks, smoking bans, and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

The befuddled boomers and bitter Gen Xers before us are quick to talk all kinds of smack about our relative immaturity, but do your best to ignore the negativity, because quite frankly, this is how they raised us. Besides, it’s their turn to be old and in the way, and they should shut up and be thankful that we’re willing to pick up the tab on their ballooning Social Security and Medicare. But I digress. How tacky.

Speaking of attention deficit disorder, our generation’s extended adolescence is part and parcel to a much grander sociological cycle that also includes the crumbling of the institution of marriage and the death of the American dream. Good times. I’m not suggesting that you owe your individual immaturity to such abstract generalizations, but it’s food for thought next time you find yourself with nothing but a throbbing hangover and morning-after regret. 

Marriage was once the threshold to adulthood. It wasn’t just something you wanted to do in a happily-ever-after sort of way, it was also something you needed to do to survive, but shifting gender roles and skyrocketing divorce rates came along and turned an economic necessity into a lifestyle option, and in so doing, unblazed the trail to official grown-up status. 

Things are different now. There is no clear demarcation line, but you know what? It’s better this way. Such things were always arbitrary. Forty years ago, a housewife in her mid-20s was no more a grown-up than you are today. She just thought she was, and ultimately her confusion resulted in things like daytime television, ennui, and the aforementioned skyrocketing divorce rates.

You’re just as confused, but don’t worry — that’s what your twenties are all about.

Read “The Coquette” Sundays and Wednesdays in The Daily.

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Best-Of Advice

On profanity

I find it amusing that you contradict your intelligent outlook on life by using stupid swear words all the time – especially when you’ve said in the past “I’m perfectly capable of expressing my emotional state with actual words.” – which really is the height of unintelligence, particularly when expressing yourself.  You remind me of some fourteen-year-olds I went to high school with who all thought they were so cool when they started to call each other bitches and sluts, and had extended their vocabulary to include words like fuck. Could you perhaps tell me the point of swearing so often? Do you even know?

I use profanity because I’m profane, you persnickety cunt.

When it comes to creative use of the language, swear words aren’t the height of unintelligence. Cliche and close-mindedness are, and sweetheart, you’re a walking close-minded cliche.

Someone has you convinced that vulgarity and irreverence are synonymous with stupidity when nothing could be further from the truth. Profanity is a weapon for someone like me. It’s a linguistic tool with a blunt face and a sharp edge. It’s dangerous and essential.

Find it amusing all you want, but you’re the smug little bitch going through life with your nose in the air, constantly judging others with a value system you haven’t even taken the time to examine.

Now that’s what I find amusing.

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