Fun-Sized Advice

On fun-sized advice

Are feelings rational?
Feelings are emotions that have come into awareness. It’s not that feelings are irrational. It’s just that rationality doesn’t apply to feelings. Rationality applies to thoughts. The way you think about your feelings and any subsequent behavior can be rational or irrational, but that speaks to the thoughts and behaviors, not the feelings themselves.

Love will never be possible for me because no one will ever live up to my standards. I want someone who’s smarter and more confident than me. Someone to make me a better person. Mostly I want a man and not a boy. So how do I go about solving this problem?
There is only one problem here to solve. You want someone to make you a better person. Fuck that. It’s poison. You will never be happy as long as you expect someone other than yourself to make you a better person. You can have all the rest of it, but you have to take responsibility for your own self-improvement.

My boyfriend of five years just told me he would buy me razor blades if I would kill myself with them. I feel low.
Yeah, you are a victim of emotional abuse. That’s real shit, and it has the same cycle with the same long-term damage as physical abuse. Five years is enough, wouldn’t you say? I know it’s scary, but I think you might find that you’ll feel surprisingly less low if he was out of your life.*

*I got your second letter. You don’t need a breakup. You need immediate domestic violence intervention. Your situation is very serious. Please send me your email and let me know what city you live in, and I will try and help point you to some local resources. 

We’ve been together three years. Aren’t the trust issues supposed to go away after a while?
Time isn’t what cures trust issues. Integrity is, but all the integrity in the world can’t get through without open, honest communication. That’s why it’s taking so long.

Why am I always suspicious of men who express an attraction to my looks? What am I afraid of?
It’s not that you’re afraid. It’s that on some fundamental level, you don’t believe them, and so that automatically makes you suspicious.

Hypothetically, let’s say I get permission from his wife to fuck him. Isn’t it still unethical because I’m responsible for taking away time from his home and kids?
Nah, if they’re in an open relationship and you get his wife’s permission, it’s no more unethical than if he took that same amount of time to go play a round of golf. Parents are entitled to personal recreation, and I’m sure he knows better than to be off fucking you instead of showing up to a parent/teacher conference.

On Friday we informally (on snapchat) joked (but not really) about not seeing anyone else but each other. On Saturday I had amazing (unplanned) sex with someone else…
If you’re writing me, you must be feeling guilty. That’s a good thing, because it means you have a conscience, and you also like this guy. If you want to be exclusive with him, make it a real conversation, and stick to your word.

What do people like you who happily go around saying ‘fuck the police’ think would really happen in a world without police?
There are many versions of a world without police. Some are a feudalistic horror show, and some are a utopian ideal. We haven’t reached a point in our sociological evolution where police aren’t necessary, but we have reached a point where it’s okay to acknowledge that they are, at best, a necessary evil. If you’d like to know more about what I mean when I say fuck the police, feel free to read, “On fucking the police.

Do you think you’re in your last lifetime? I’m betting you’re an old soul and have learned a lot of past life lessons. Hence why you’ve become an “Accidental Guru.” Maybe you are more of a real one.
There is only one life.

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18 thoughts on “On fun-sized advice

  1. Grouch says:

    @the person with the terrible boyfriend:

    WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK dump him. BUT, a person who says shit like that is probably not a safe person, so get into contact with whatever domestic violence hotlines/programs exist in your area, and trustworthy friends/family and make a plan for leaving, and make sure you have your stuff together, it’s all out, and you are gone before you drop that guillotine.

    Go search up the Captain Awkward forums, and read through the posts with the Darth Vader Boyfriend tag.

  2. Strangely Rational says:

    “Love will never be possible for me because no one will ever live up to my standards.”

    You’re not describing something that’s impossible for you. You’re describing something that you’re unwilling to change.

    Nobody is forcing you to cling to unrealistic standards.

    Also, you’ll never find someone who is smarter and more confident than you? That’s an even bigger barrier to finding love – narcissism. You need to knock yourself down a peg or two. I guarantee that you’re not as smart as you think, just by your making that statement.

    If you want an adult relationship, you’re going to have to grow up first.

    • WhoAmI says:

      There’s no narcissism in admitting you find it hard to find someone who intellectually impress you. Anyone with a minimum of life experience and above-average intellect can relate. It’s more important for some than others to find a partner who can make you feel like you’re not the smartest in the relationship, but it’s just a preference and not something to shame someone for.
      (I, for another, do find myself often thinking that my boyfriend is definitively not smart. But our relationship is clearly not based on that criterium, so it’s kind of irrelevant)

  3. Strangely Rational says:

    One enormous problem with the police is that they don’t have a good system in place for dealing with the mentally ill.

    My husband has PTSD with psychotic features. Before being properly diagnosed and treated (for over a decade), he had various run-ins with the police, largely related to substance abuse (i.e., self-medication). He was often treated badly, so he developed a terrible association with them, which is not good in someone with existing PTSD.

    A year ago, he became suicidal (something that has happened several times) while in the middle of stress-induced psychosis, cut himself, and ran off. I called 911 and explained the situation. Above all else, I stressed his mental state. I told them about how he was fearful of police and had often threatened “suicide by cop,” and I asked them to please be careful and not hurt him any more than necessary. I said I was unsure if he still had the knife he used to cut himself (he didn’t).

    They found him crouched on the ground and told him to surrender. He stayed still and yelled at them to just kill him. They had their guns pointed at him and their dog ready to go. They warned him, but he wouldn’t budge, so they released the dog. (Note that he was easily within taser range.)

    Fortunately, he was so messed up that he didn’t try to fight off the dog, but it tore his leg up badly. He was charged with resisting arrest, and taken to the hospital for treatment before going to jail. In jail, he repeatedly asked but was not given the antibiotics he’d been prescribed, nor was his mangled leg dressed properly. He was there for two days.

    When he got out, his leg was swollen and hot to the touch, so I took him to the ER immediately. He wound up in the hospital for three days on IV antibiotics.

    I told him that he’s lucky he’s white, or he probably would have been shot.

    Fuck the police.

  4. compagno says:

    Wow, “an old soul.” Yeah, I used to believe in reincarnation, but that was in another life.

    Oh, the police? They exist to enforce capitalist oppression.

    (steps down from soapbox)

      • Anna says:

        It’s state oppression. Communism by definition exists to abolish the state. Don’t confuse socialism, communism and bureaucracy.

        • Rainbowpony says:

          Did I confuse something? I merely wanted to suggest that what police enforce is entirely up to whatever kind of system they find themselves in. I guess you call that system the state.

          • Anna says:

            Uh yes you did confuse a bunch of stuff.
            A police force within a state that works towards its own decline is radically different from that of a state that works towards its own reinforcement.
            Edit note : seriously if you want to call out any of the basic notions of communism you should know at least this. I have loads of fun chatting with liberals, but it is only fun when they have at least a vague notion of what they are talking about, and you obviously don’t.

  5. Quinn says:

    I like to think that an ideal partner inspires you to be your favorite version of yourself, by being the best version of themselves. You want someone with genuine self love. That’s not unreasonable or hard to find. If it seems impossible, make better friends.

  6. Anna says:

    “Love will never be possible for me because no one will ever live up to my standards.”
    Fuck this. If you’re not able to love someone less perfect than yourself, then you’re not worthy of love, especially not your own. Isn’t that a problem ? I think it is and I think you should deal with it.

    “sociological evolution” : thank goodness Coquette, I didn’t think you believed in it. You continue to surprise me after all these years.
    Also, police and army are created to enforce the power of the state. That doesn’t mean that one cannot imagine a more benevolent police power, through reform in structure of the police or reform in structure of the state (two reforms that would have essentially the same effects).

    “On Friday we informally (on snapchat) joked (but not really) about not seeing anyone else but each other.” : this seems like a lot of maybes. The recommendation of “real conversation” by Coquette is only possible if he is mature enough. I think that if you were both really into each other and ready for each other there would have already been a conversation that is not in joke form. Also commitment rather than exclusivity should be the central part of that discussion.

  7. GOAT says:

    The irony is that anyone who feels threatened by someone looking for intellectual stimulation in a partner is probably not that sharp.

  8. The alone says:

    Fuck that guy who said he would buy razor blades. Seriously. Here’s the thing, some really shitty things can be said in a heated situation. But those things tend to reveal more character than we like. The character this reveals has a range of unimaginative and spiteful to downright evil and manipulative. If he said it because he heard it somewhere and he just barfed it up as a defense mechanism during a fight, that’s one thing and he might not even real mean it. But if he had you cornered and vulnerable, that’s an ass that needs kicked to the curb. Even at the tame end of the spectrum it’s an unhealthy response. It’s up to you to see into how much he meant it, and how much it hurt. But by no means imagine that how much he meant it should matter if it really did hurt deeply.

    • Nerdlinger says:

      As much as Hanlon’s Razor can be thematically suited to the situation, if it has this impact on her it’s moot whether it is a long history of emotional abuse or just plain insensitivity on his part, it means they’re not suited to each other (I’ve seen couples work where they casually tell each other to play in traffic or talk about birthday nooses: but they’re on the exact same wavelength).

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