Fun-Sized Advice

On some long overdue fun-sized advice

I feel like you abandoned us when we needed you most.
Don’t be silly.

It hurts when he chooses someone over me. Calls me when it doesn’t work out. And I know it and I hope he loves me. I don’t know why I do this to myself. Every time I forget him he comes back into my life. I let him.
You do this to yourself because you enjoy the pain. The flood of negative emotions you feel when he chooses someone over you serves a greater purpose in your life than the tiny, twisted dose of joy you get when he comes back around. You’re using him as much as he’s using you, and the only person who respects you less than him is you.

I live in a cute neighborhood with a couple of bars not even a 5 min walk from my apartment. Is it uncool, unwise, and/or unsafe to have a drink by myself once in a while to try to meet people (not for hook-ups)?
It’s perfectly fine. Get to know your bartenders. Become a regular.

I work with a bunch of super-‘smart,’ hipster, trendy, young, ‘digital nomad,’ techy people at a company that is basically a glorified recruiting firm for freelancers. Everything is just a little too, I know know…. ‘start-up awesome.’ What is my deal?
Nothing. You’re experiencing the new normal. Keep doing your thing, get to know as many people as possible, and don’t ever get too comfortable.

Why did my fiance’s ex start following me on Instagram? We’ve been together for four years and I’ve never met her.
Please. You’re the evil bitch who’s about to marry her first love. She’s gonna be hate-following you for the rest of your natural life.

I cheated on my boyfriend, and he assaulted me (broken bones, etc.). Both are moral failings of course, but am I self-centered for feeling like the assault was more egregious than the cheating? All of my friends feel as though I deserved it, and are distinctly “Team Ex-Bf”. Does infidelity justify violence? Is this my penance?
Physical violence outside of self-defense is utterly inexcusable. Anyone who even remotely defends your ex is not your friend. Get the fuck out of that situation and as far away from those people as possible.

I’m 19 years old. My mom keeps talking about how she wants to kill herself. I don’t know what to do. I feel useless.
Call 911 the next time she does it. Don’t hesitate. When the emergency first responders arrive, tell them that your mother is suicidal and demand that they take her to a hospital. Go with them. Tell the doctors that she has a long history of suicidality and that you believe she is a danger to herself. Tell them she needs to be put on a 72 hour psychiatric hold. Take control of the situation, and don’t back down. Ignore all the horrible shit that your mother will say to you. It will be scary and it will be difficult, but I promise, if you follow through and get your mother admitted, I guarantee things will change. I can’t promise that your mom will stop manipulating you with her depression, but I can promise that you won’t feel useless anymore.

You’re leaning a little less to the left these days, aren’t you? It’s understandable considering the chaos of late. I wonder if you listen at all to people like Gad Saad, Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson who have reasoned, intelligent ideas on politics, gender, race etc.
Reasoned and intelligent ideas? What the fuck could you possibly be thinking? Gad Saad is a lumbering asshole, Ben Shapiro is a creepy little fascist, and Jordan Peterson is just plain wrong. Ugh. Just because these pricks make the rounds on respectable podcasts that doesn’t mean you have to agree with them. Fucking hell, have some intellectual integrity.

I’m getting very close to checking out early. On an individual level, I’m struggling to keep my head above water. On societal and global levels, everything seems to be unraveling. How do I keep moving forward when it’s getting harder to believe that there’s even a future?
Your problem is that you think struggling is the same thing as suffering. It’s not. Learn to separate the two and you won’t resent your existence so much. Your other problem is that you think there’s supposed to be a future. There isn’t. We’re all gonna die in the next few decades, and on a geological timescale, nothing we’ll do as a species is ever gonna matter. That doesn’t mean you get to check out early. You still have to show up and do your thing.

I was raped 3 years ago in an alley by a stranger. I have just now recently (last 6 months) started therapy for my bouts of PTSD. Why do I feel like my case of PTSD has less significance than say, ongoing sexual abuse or childhood trauma, when I’m trying to discuss it? And why do I care? And why am I letting this get in the way of making any real progress in healing?
In a word? Guilt. You’re letting guilt get in the way of healing because deep down you blame yourself for the rape, and rather than do the hard work it takes to process that guilt, you’re unconsciously taking the easy way out and allowing your guilt to manifest in the form of therapy interfering emotions. Whenever you start feeling like you aren’t as worthy of treatment as others, catch yourself. Recognize that it’s just your guilt talking, and remind yourself that none of this shit was your fault and that you deserve to heal.

I read that Portland has a very racist history. I’ve never been but I liked the idea of it until I read more about its past.
Wow, you’re really gonna be bummed when you hear about the history of literally everywhere in human civilization.

Is it true that you can’t be racist towards white people?
It’s certainly true in America. (You can be prejudiced against white people, but racism requires an element of systemic or institutionalized oppression, and the dominant cultural group is, by definition, not oppressed.)

What’s the difference between making it work and settling?
The low quality of your relationship versus the low quality of your partner.

He just broke up with me. After 7 years. Said he didn’t want to marry me. Why do I feel surprisingly okay right now?
Because you didn’t want to marry him either.

I’m Indian. I started dating this black dude a white ago, and he’s friends with this vegan white chick with dreads. Why does this bother me?
Because vegan white chicks with dreads bother everybody.

House to be completed in October. Should I lock my mortgage interest rate now or wait for Trump destabilize the economy between now and the end of October?
Lock in your rate immediately. That shit’ll be half a point higher by Halloween.

What is your opinion on people who have wine glass charms?
The only thing I feel for them is pity.

I’ve matched with everyone in this small town in Tinder/Bumble for a year now, and no one has replied.
Move.

Standard

101 thoughts on “On some long overdue fun-sized advice

  1. alittlebit says:

    Happy to have you back. I knew you wouldn’t bail on us.

    And on having a bar you go to regularly to meet people – yes. It’s always nice to have a watering hole where you feel comfortable and can wind down after a long day. I miss mine back home.

    • Barefootsie says:

      Agreed! There’s a cantina near me with cheap-ass margaritas and tacos, and I’ve met at least one fascinating person every time I’ve headed there for happy hour. You’ll at least thank yourself for opening yourself to new opportunities to meet people.

      Good to see you again, Coquette. I know you said you were dealing with some personal shit – I hope that has gotten better, or at least manageable. Love and whiskey to you.

  2. Jackie says:

    Lol, first words out of my mouth when I saw the new post… “Holy shit, no way! Fuck yea bitch.” Just got home from a crazy long day at school and this is nice to come home to.

    • ali says:

      girl maybe look him and his opinions up on wikipedia, if you can’t find anything there that bothers you then congratulations, you’re dating someone as awful as yourself. lock that shit down and keep him and yourself off the market forever, thanks.

    • maryanne says:

      Jordan Peterson is wrong because his perspective is limited. He’s the anti-Coquette. Where Coquette says life is inherently meaningless and you can create of it whatever meaning you want to, Peterson says that meaning exists in being a useful member of society (work), believing in a higher power, and raising a family.

      The problem with Peterson is that he only considers his personal experience and values, and doesn’t really explore much outside of that perspective. As a white male, he’s fast to quote research on gender norms supporting gender stereotypes, but completely disregards research pertaining to discrimination against marginalized ethnic groups. He believes that women who don’t want to have kids are either or lying to themselves or deranged, and that white privilege is racist, not towards people of color, but towards white people. That’s just a few examples off the top of my head, but there may be other reasons Coquette disagrees with him.

      That being said, the man is brilliant, and he has a way with words. That’s probably why your boyfriend is a fan of his, as am I (this doesn’t mean I agree with everything he says).

      In some ways, I see similarities between Coke and Peterson. The both of them also try to help their followers be tougher, though Peterson is a bit gentler than Coquette (probably because he’s not anonymous). He also states the “make your bed” advice Coquette gave a while back to help a reader dealing with depression. I’d love to see Coke and Peterson have a discussion, wrestling both their intellects against each other. He needs someone to rattle him up.

      • Word says:

        Thanks. Had a drawn out discussion about this with my boyfriend yesterday, and he said similar things. Having heard some pieces of his lectures (mostly his stuff on existentialism and postmodernism and less so on his political/gendered stuff,) I didn’t think I was ready to call him a bigot. Having gone on to read some more of his stuff, I feel I agree. There’s large parts of his theory that I don’t agree with, but not enough to qualify him as a terrible person, and certainly not enough to disqualify his brilliance. I do think there’s some common ground between Peterson and Coke Talk, also, and it’s mostly based in the fact that these are both people who are obviously great thinkers.

        • Chris says:

          Your bf likes Jordan Peterson for the same reason people used to read the shit out Ayn Rand novels – he’s intellectually stimulating. In a world full of so much dumb stuff, that’s not so bad.

          Something you’ll like from Jordan Peterson:
          Q: Why do you think mostly men are watching your online videos?
          A: Partly because they are interested in the theme of personal responsibility, and partly because women are doing more important things.

          So your bf is getting the information that he should (A) take responsibility for his life/actions/future, and that (B) you already think of things that are more important than he does.

          Boy, what an amazing asshole!

          • Chris says:

            I’m talking about her boyfriend. The young man could be watching porn or action movies, but he’s watching lectures. Sounds like a promising dude who is seeking out more than is being thrown at him.

          • Nina says:

            Oh right, instead of watching some porn I’ll attend a lecture run by Neo-Nazis! Because all lectures are always a great choice and make everything better for everyone.

          • Chris says:

            Now this makes sense. Please send me the info I am missing. I really just found out about Peterson here. If you have the info, share.

      • Alicia says:

        “He believes that women who don’t want to have kids are either or lying to themselves or deranged, and that white privilege is racist, not towards people of color, but towards white people.”

        Wow, I’ve never been less interested in hearing what else someone has to say. (Him, not you, OP.)

        • RocketGrunt says:

          Yeah, I read that sentence and I’m pretty grossed out that people are still talking about him with respect. Just because he’s eloquent doesn’t mean anyone should listen to that bullshit.

          • Chris says:

            Hi Rocket and Alicia:

            From the lecture I heard (online) Peterson says that most women by the time they reach 30 have a growing need to have a family if they don’t have one already, which is why (he says) big companies can’t keep them – “they are too smart” to keep putting in 80 hours a week when they can make a good living in a way that allows them to be there with the ones they love.

            Peterson is pretty liberal, actually.

          • RocketGrunt says:

            Chris, just because he calls women smart doesn’t mean that’s not a bunch of patronizing bullshit. He’s defending inequality in the workplace by stereotyping women into traditional gender roles. Don’t be distracted by the fact that he’s phrased it like a compliment.

          • Chris says:

            Having seen this actually happen in many instances, I think it just makes a lot of sense. I’ve seen it in bosses I’ve had, my very successful mother, my wife.

            I can think of at least 10 women I personally know who went this route when they could have gone what we think of as higher.

            The whole idea of “leaning in” is a good one, and I’d encourage someone who wants to, but most see it for what it is – a fucking dead end.

    • Huge Heifer says:

      His Self-Authoring thingie had pretty nice results on student dropout rates and instead of becoming a guru of sorts and making bank he associates with a circuit of crank YT vloggers and gets into confrontations with stressed-out college kids.
      He’s still trapped on a lower level of cultural war hell which he could easily transcend. We’re *huge bong rip* all part of this system, but it’s a waste to see someone not climb out of it when he has the means to do so.

      • Chris says:

        I heard that, too, from him. It makes sense. After all, thinking about a positive future in a constructive way sets the course from that day for the week, month, etc.

  3. SJ says:

    I have, and am in treatment for PTSD. I just wanted to say something about the “guilt” part. From what my own doctors have told me, as well as things I have read, and heard from fellow PTSDers in group, the guilt is extremely common, but not necessarily because we feel any sense responsible for what happened, as Coke says in her answer. It’s not that, or at least, it’s not “just” that. There is a phenomenon (for lack of a better word) that people who have it tend to minimize what happened to them, to feel like there are so many others who have been through “worse” and that we feel guilty that we cannot “get over” what we are going though. Not that it is in any way a contest, but there is an element of feeling like your experience pales in comparison to the horrors someone else has endured. . I know that was my experience with the guilt part- I never felt like I was responsible for what happened, and I have never heard anyone one else who has it describe that, though of course I’m sure it does happen.

    • alittlebit says:

      I agree w/this. My therapist definitely pointed out that I was trying to minimize the trauma I endured having to grow up with a narcissistic/sociopath father. In fact a good chunk of my therapy consisted of her explaining to me why I’m entitled to feel pissed off that I had to deal with that motherfucker.

      Anyway, yes, there are people out there that suffer through horrors ‘worse’ than yours, but it doesn’t make your struggles any less valid or fucked up. Good luck healing, friend!

    • Strangely Rational says:

      I agree, I think it’s more about minimization. And there’s probably an element of devaluation of self.

      When I was in a sexual abuse survivor’s workshop, I remember feeling guilty because my abuse (as a child by an adult family member) was “just” fondling and only infrequently, whereas most of the other women had been raped, some regularly. No way did I blame myself for my abuse, but I didn’t feel like I’d earned the right to any sympathy from anyone, including myself.

      I caught myself at the same thing in my domestic violence support group recently. I remember listening to a woman describing her husband as having threatened to kill her, and I got chills and wondered how awful that must feel.

      And then it hit me hard. My soon-to-be-ex-spouse hadn’t threatened to kill me – he’d TRIED to kill me, twice, via strangulation. Somehow, both times I was able to fight him off in the last seconds as I was starting to black out. I am 100% certain that he wouldn’t have stopped once I lost consciousness.

      So I started thinking about how horrified I’d be if someone told me about that happening to them. Why wasn’t I giving myself the same consideration? Why was it worse when it happened to someone else? Because I didn’t see myself on the same level in terms of value. I’m glad to say that this is changing through treatment, and I’m in a much better place now.

  4. grouch says:

    My habit of checking this page most days has finally paid off! Habit is hard to break. I recall reading (a long time ago) about how bullies and victims both have degraded senses of justice. This certainly makes sense for the girl who cheated. Cheating is bad, but physical violence is completely incomparable. One of the reasonable responses to someone cheating is breaking up, not trying to punish someone physically.

    Something something it’s always darkest before dawn, I don’t know how comparable this is, but a few years ago, I thought that I didn’t want to live through the future that was certain at the time, but things have gone better in pretty well every domain of my life. As much as the future scares me, politically and environmentally, if it’s a failure, I’ll die anyways, no sense hastening the end. If things get better somehow, then I’ll be glad I didn’t die.

  5. recovering codependent says:

    lol @ ‘vegan white chicks with dreads bother everybody’ hallelujah tell it girl like it hurts to even look at them

    • grouch says:

      Yeah, a lot of people say that it’s the cultural appropriation part that makes it bad, but white girls with dreads just look terrible. It’s a neon sign for tackiness. Combine it with being vegan, and you know she’s going to be insufferable.

    • verythinky says:

      I didn’t want to agree…but I had to.
      Had one tell me to “evolve” when I was eating the best brat ever. I spun so hard her tank top was fluttering in the wind.

  6. broadaylight says:

    Fucking hell. It took some doing not to worry. Sincerely hope you’re ok, and that whatever has been up with you is feeding rather than destroying. Thanks for checking back in, C.

  7. Chrissy says:

    Oh hi, Mark. Hope you’re just enjoying the everloving fuck out of your new(ish) digs and you’re not just spinning out like the rest of us. But if you are spinning out…well welcome back to the wavelength, sweets.

  8. Strangely Rational says:

    “You do this to yourself because you enjoy the pain. The flood of negative emotions you feel when he chooses someone over you serves a greater purpose in your life than the tiny, twisted dose of joy you get when he comes back around.”

    Actually, I think it’s the opposite – the dose of joy is the motivation. I have a bit of personal experience with this (okay, a lot).

    Longing for an unavailable person can function as an addiction. Let’s say you’re addicted to heroin. You’re not continuing to use because you enjoy the withdrawals. You’re doing it for the high, and so you don’t feel the withdrawals.

    The LW keeps letting this guy in because it comes as a relief and keeps the possibility of receiving his love alive. It’s a way to avoid the pain of acknowledging the finality of the rejection. The only answer is to use radical acceptance to let go, to face the pain, feel it fully, and let it wash away. It’s not easy, but it works.

    • Jen says:

      Agree completely. I think I’m finally out of one of these relationships (I pray anyway, there seems to be a mutual desire to really not return) after a five year run. It’s been four months since I’ve gotten a pellet and I still have waves where I get back in the longing zone again. I’m slooooowly getting enough space by not going back to see a life on the other side but that pattern gets so ingrained after that long that my brain still doesn’t always remember it’s over. And I’m no fool, by now I know intellectually I shouldn’t be with him. The sunk costs in this for me and the addiction both have been overwhelming but I need to keep getting through it.

    • Jen says:

      To address what both of you have said a little more directly, that rush of joy, the feeling this time it could be it and he could cave in and let it be love, the little bit more he does to get me to let my guard down (last time involved a romantic trip to the other side of the world), those are what I lived for and why, in my poor sick brain, it was worth getting dragged and humiliated and completely heartbroken and sometimes nonfunctional during the breakups. Very graphic, but I’m finally getting to a place where I can articulate it. Explaining this is making me want to stay strong and keep letting it drift into the past and make my world bigger than my drama with him.

    • alittlebit says:

      It’s a little knick knack that people put around the stem of their wine glasses at a party to be able to tell whose glass it is. For example, Becky’s wine glass charm is a pink high heel shoe, Janet’s is red lips, and Amanda’s is a tiny smart phone. All are made with sparkly rhinestones because duh.

      Hold my hair back while I barf, betch.

      • Alicia says:

        I gotta say, a friend of mine has these, but with little pewter animals like hedgehogs and hummingbirds. I don’t hate them and actually think they’re pretty cute. But the ones you describe sound absolutely horrific.

        • verythinky says:

          Oh dear god, my cousins who have no fucking idea who I am, and maybe mistook me for a gay man, bought me wine glass charms. They were pewter fruits. The effort put into the gift was very acidic with a fruit forward aftertaste and an oily, thoughtless, finish.

          • verythinky says:

            Hey, it was what I think THEIR idea of what a gay man would want. 😉
            Either that or they bulk bought a bunch of shit at broodbath and beyond and I was at the end of the list from the pile of bargain shit. (Most likely)

  9. polgar gazember says:

    If you ever go to Portland, go with zero expectations and leave one of your checked bags at behind. Let the city surprise you.

  10. Dani says:

    Judging all individuals of a class for the hypothetical flaws of the class is racist, whether you’re black, white or anything else

          • Monochromicorn says:

            True story: One time I got in a similar argument with Ta-Nehisi Coates (before he was a recognizable name) in the Atlantic comments section on an article that he had written. I made the argument you do Coke, but he said that all bias was racism and that oppression made for supremacy. (this was quite a while ago, I don’t know if this would gel with what he writes now.)

            The basis for the argument started in an article he wrote about medical approaches that take race into account, and how it is inherently oppressive and racist and rooted in historical oppressive antecedents and would never be good for for anybody. And I told him that he didn’t know a damn thing about medicine and biology, however smart he might be otherwise, and that his article could hurt a lot of people. And he responded in the comments! I think I was confused about some of the words he was using, which is why we got into semantics.

            Isn’t he responsible for “supremacy” coming to mean all racist/oppressive acts in america – not just the assholes in the hoods with the touches?

    • Esme says:

      My husband makes this argument, and it drives me nuts. It’s like, fine, then give me a word for systematic oppression based on race. While you are at it, give me one for the same based on sex. Can white dudes please stop seeing themselves as the victims?

      • Dani says:

        Why are white dudes exempt from being victims of prejudice? Especially now that they are vilified for having ‘white privilege’ – a bullshit leftist term used to silence anyone not of colour. “Shut up you are not a member of a privileged minority group in the leftist space”. How is that not racist?

        • False Equivalency says:

          Because it equivocates the harm of prejudice to the harm of racism. No one is arguing that encountering prejudice shouldn’t hurt. It does, and it’s not okay. But if we let white people equivocate the consequences of prejudice with the consequences of racism, it will maintain the current class divide.

          Racism exacerbates conditions that lead to a lower quality of life in multiple domains – economic, political, and social – across a number of situations. A black person will not escape the consequences of racism in nearly any facet of their life, whereas a white person goes through most of their life unconscious of their race. How then could a white person appropriately prioritize the combating racism when prejudice plays a significantly more minor role in their own life? If and when it is prioritized, will those issues be in line with the priorities of POC?

          Where do you experience the worst of what you call ‘racism’, of what we define as prejudice? In the dismissal of your opinions or in your inability to act freely in spaces dominated by POC? Those are concerns for POC, as well, but they are minor in comparison to concerns such as access to employment, freedom from hate crime, or equity in the justice system.

          If we adopt race-neutral solutions, then the best case scenario is that all people will be elevated equally, but if you’re 5 ft beneath sea-level and someone else is 50 ft, and each is elevated 10 ft, one of you is still gonna be underwater.

          You’re not exempted from being a ‘victim of prejudice’, but you aren’t exempt from contextualizing your own suffering, either. While you’re being silenced in leftist spaces (and leftist spaces almost exclusively), POC are being silenced with disproportionate incarceration rates and jail time for minor crimes. They’re being silenced by physical violence. They’re being silenced by lack of access to political representation. They’re being silenced by the ghettoization of their neighborhoods. They’re being silenced by employers that take one look at their name, skin, or cultural identifiers and, consciously or unconsciously, devalue the individual. They’re being silenced by a white majority who demand their experiences be considered when the conversation isn’t about them. They’re being silenced by a culture that has devalued their opinions and experiences from the moment they were born. They are being silenced in ways that you will never fucking experience or understand.

          So how about instead of distracting the conversation with bullshit cries of ‘what about my feeeeelings,’ you take a moment to appreciate that the conversation can’t afford to always be about you. We need a way to address the inequities peculiar to different POC, and defining racism separately from prejudice – and treating them as different things – is a fundamental linguistic distinction.

          • Strangely Rational says:

            This is a fucking brilliant response. Especially liked this: “Where do you experience the worst of what you call ‘racism’, of what we define as prejudice? In the dismissal of your opinions or in your inability to act freely in spaces dominated by POC?”

          • Belen says:

            Interested in hearing anyone’s thoughts on a question that popped up for me when I read this. Some people who are white belong to other (possibly many) oppressed groups, so if poc (who are not members of the same oppressed groups) are predjudice or exclusionary towards them based on their whiteness are they still not exercising systematic oppression as a member of a dominant group?

  11. verythinky says:

    I would split hairs hairs on the topic of racism. I don’t think there needs to be a systemic component in order for racism to exist. I can hear an argument that racism, being learned, must include a societal norm that excludes and denigrates outsiders. But just because it’s a norm doesn’t mean it’s systemic, does it?

    • WhoAmI says:

      See it like this ; what also makes something oppression or not is if the individual is allowed to, incited to, and protected from the repercussions of, enacting his prejudiced views upon others.
      In other words ; if he has the power to.

      Learning from your birth that newcomers are here to steal your job and money isn’t exhaustive, neither is you personally hitting a foreigny looking guy with a crowbar on the head repeatedly ; but if you did it in plain sight knowing you wouldn’t have any trouble with the police, and effectively not getting into trouble, and if similar cases consistently happen, then yeah there’s racism at play here.
      In what part of America can a black man kill a white man in the daylight and fully get away with it ? A gay man kill a straight man ? A woman assault a man ?

      Oppression doesn’t qualify violence from someone of a social group on someone of another social group ; it qualifies the moment when the society it happens in allow it, and even empower it (a good rule of thumb is when the victim of a violent act is the one called violent – and not just with their fists – and vice-versa, because violence is the name the hegemony gives to means of resistance against it and a word it will NEVER let itself be associated with. Hannah Arendt wrote lenghtly about that stuff) . But in a very stratified society like for example the US, said society is curated from start to finish and top to bottom by the system (the hegemony). That’s what oppression is about, in all its shapes and forms (racism, sexism, homophobism, transphobism, classism, you name it).

      I get that in discussion such words have a different meaning for the most part ; but remember that the words in your mouth and the meaning you put behind them didn’t pop up in your head by magic. Lots of people want you to think anti-white racism is a thing in white-dominated countries. It just isn’t.

    • verythinky says:

      Welp. A quick trip to the dictionary proved me completely wrong. I hadn’t realized that the definition included a political system. I wonder if it changed or I just never looked it up.

  12. The Derpy Bear says:

    To the LW who cheated on her ex and then was beaten. Your “friends” are garbage. Cheating is bad but what he did is much worse. You deserve friends who are not abuse apologists

  13. monochromicorn says:

    As someone who has moved often, let me tell you that moving is one of the best ways to fix a shitty dating life. I don’t why it works, it just does. Some cities just suck ass.

  14. Mae says:

    Hi, I’m the one who left the question about “checking out early.” This post happened to go public on a day where my mental health was at a low point, and your answer gave me just enough of a push to reach out to a support network and start crawling out of my hole. I know it’s not logistically possible for you to answer every single question you get, but I appreciate that you answered mine when I was going through a shitty week. Thank you.

    • Chris says:

      Hey Mae, I’m glad that happened. You’re obviously intelligent, and my experience is that smart people get down pretty hard because of how deeply they realize things.

      Hope you are well. Please know we’re thinking of you.

  15. IA says:

    Hi, I’m the guy whose boyfriend assaulted him. Thank you for affirming what I had felt. It’s been a few months since you answered my question (and even more since I posed it), and I’m glad to say that I am far removed from that situation. The ex-boyfriend and the abuse-apologist friends have long been excised from my life, and the friends who remained have been phenomenally supportive and morally steadfast. Good to see you’re posting again.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *