Please write something… anything.
I’ll be back soon. Promise.
On breaking up
About six weeks ago, I moved from Boston to Dublin for work. Two weeks later, my long term boyfriend, who I was living with in Boston, broke up with me during an argument. Now he wants to get back together. I was really upset when he broke up with me, but then I started to realize it might have been the right decision. I like the life I am putting together for myself in Dublin. This is a great opportunity for me to really figure out who I am and what I want out of a relationship before settling down, and I want to take full advantage of it. Maybe this isn’t the right time, or maybe he isn’t the right person, but I don’t think that getting back together is right decision.
I sent him an email to that effect yesterday, and told him that I didn’t want to talk to him for a few weeks. He’s been calling/texting/emailing me constantly. 20 missed calls from 5-6AM. 15 more since noon. He thinks I’m having a breakdown and making a huge mistake. He’s demanding a conversation. Do I owe him that? Am I being a total bitch?
I care about him a lot, and we had a lovely relationship. Any advice about how to make this any less gut-wrenching would be much appreciated.
You’re not the one having a breakdown, and he doesn’t get to demand a conversation. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a conversation, but certainly not because you owe him one.
He needs to cool his jets. Text him back letting him know that you don’t want to hear from him for a solid week. No texts. No calls. No communication of any kind, and if he respects that, you’ll call him to have a conversation about closure, but regardless of what happens, he needs to understand that the relationship is over.
He’s not a boyfriend anymore. He is your ex. You need to start treating him like one. Of course you still care about him, and it’s great that you had a lovely relationship, but things are different now, and if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll recognize that you’ve already moved on.
On fun-sized advice
Has unlimited access to porn stunted the sexual growth of a whole generation of Internet-having teenage boys?
Stunted is the wrong word. Affected is more accurate, and it’s not just the boys.
I got into my dream school but they aren’t giving me enough money for it to be a possibility. What the fuck do I do?
Suck it up and go somewhere you can afford. Welcome to your first lesson in the American social class system. Sorry you don’t have rich parents.
Why am I so jealous of better looking people?
You’re not jealous. You’re envious, and it’s because you want what they have.
How do I deal with the fact that the world is generally cold and unforgiving?
Find a warm corner and surround yourself with good people.
Why do we look for different things in a best friend than a significant other?
Platonic love is different than romantic love. That’s just a part of the human condition.
What do you think about the Pope’s proclamation that atheists can be good and can be “saved”?
It adds a fresh twist to Pascal’s Wager, but that’s just cocktail party conversation. At the end of the day, the Pope’s just an old man in a silly hat.
I think Stephen Fry is made of condensed Englishness. What are you made of?
Aerosolized Americanness.
Amanda Bynes. What is up with her?
Nothing.
What do you do with your free time? What does the Coquette do with a lazy Sunday?
This.
On the sale of tumblr
I have a bad feeling (ha) about the future of Tumblr now that it’s owned by the most confusing, cluttered, un-navigable website on the Internet. I have visions of ADS! ADS! ADS! all over my dashboard. After all, no one buys something for $B that they don’t think they’ll make $2B on. Even if their wish is naive, I’m sure they’ll try like hell to make it happen.
This all started crumbling for me before, though, when two of my favorite (and responsible) people at Tumblr resigned and when, soon after (though unrelated, I’m sure), Tumblr inexplicably pulled my black dashboard from me, made me suffer with the puke-teal-grey color that I loathe, and refused to respond to anyone’s questions about the insipid decision.
Still, the Staff account hasn’t addressed the “Tumblr Community” that they were somehow awarded a Webby for, about the sale and letting us know what’s in store for all our data, etc. I don’t know, maybe they have and I missed it.
Do I sound like a bitter 4-year old? I was curious about your take on the whole thing.
I’m not worried.
We’ve had half a decade with Tumblr, which is a goddamned eon in internet years. We’ve watched it grow from a few thousand hipsters in Brooklyn to a hundred million hipsters all over the world. We’ve lived through the inception of the like button, the ridiculousness that was Tumblarity, countless error screens patronizing us with those damned TumbleBeasts, and all the while, we’ve never had a search function that actually worked.
Tumblr has always been a sloppy mess. It’s a treehouse for the cool kids. It was slapped together in the backyard of the internet by amateurs who were just figuring out how to use a hammer and nails. There’s spray paint on the walls and a pile of porn in the corner next to a boom box and the stoner kid’s bong. We all come up here to escape our boring lives and our annoying parents and listen to music and make out with each other. We feel like it’s ours, even though it’s been in someone else’s yard the whole time.
Yahoo paid a billion dollars for our treehouse, which is fucking nuts when you think about it, because the treehouse is worthless as soon as the cool kids decide to stop coming. We know it, they know it, and they know we know it. That’s why I’m not worried.
Yahoo needs us to keep showing up. They need us to keep looking at porn and figuring out how to do bong rips and making out with each other in the corner. They desperately need us, and maybe they charge a couple hundred grand to let corporations sneak in and spray paint something on the wall. So what? It’ll get painted over in a day.
But hey, who knows? Maybe Yahoo will fuck it up big time. Maybe they’ll come in and knock down the walls and put up permanent billboards. I doubt it. I don’t think they’re that stupid. They paid a billion dollars for the treehouse with the cool kids, and if we don’t want to play here anymore, they’re shit out of luck.
Still, if they fuck it up, they fuck it up. There’s nothing we can do. It’s not ours. It never was. That’s okay, though. Nothing lasts forever, especially a treehouse, and all those fun times we had together? Those will always be ours. They can never have them.
On a road trip
I’m going to college in Atlanta, I’ve lived in Georgia my whole life, and I need a fucking break from the South. I’m still in school for a couple more years, but I’m dying to go somewhere new. One week, $1000, a car, and some badass friends are at my disposal. Where do I go and what do I do?
New York City, baby.
Drive two or three of those badass friends up I-85 to Washington DC, spend the night, have a day in our nation’s capital, and then take I-95 to New York City. Split one hotel room amongst your crew, and spend three or four days seeing everything but Times Square.
On being clueless
I’m 18. I like porn but I don’t feel the tiniest desire to have sex in real life. Plus, I don’t even know which gender I want to do it with. I find both equally attractive. What the hell is going on?
Of course you like porn. Porn is junk food. It’s is cheap, artificially sweetened, and readily available. Like all teenagers, you scarf it down without a second thought. Problem is, your burgeoning sexuality needs some actual nutrition, but no one wants to eat their fucking vegetables.
Sex in real life is complicated. It involves all sorts of confusing emotions. You face the potential for rejection, embarrassment, and shame. It can be messy when you know what you’re doing, and you don’t have a fucking clue.
That’s kind of the point. You think you have a clue because you saw it in a porno, but you don’t. Allow yourself to be clueless. You’re supposed to be wondering what the hell is going on.
Everything you’re feeling is perfectly normal, and you should take all the time you need to figure out your sexuality. You don’t have to pick a gender. You don’t have to start having sex until you’re ready, and when you do, you sure as hell shouldn’t compare it to anything you’ve seen in porn.
On fun-sized advice
I constantly feel it’s only a matter of time before one of us cheats. Should I just end it?
Perhaps, but ending it won’t fix your trust issues.
Why am I significantly more attracted to a guy knowing that he’s dated a fuck ton of hot chicks?
The same reason all your clothes have logos on them.
What do you say to a 26-year-old man who claims he might never be able to love again?
Say, “Lose my number, douchebag.”
Do you ever think you might be wrong?
I’m wrong all the damn time.
I feel like I’ve noticed a general trend of you being nicer in your responses? Is that purposeful?
Nope. Come to think of it, you guys have been sending much higher quality questions lately. I think we’re all growing up a little.
How far can you excuse someone’s behaviour because of the shit hand they were dealt?
That’s up to you, but remember, there’s a difference between a reason and an excuse. Just because you know the reason for someone’s behavior, that doesn’t mean you have to excuse it.
Is the G spot really a myth? I can’t cum without touching my clit.
The G spot is real. G spot orgasms are real. Don’t act like you’ve got the only vagina in the universe.
I need a verdict. Rich Manhattan moms hiring handicapped tour guides so their kids can skip lines at Disney? Douche, gauche, touche, meh…?
What a perfect metaphor for the American social class system.
How can I let go of the belief that beauty matters?
Beauty matters. Just quit letting other people tell you what’s beautiful.
On the painfully obvious
Hey coquette, Im just gona cut right to the chase. Im in a long distance relationship with the love of my life, he tells me he loves me too but for some reason, doesn’t trust me. What do i do? He broke up with me once because he got so paranoid he thought i was cheating on him and no matter what i say, he just doesn’t get that i would never do anything like that. Please tell me, I’m confused. I’ll accept whatever u have to say.
He’s cheating on you.
On vague existential threats
Every once and a while I feel this intense fear knowing the state of our environment and the imminent carbon fueled suffocation of the human race. I feel this intense sense of foreboding when I think about the future. We’re all driving our Co2 spouting automobiles headfirst in to the apocalyptic hell-scape of global warming. There’s no denying it, and even though I do my daily part to be greener, the fact remains that the sheer amount of people choosing ignorance and denial far outweigh the active. I was just thinking about how pointless all my prom photos are in the face of it all. I stress about finals while the world around me melts. Everything is pointless and I will die but how do I reconcile my fear? Not of death, but at never getting a fair shot at life?
Ugh. I know your type. You’ve decided to take your first-world free-floating anxiety and make it all about some vague yet trendy existential threat. In your case, it’s global warming. Please. Get some real problems, bitch. Either that or take a Xanax and shut the fuck up.
First of all, you have no sense of scale and you don’t know shit about climate science. Sure, global warming is a big fucking deal, and go drive a fucking Prius if it makes you feel better, but don’t act like doing your daily part to be greener makes you special in any way whatsoever.
I mean, come on. You wanna talk ignorance and denial? You’re the one who’s blatantly projecting your fear of mortality onto the fucking weather. Quit it. Life may be pointless, and you’re definitely gonna die, but in the meantime you still have to show up and be a part of this ridiculous experiment.
Put down your stupid fucking prom photos, get your shit together, and go study for your finals. Remember, there’s no such thing as a “fair shot at life.” Only a child thinks life is supposed to be fair.
On spiritual paralysis
Due to the fact that everything is meaningless, I have no motivation whatsoever to do anything in particular with my life. I keep myself busy by fulfilling my basic human needs of water, food, sleep, internet and weed. Outside of that, fuck all happens.
This has been made worse by learning vipassana meditation techniques. Now even my obsession with a cute stoner boy has dissolved and I am fucking bedridden with boredom. I’m not even miserable, I’m irritatingly equanimous. How can I stimulate some sort of desire to make a positive contribution to society and how do I figure out what type of contribution to make? Its really hard to make decisions when you see everything as equal measures of dark and light. I am literally just sitting here in a hotel with too much money, no responsibilities, and I am debilitatingly free. Are you looking for an assistant or know anyone that needs a blank slate to train as their slave?
By the way, I know I’m in a pretty fucking enviable situation right now, I’m not complaining. Just looking for direction.
You don’t need direction. Direction is just a path. You need purpose. Purpose is the engine that propels you down that path, and without it, you are adrift.
Of course, finding purpose is easier said than done, especially for those of us who’ve embraced the meaninglessness of existence. The trick is to never forget that meaninglessness is not the same thing as emptiness, and right now, you are confusing the two.
You are paralyzed. Not physically, but spiritually. You are consumed with emptiness and self-negation because you are only fulfilling your basic needs. Water, food, sleep, internet, and weed are just the bottom rung of Maslow’s Hierarchy, and not for nothin’, but the internet and weed aren’t necessarily helping your situation.
You’re missing out on a whole bunch of higher level stuff like love, belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. That’s why Vipassana is wasted on you right now. That’s why financial independence is wasted on you right now. Pretty much everything is wasted on you right now, because you are clinically depressed.
Yes, that’s right. You can call it irritatingly equanimous or debilitatingly free, but just because you’ve got some money and little Buddhism, that doesn’t mean you’re immune from your own neurochemistry.
I know you insist that you aren’t miserable, but that’s kind of the problem. Misery would at least be an emotion, and you’re totally fucking numb. One solution is to go see a shrink and let ‘em smack you upside the head with some psychopharmaceuticals. Feel free to try that. It might very well work, but you also need to get out there and find some purpose.
Here, I’ll make it easy for you:
1. Spend half an hour a day exercising. (Break a sweat.)
2. Spend half an hour a day grooming. (Take a shower.)
3. Spend a few hours a day volunteering. (Alleviate the suffering of others in some small way.)
That’s it. That’s all you have to do for now. Making a positive contribution to society doesn’t have to be a daunting task. Don’t worry about doing anything with your life, and don’t worry about any of it meaning anything.
Just do something with your day, and the rest will work itself out in time.