I am 22, just out of college, in a low-paying job and a long-term relationship, and I just found out I’m pregnant. I’m not ready for kids, but I know he’s wildly anti-abortion and even anti-putting kids up for adoption. If I tell him, either I have a child I don’t want, or I lose someone I love. If I don’t tell him, I’ll have to lie to him for the rest of my life. Help.

You are not ready to be a mother. That’s it. That’s all there is to it. What follows isn’t going to be easy, but this begins and ends with the brutal truth that you do not want this pregnancy.

Tell him now. Don’t tell him now. It’s entirely up to you, but don’t let it affect your decision either way. One thing you should know deep down in your heart is that if your boyfriend leaves you based on your decision to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, then fuck him.

He would be the morally bankrupt person in that situation, not you. You wouldn’t want to raise a child with someone who would do that to you anyway, and as much as it would hurt to lose someone you love, I promise you would end up better for it in the long run.

This a major life decision, but it’s yours to make, so stay strong and do what you know is best.

omg, you spelt mantle incorrectly! you ARE human! I thought maybe you were a clever AI because your intelligence seems so alien in my world.

I hate to break it to you, but the “mantle” is the geological layer between the earth’s crust and the earth’s core. The “mantel” is the decorative facing around a fireplace above which my George W. Bush puppy painting shall hang.

“Is there even a ring on your finger?” Are you suggesting that commitment be solely dictated by a diamond? Or that marriage is an important goal in a relationship? This is an honest question, because I have been in a relationship for six years and I have no intention of getting married. I love the guy to death, he’s incredible, but I don’t need a bunch of legal jargon or a grandiose party to know where I’m at in my relationship (and he feels the same). I’m curious to know why you emphasized marriage; is it really important?

I understand why you feel the need to reflexively justify your relationship status, but you need to chill the fuck out. Nobody was challenging your life choices.

If you were a long-time reader, you’d know how I felt about the institution of marriage and the tradition of engagement rings. I literally wrote the book on how ridiculous it all is, but that still doesn’t change the fact that for most women, a formal engagement has quite a bit of significance.

Bitches like you and me may not give a fuck, but we can’t ignore the cultural distinctions between being a wife, a fiancé, and a girlfriend.

Awhile ago you wrote about “a certain kind of life”. We’re both 24. We have been together for 5 years, lived together for 3. I love him, and he loves me, and we make each other happy. We go on adventures together, we have 3 day video game binges together, we talk politics and philosophy together and I know that while there’s no such thing as soul mates, he’s still one of the best men I’ll ever have the honor and pleasure to love. Right now we’re cross-country long distance, but I will be moving back to him in 3 years. The issue isn’t the distance, it’s hard, but I’ve had harder. The issue is – am I making the active decision to pursue this relationship past our college years? I’m afraid that we will get 10 years down the line and regret all the other relationships we didn’t have, the time we didn’t spend single. I don’t wan’t to lead that ‘certain kind of life’ that I passively fall into. I never want to wear ugly jeans. Is there a middle-road between a crazy, fun, awesome coketalk lifestyle (which I don’t, and never would have the stamina or personality for…I’m happiest on the slight edge of introversion), and that certain kind of life? Are there many middle roads? How do I get on them? What do I do with this fear of regret? Please help me coquette.

You’ve been together since you were teenagers. Half a damn decade. That’s impressive, but if you want my honest opinion, I think you’re fucking nuts to spend your mid-twenties trapped in a long-term long-distance relationship.

I’m sure your boyfriend is a fantastic guy, but come on, is there even a ring on your finger? Didn’t think so. I’m not suggesting you push for an engagement, but if the two of you aren’t already at that level of commitment after five years, then what the fuck are you getting ready to do for the next three?

You’re going to be on opposite ends of the country for a long damn time, and as much as you don’t want to hear it, the odds of making something like that work are pretty much slim to none.

Like it or not, you’ve stumbled into a major life decision. This long-distance period is a natural border between two distinct phases of your life, and if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll recognize that these three years are the perfect time for you to be single.

Seriously, go get it out of your system. You and your boyfriend have an ideal window of time apart and a legitimate excuse to explore. Make plans and promises to get back together in three years, and then get on out there. Date around. Sow some wild oats. Go buckwild.

I know it sounds crazy, but the odds of you getting back together after three years aren’t any worse than the odds of you staying together long-distance, so you might as well give it a shot. It won’t be easy at first, but none of what you’re about to go through is going to be easy.

If you eventually end up together, then it will be for all the right reasons, and you won’t be stuck with any of the resentment or regret that’s already starting to build in your current relationship.

If you don’t end up together, that’s okay too. At least this way, you’ll remember one another fondly.

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.