As Bukowski put it: “my ambition is handicapped by laziness.” I honestly do not know what the fuck I am doing, who i’m supposed to be, or what to even look forward to. part of this diatribe merely stems from the fact that I may have finally lost the love of my life, and being as how she was my only muse, I don’t know what the fuck to do.

You are an insufferable asshole. The good thing is, you’ll know it in a few years. In the meantime, shave off that stupid facial hair, burn all of your plaid shirts, and try to spend less time masturbating with your own tears.

Dear Coquette,

My boyfriend and I have been dating for about four years, the first three of which were long distance. When we started dating, I lived with two other roommates and had just begun therapy to try to deal with my mom’s diagnosis that she had a terminal illness — Lou Gehrig’s disease. Since that time, I lived alone for a year and a half, and then lived with my parents (to help take care of my mom) for a year and a half. After my mom passed away in August, I decided to make the move and attend a grad school that was closer to his home than mine.

So I am 25, and now in a three-year grad program in a decent-sized city and living alone again. My boyfriend works full time and lives with his best friend a few miles outside the city.

When I made plans to move, we both agreed that moving in together immediately might not be the most logical decision. We wanted to make sure we were giving ourselves enough time to adjust to a non-long-distance relationship. To go from different houses in different cities to the same house in the same city seemed unfair to both of us.

We’d also discussed that my boyfriend should live on his own for a little while before we move in together. (He is 26 and has never lived on his own. He is certainly financially able to rent on his own, or to even buy a home.)

He has tentatively decided that he would like to live with his best friend for another year. They also work at the same place, which is approximately 2 miles from where they live.

We got into a bit of an argument when he informed me of this decision. He said that he feels like I’ll only be happy when we’re living together and I’m trying to push him into something he doesn’t want to do.

I am usually a relatively calm person. I can certainly be emotional, but it usually takes some provoking. Well, consider me provoked. 

Am I just being a whiny foot-tapping baby, waiting impatiently, as he seems to think? Or am I right to feel a little misunderstood and neglected? 

At least be honest with yourself, sweetheart. You’re not upset about being misunderstood and neglected. You’re angry because you were bamboozled — hoodwinked by a man-child who’s too much of a wuss to break up with a girl whose mom just died of a horrible disease. 

I can read between the lines, so don’t try and tell me you wouldn’t have been perfectly happy moving in with your boyfriend immediately. All that talk about it being unfair to both of you is just how he sold it, and naturally, you rationalized his foot-dragging. Part of that rationalization included your boyfriend living on his own for a while, and now that he’s refusing to end the post-college roommate phase, you’re starting to catch a whiff of what he was shoveling.

He wasn’t taking it slow. He was stalling, and you don’t want to admit it to yourself. It’s understandable. You’ve made plans, and after a rough few years, you feel entitled to those plans coming to fruition. Unfortunately, that’s not how life works.

Your boyfriend is sitting pretty, and he doesn’t want things to change. He’s carved out a decent little life for himself, and he’s in no hurry to end his extended adolescence. Why should he? You’re not going anywhere, not for at least another couple years.  

I’m not suggesting that he had secret evil plans or anything. Far from it. Quite frankly, this is typical behavior for a dude in his mid-20s. He may very well love you with all his heart, but he’s still stringing you along, and I guarantee you’ll need a crowbar and a sharp set of manipulation skills to scrape him out of the single life. 

The frustration you’re feeling is the creeping realization that you’re not in control of the relationship. You feel cheated out of your romantic fate. You feel stuck. Thing is, you’re not. You can do whatever the hell you want. You can even break up with him.  

No, I’m not suggesting that you do. I’m just making you read the words so the thought passes through your brain. You need to know you have options. You need to get brave. You’re battling four years of lukewarm long-distance inertia, and it’s time to shake things up. What to do is up to you, but something needs to change.

I’ve been using an online dating service, and I just received this gem of a first message from someone whose profile shows him to be, at the very least, a homophobic conservative:

“I’d love for you to cook me dinner sometime :)”

I want to address this in the best possible way. I don’t want to ignore the message, because I’m frustrated that he thinks some strange woman (me) will jump at the chance to cook him dinner. However, I’m pretty sure the biting retort I have been dying to respond with will not have any effect on the kind of misogynist crap he puts forth into this world. Please help me out! Write something clever for me to respond with! It would make my week.

In situations like this, don’t try and just say something clever. Be clever.

Ask him what he wants for dinner. Do it nicely. Lemme know if he responds, and we’ll take it from there.

Do you feel guilt? That’s not a loaded question, I mean it in regard to your very (very) well developed sense of mature morality. You just seem like such a morally advanced person that you’d sort of be “beyond” guilt.

The only people who are beyond guilt are narcissists and sociopaths. I feel guilty for shit all the time, and I’m glad that I do. Guilt is evidence of a functioning conscience.

If anything, I’d like to be beyond shame. Shame is different than guilt. To be shameless is to not give a fuck what other people think. It requires the moral code and strength of character to know you’re in the right even though others believe you’re in the wrong.

My friend keeps using the word “gay” as a pejorative and refuses to stop. He claims that how other people interpret his words is not up to him, and that it’s not his fault if someone else is insulted by his use of “gay” in a negative sense because their reaction is a reflection of their own insecurities and weakness and that is not his fault.  He is not homophobic; he has gay relatives as well as gay friends whom he loves, yet he refuses to change his language because according to him actions speak louder than words and he his actions show that he is a good person regardless of what he says. Other than bringing up the definition of “gay” to show him he is misusing the word in the first place, is there anything else I can say that will get him to stop? Or is he right in saying that the audience chooses the meaning of the word i.e. it’s only an insult if you make it one?

Your friend is being a giant douche, but not for the reason that you think.

Personally, I don’t care if he uses the word “gay” as a pejorative. If he wants to sound like a sophomoric jerk, that’s fine. Whatever. The problem isn’t that he’s choosing to be offensive. The problem is that he’s denying that he’s being offensive. That’s some cowardly bullshit.

He doesn’t get to deny that words have meaning, and that certain words are loaded with cultural significance. He knows damn well that he’s being offensive, and he even knows why. He should have the strength of character to admit that he simply doesn’t give a fuck.

If you’re gonna be an asshole, own it. Go ahead, be offensive, but at least have the courage to admit that’s what you’re doing.

Dear Coquette,

The holiday season is coming up, and that means my sister and her fiancé will soon be staying with me and my husband during Thanksgiving week. The problem is that my brother-in-law-to-be suffers from a particularly pigheaded brand of conservative Christianity. To put it politely, he is an outspoken member of the religious right. For him, there is a very simple and stereotypical solution for each of our country’s problem, and he speaks with such certainty and arrogance that it really bothers me.

Everyone in my family goes to church, but he’s the only one who brings his religious politics home to the dinner table, and his views are very extreme. I don’t share his opinions, and I don’t want to have to argue with him when he brings up issues of the day. I’d rather just keep the peace, but then again, I don’t want to be a pushover. I also don’t want to appear unsupportive of my sister or make it seem like we don’t approve of her choice of partner. How do I resolve this?

Supporting your sister does not include an obligation to approve of her taste in men. In other words, you don’t have to like her fiancé. You merely have to tolerate his company a few times a year for as long as your sister can stand to be married to him.

You also have to be a gracious host for family members during the holidays. Of course, one of the benefits of being a host is that when someone is under your roof, they have to respect your house rules.

So, to resolve this, it’s simply time for a new rule — no talking politics. Just don’t allow it. Acknowledge that you’re never going to change each other’s minds about certain subjects, and in the interest of civility, let your sister and her future husband know ahead of time that impolite or controversial conversation is off limits at your house. It may seem a little weird at first to make an explicit rule about what folks can talk about, but trust me, it works.

It’s already rude for your sister’s fiancé to be talking about religion or politics in the first place, but once you have the power to call him out for breaking a house rule (as opposed to arguing with him because you disagree), things will become much more peaceful.

He doesn’t have to like it, but as long as he’s under your roof, he does have to respect it. Or he can stay somewhere else.