Dear Coquette,

Is it unhealthy that most of the sex I’ve had has been whilst under the influence? I never thought of it that way until my two closest friends brought it up to me the other day and now I feel like I’m meant to feel wrong for not seeing it as unhealthy. The thing is, I’m not a relationship kind of person, and I don’t have a particularly high sex-drive, so I don’t really go looking for it, so it tends to happen more if I’m out having a few drinks and a laugh. One friend claimed it’s the most depressing thing he’s ever heard, and the other said maybe I should stop. It’s not like I’m going out, getting trashed and bringing people home constantly, or being stupid or hurtful about it in anyway. In fact for the best part of the last two years until recently I’ve slept with one guy and often that was sober … so, basically, I don’t get their issue. Am I missing something?

Do yourself a favor and stop using the word “whilst” in written correspondence. It makes you sound like a gigantic asshole.

Then again, your friends sound like gigantic assholes too, so maybe you’re just a product of your environment. Either way, don’t ever allow yourself to be slut-shamed, especially by friends.

Remember, it’s not about how often you’re having sex under the influence. It’s about why you’re having sex under the influence. In your case, it sounds like you’ve built up an identity around not being “a relationship kind of person,” whatever that means.

I’m not saying it’s unhealthy, but it’s obviously a rationalization for your pattern of behavior. Odds are, you’re just a young girl with a light dusting of garden-variety attachment issues. If anything, consider focusing some energy on forming intimate connections with people in your life.

For instance, you said until recently, you’d spent the better part of the last two years in a monogamous relationship. (Actually, you said the “best” part of the last two years, which has some significance in its double meaning, but I digress.) You went out of your way not to call this guy your boyfriend. That’s fine, but it’s also significant. What’s going on there?

I don’t know any of the details, but I get the sense that you’re going through a kind of post-breakup phase. Naturally, you’d play it off as anything other than a traditional breakup, but that doesn’t change the fact that the underlying emotions are still the same, and that the resulting patterns of behavior are fairly predictable.

Like it or not, you’re rebounding right now. You asked me flat out if you were missing something (a question that’s also loaded with double meaning.) The answer, of course, is yes. You are missing something.

Maybe you’re missing the ability to connect with just one guy. Maybe you’re missing that one guy in particular. Maybe you’re just missing the point. I don’t know, but you’re definitely missing something.

That’s not to say there’s anything unhealthy or destructive about your current pattern of behavior. I’m not judging you for having drunken sex, and you shouldn’t let others judge you either. Still, it’s worth a bit of serious self-examination to discover the root causes of why you’re acting this way.

Dear Coquette,

I struggle to accept my own morality and have become obsessed with the work of Aubrey de Grey. I am even counting on his research succeeding within my lifetime, and I think this expectation is unhealthy. I know you just recently covered mortality, and while I’m not having panic attacks, I’m still terrified. I’m in complete denial of death, and I’m having trouble accepting the fact that de Grey’s research could very well fail, or not be finished within my short existence. What advice could you offer someone who knows there’s no afterlife to look forward to, but still won’t accept mortality?

Every generation has an eccentric doctor with a wacky beard who thinks the human species can thwart the aging process and cheat death. Aubrey de Grey is just a 21st-century John Harvey Kellogg.  

That’s not criticism, by the way. Extending human life is a noble pursuit, and I like Aubrey. He’s got some really fantastic ideas and an even more fantastic beard, but please don’t let him fool you into thinking you can live forever. The average lifespan isn’t going to skyrocket into triple digits any time soon. Sorry, dude. Inevitability is a bitch, and one day, you are going to die.

I know. It’s scary. You’re born pink and helpless into an infinite universe. You experience a narrow, self-centered consciousness still very much tethered to its lowly reptilian origins. If you’re lucky, the gray meat behind your eyes keeps warm long enough for you to experience about 40 million minutes of self-awareness. That’s it. That’s all. When the blood stops flowing to your skull, your consciousness will simply cease to exist.

Don’t worry. You won’t feel a thing.

Seriously, though. Stop being so afraid of death. Let go of your fear. Not to belittle the impending abyss, but it’s really no big deal. The vast sea of nothingness after your die is no different than the vast sea of nothingness before you were born, and yet you’re not the least bit terrified of what happens before birth. Why, then, are you so terrified of what happens after death?

You’re only freaked out because you have a limited understanding of the causal arrow of time and an ego that relentlessly insists upon itself. You can’t help but notice the clock ticking, and your ego can’t handle the idea that the clock eventually stops. Thing is, that’s probably going to end up being a silly way to view what it means to die.

The fact that the clock is ticking in the first place is most likely going to turn out to be a limitation of our skewed perception of reality. I’m not saying time doesn’t exist. I’m just saying that human beings have a pretty crappy track record of making assumptions about the true nature of the universe.

Hell, it took our species about 99% of its existence just to figure out that the planet we lived on was round. We’ve made some lovely improvements since then, but I think our current linear interpretation of time is also merely a stage in our cognitive evolution.

If we humans are lucky enough to develop and get a peek at that next level stuff, I have a sneaking suspicion that one day, asking what happens after you die will be similar to asking what happens after you walk off the edge of the Earth.

Of course, this type of frivolous philosophical pondering isn’t going to change the fact that every last living creature is eventually going to kick the bucket. Consciousness will end, and our egos will all be annihilated.

The trick to accepting your mortality is to annihilate your ego before death does it for you. That’s what all the religious and spiritual teachers are trying to tell you to with their myths of resurrection and rebirth. They understand the value of being able to die before you die. Once you’ve done that, you can live happily with no fear of death.

It would be great if de Grey’s research eventually proved successful and we could all live for a thousand years, but all that extra life won’t bring you any more enlightenment and inner peace until you’ve faced your fears and come to terms with your own death.

Dear Coquette,

Whenever I work hard for something and succeed, I feel like I don’t deserve it. It took a lot of work to even accept that this reaction is irrational, but how do I let go of that feeling completely?

By all means, work hard and succeed. That’s great. Just don’t get caught up in whether you deserve success or not, because guess what? You don’t.

No one deserves anything. Fortune and fate have nothing to do with merit. No one deserves to be the Prince of Wales. No one deserves to be a starving orphan in Malawi. The whole notion that any one person deserves any more or less than any other person is predicated on a fundamental belief that there is some form of cosmic justice. There isn’t.

Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. The universe is totally indifferent, my friend. Life isn’t fair, and the guilt you feel from your personal success is merely a side effect of your conscience reacting to this cold, hard truth.

The good news is, these feelings are an expression of your humility, which under the right circumstances is one of the higher virtues. You don’t have to belittle your humility by calling it irrational. You merely have to accept it.

If you want to let go of the feelings that you don’t deserve your success, start by recognizing that it’s perfectly OK not to deserve it. Instead, respect the fact that you worked hard. You earned your success, and that’s enough.

What’s the best way to disassociate sex from emotion? Is it even a good idea to do? I can’t bring myself to have sex with someone unless I have an emotional connection with them, even if it’s a small one. Is this normal?

Disassociating sex from emotion is a horrible idea. Actually, disassociating from your emotions in general is a horrible idea. That’s the kind of things victims end up doing to cope with trauma. I think maybe what you’re trying to do is enjoy sex without intimacy or commitment. That’s perfectly fine, but please understand the difference.

Even when it’s “just sex,” emotion is still involved. It doesn’t need to be love. It doesn’t even need to be passion. Sometimes mild bemusement will get you where you need to go, but an emotional connection on some level is definitely something you want to have. The connection may not be intense and it may only last for a one night, but those emotions are still a valid and important component to the experience.

I sleep with guys to feel a little less lonely because no one wants to commit to an actual relationship. WTF is wrong with me?

Nothing is wrong with you. Stop having sex to fill an emotional void, don’t confuse loneliness for being alone, and don’t let your relationship status have an effect on your self-worth.

Dear Coquette,

My mother homeschooled me, but had no idea what she was doing. As a result, I never had any education, period, and no social skills because we lived in the middle of nowhere with no kids my age and she didn’t get along with any other moms. I didn’t realize what a problem this was until I got to college, and now have zero study skills and no self-esteem. I feel like I don’t even deserve to be here because of my cop-out upbringing. She was absent and mentally unstable, and I was left to my own devices and learned nothing that would help me in the real world. That’s my past, which is my responsibility to work on, but what I haven’t been able to do is forgive my mother. She takes credit for all of my successes and then blocks me out when I try to explain how much her decisions screwed me up. I know it’s in the past and nothing can be done; I just want her to even feel a little bit bad, to even acknowledge that she messed up. I’m prepared to work on all my issues alone, it would just be better if my mom was there to help me. Is this selfish of me? Should I just soldier on without her?

Your mother did what she thought was best for you at the time. Is she a bit of a nutball for sequestering you throughout your adolescence? Probably. Did she screw you up? Sure. All parents screw up their kids, but you’re a lot less screwed up than you think.

You’re in college now. Everyone is freaked out by their lack of study skills and self-esteem. Everyone is going through bouts of existential angst and crushing anxiety. Yes, everyone. That’s just the way it goes. You’ve got no choice but to buck up and get over it.

Start by recognizing that what you’re experiencing are very normal freshman anxieties, and while it’s perfectly understandable for you to project all that crap onto your mother, you need to realize that she’s just a very convenient scapegoat.

No doubt your mom is half a lunatic, and yes, you had quite the unconventional upbringing, but so what? Those were the cards you were dealt. Wanting your mother to feel bad about it is a waste of negative emotion, and if she did, I promise it wouldn’t feel as gratifying as you think it would.

You need to forgive your mother, and you need to get cozy with the reality that you’re not a kid anymore. You’re on your own now. The training wheels are off, and that can be a little scary at first. That’s OK, though. It’s supposed to go down like this. Coming to terms with your parents’ flaws is that first big step down the path of contemporary American adulthood.

The whole point of going off to college is for you to learn how to cope without your mom there to help you. She’ll always be your mother, but you still have to soldier on without her.