Dear Abby wins

Admire how pithily Abby smacks down this woman, while providing the correct and unfortunate advice.

DEAR ABBY: I am with a man who treats me and my kids great. He is kind, caring and very generous. I trust him. However, I have been in a couple of bad relationships. For some reason, I'm drawn to "bad" boys. I'm not sure if I really love this man because there is no "spark." None! Should I stay with someone who is a really great person and treats me good -- but there is no passion -- and learn to live with it, or do I end the relationship? -- NOT SURE WHAT TO DO IN CANADA


DEAR NOT SURE: You might as well end the relationship now because sooner or later you will become bored and it will end anyway. The man you're seeing deserves to have someone who fully appreciates what he has to offer, which you seem unable to do. Continue dating "bad boys" until you finally stop confusing anxiety and disappointment with excitement. You appear to be one of those women who has to learn what's important through pain. You have my sympathy.

To this, I can only hang my head in shame.

As I enter my thirty-first year, I pray that I have learned what's important through pain, so that I can finally stop confusing anxiety and disappointment with excitement.

It would take an acrobat

and I already tried all that...

enlightenment

There's really nothing like listening to someone go over a long list of grievances about you, not feeling defensive about it at all, realizing that the complaints are completely accurate, and suddenly understanding what the hell your problem is.

control

After feeling lots of backlash against the Rules as embodied in my last bitter post, I'm trying to come back to some of their good points, the stuff that centered me.

Here's what I've come up with today, as a note to self:

Rulebreaker, if you feel the need to control something, go organize your closet.

That is all.

drama

In a subdued sense, Rules is kind of based on drama. Make him want you. Make him think he can't have you. Make him understand that if he wants to see you every day, he has to marry you. Make him wonder if you'll say yes to any given invitation or question, so it's a game that he has to win to try to get you to. If you can actually figure out a way to create this artificial demand, it works incredibly well. He will want you. Badly. (Aside: the Rules as expressed is a rather unsophisticated and not particularly reliable method for creating artificial demand for yourself - if you want the lesson in "how to create artificial demand - and probably a bloody mess," give me a call. I have years of expertise.) But it's still just a game. A chase. Excitement. Drama. Despite what my track record will tell you, I don't want drama. I have absolutely no use for it. I don't even know if I want excitement anymore, if this is what I have to go through to get it. I want someone to end the day with, who I like to hold and kiss, who doesn't drive me fucking crazy. And who likes me for reasons other than because he thinks he won me as a prize.

Needing the Rules again

I do think need for the Rules comes and goes, and I'm starting to need them again. So starting in this - again - new chapter of my life - I am going to try to apply them in some way to this ridiculous situation of trying to build a professional partnership and a romantic partnership at the same time. Will I write about it? I don't know. This is only a thought in my mind right now.

February 10

It's a different February 10 than I thought. But a good one, I think.