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Hey, big spender | page 1, 2, 3, 4
Our 25-year-old daughter has informed my wife and me that she
thinks she is inclined to be a lesbian. In fact, she has been
involved with a woman twice her age who we think is probably a
predator. We really aren't sure how to process all this in our
heads, and we are struggling to find a way to respond
appropriately to our daughter's struggles. We have a very good
relationship with her, but it still feels like a death in the
family. How do we help her and ourselves? Concerned Parents
Mr. Blue Garrison Keillor's column appears every Tuesday in Salon Books.
Feeling blue about your prose? In the doldrums over your last date? Ask Mr. Blue. Dear Concerned, It's an honor to have your daughter's trust and no doubt you are worthy of it and you'll grow even closer to her than before. It's the truth that parents tend to be closer to the kids who are struggling than to the kids who sail through life downwind. This kid needs you to help her keep her bearings. It isn't a death in the family, and don't talk like that. A death involves sitting around in a puke-green waiting room and eating food out of vending machines and enduring other people's sympathy and feeling a bleakness of spirit that goes on and on and on. With a lesbian, you may have to put up with a lot of women's soccer posters and power tools and a penchant for training shoes and hiking shorts and chopped hair, but it's not anything like death. It's not even like a sprained ankle. Dear Mr. Blue, My boyfriend and I are very happy together after about a year, and about three months ago we discussed marriage very briefly and decided to "see where things go." We're both around 30. I don't want to be pushy, but how long should I wait before bringing up the topic again? I want to marry this man and spend the rest of my life with him. He, on the other hand, likes the freedom of being single (though he seemed interested in the possibility of marriage), and I think he is scared of having children and sacrificing his freedom. I'd like kids, but if we didn't, that's OK too. I think we need to decide at some point whether to get married or go our separate ways. I'm very happy in this relationship, but these thoughts keep lingering in the back (and sometimes more in the front) of my mind. Happy, but Confused Dear Happy B.C., Back in the old days when Mr. Blue was young, young people leaped into marriage, propelled by nuclear hormones. You married so you could have sex, simple as that. And once you married, you sought to make the best of the situation, and in a great many cases, this turned out rather well, considering. Nowadays, young people get to enjoy sex first and then they have endless discussions about marriage and torture themselves over whether it's really really really the right thing or whether there's a Mr. Better out there somewhere. Endless shopping, where once we had the explosive impulse purchase. My advice is, See where it goes. You're happy together and that's good and let some more time pass and see what clues you pick up about the relationship. Marriage is not some airless theoretical question: Either you feel the powerful mutual urge to marry or you go along as sexual partners. I don't recommend living with someone who isn't committed to you, though. You get the drawbacks of marriage and miss the advantages of singletude. Dear Mr. Blue, I ran wild and free in my teens and 20s before reluctantly settling down at 27 with a guy I wasn't in love with, but he was cute, safe and mad about me. And then when I was 40, Mr. Ka-pow came along, and I shed the old relationship and embraced, for the first time in my life, full-scale romance, mind-blowing sex and a dynamic kinship like no other. After nearly two years, he abruptly dumped me for someone else, saying we were "too right, too alike" and that he wanted more "tension." I was devastated and confused. Four months later I'm still frozen. Friends keep advising me to just pick someone up and get it over with and I'll gain back some of my old confidence. What do you think? Should I wait it out until I feel it's right or just go for it? Life IS too short, right? Wavering Dear Wavery, Why go for it? You've already gone for it and it broke your heart. Maybe you should take this low spell as a chance to reflect on matters. Your friends' suggestion seems vaguely insulting, as if you're an old whore at heart and only need a new trick to make you happy. Life gives us some opportunities to get to know who we are and maybe this is yours. No doubt you're attractive and fun to be with and could pick someone up in 10 minutes, but why not give it a break, put your old confidence aside and take some long solitary walks across the moors? Dear Mr. Blue, I'm a 27-year-old driving himself to distraction with indecisive twitterpation. Recently I met a wonderful woman, who is funny, intelligent, beautiful, a computer geek, who seems to enjoy my company and flirts with me and we've spent a few afternoons together just hanging out, and I find her quite attractive and would like to broach the topic of becoming something more than friends. But I am utterly confounded on how to do that without sounding presumptuous and ruining the friendship we have. Our mutual friends all think that she's interested and just waiting for me to broach the topic. What should I do, Mr. Blue? Twitterpated Twink Dear T.T., You find a moment when the two of you are alone and feel close and there is a sweet lull in the conversation, and you say, "I think I may be falling in love with you." It's sweet, not too stupid, not over the top, and it gives her room to murmur something vaguely welcoming, or shrink back in disgust and say, "You try to touch me, you're in big trouble, buster." And if she says that, then you feign surprise and pretend you were joking.
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