Amy Alkon's Blog, page 10

Go With The Whoa

Whenever I go out with someone I like at all, I fall for them right away. How can I stop from jumping headfirst into wanting to be with a guy just because we have a nice evening together? I know some witty banter doesn't equal a soul mate, but good luck telling my heart.

--Leap First

If your grandma was like mine, her advice was to find "the one" -- as opposed to "the anyone."

There's a term for your "Speed Racer" approach to getting into relationships, and it's "emophilia." Emophilia is the ...

Meet Joe Backup

The guy I'm seeing is super attentive and affectionate when we're together, but then he always falls off the grid. He'll wait weeks before texting me to make plans again, and sometimes I have to initiate. What's his deal, and how do I proceed? It's a new relationship, so I'd feel too needy to tell him I want more attention.

--Yearning

We have a term for a pleasant, attentive man who drops by from time to time and then isn't seen for weeks, and no, it is not "boyfriend" but "UPS man."

Some wi...

Joan Of Arctic

I'm a 54-year-old woman, married for 21 years to a pretty decent guy. When our now-18-year-old son was little, my husband completely ignored Mother's Day for maybe six years. Once, I asked him why, and he simply said, "You aren't my mother." It hurt me SO MUCH because I busted my butt to be a good mom. I told him why I was so upset, and one year, I laid on our bed and cried, but nothing changed. Six years ago, he began giving me a card and flowers on Mother's Day. This year, he and our son got m...

Kick The Hobbit

My 23-year-old nephew is a nice guy, a college grad with a good job who's a loving pet owner. The women in the family love his ironic mustache, his tattoos, and his way of making people laugh, but the men, including my husband, tend to see him in a negative light. I struggle to understand why they think so little of him. But maybe that's it: My nephew's not a big guy. He's maybe 5-foot-6, and while that's not terribly short, my family skews tall, with all the other men 6-foot-3 and over. From re...

Real Houseknives

I was dismayed at how off-base you were when I read your response to a woman wanting to give her female friend advice to stop her from dating and hooking up so much after her breakup. It's common knowledge that it's men who go off on women for being promiscuous and tell them to not dress sexy. It's one more form of patriarchal control. Why blame women for this?

--Angry Woman Living In The Real World

When men at construction sites catcall women, it generally isn't with remarks like, "If you had...

Womb With A View

My friend constantly talks to me about her baby on the way and asks me to help her pick out furniture and clothes for it. This is very painful for me because my husband doesn't want kids and I agreed not to have any. I didn't realize I'd have this deep longing for a child, but I love him and am not willing to leave him. I also have a hard time asking for things, even if a person is my friend. How do I tell her it would be better for me not to talk about this so much without making her feel bad? ...

Catty Litter

I'm a woman who just turned 30, and so is my best friend, who just got out of a three-year relationship. She's now on the rebound hard-- hitting on her co-workers, going on multiple dates every week, hooking up with different guys all the time, etc. I can't decide whether to admire her confidence or be concerned that she needs constant attention and validation from men. Do you think this is healthy behavior? Should I tell her that she needs to stop acting out and work on healing from her relatio...

The Devil Eats Purina

My girlfriend got a dog six weeks ago -- a Chihuahua. I don't hate the dog, but I'm not wild about him. I've almost stepped on him twice in the kitchen, and my snuggle time on the couch with my girlfriend has now become me watching him sit in her lap while they cootchie-coo it out. She hasn't had the dog sleep in bed with us, but I know that's next. Is this the end of our relationship?

--Annoyed

It's pretty depressing when doing risky stuff in bed means sleeping without a flea collar.

Though ...

MC Yammer

My friend won't stop talking about her new crush, and it's driving me up the wall. I was annoyed, but now I'm getting increasingly angry, and I don't appreciate this toxic feeling rising up. It's all her and her new love all the time. If she asks anything about me or how I'm doing, it's an afterthought. I try to avoid conflict, so I haven't said anything. I keep hoping she'll realize she's behaving really selfishly. What will it take to get her to recognize this and start being a better friend?

...

Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hide

I'm a 30-year-old gay man with a new boyfriend. He is a total social butterfly: the kind of person who shows up to a bar on a random Friday night and just happens to know 10 people there. I, on the other hand, don't love being super social. It's not that I'm shy. I just find socializing exhausting. I really like him, and we mostly hang out one-on-one. However, the times we are with a lot of other people, even when they're a bunch of his friends, I feel a little overwhelmed. I'm worried he'll fin...