Category: Advice Goddess

Flee Bites I broke up with my boyfriend because he didn’t prioritize our relationship and wouldn’t commit. He now wants to get back together and has been sending me cards and letters for weeks. Is it foolish to give him another shot?  —Red Flag? A man who’s all, “Forget the Tinder randos! I need you!” is a man whose sexual freedom means less to him than being with you. It’s basically like a lion knocking on the door of the zoo: “Got a cage for me?” Still, it’s natural you’re giving his pleas to get back together the side-eye:...

My boyfriend is very successful with a high-profile job in finance. He’s very romantic and I felt I’d found “the one.” However, he has cheated on previous girlfriends, is unusually protective of his phone around me and otherwise acts secretively. For example: He began disappearing for three hours on Wednesday nights. He didn’t return any texts, which is unlike him. He claimed he was at “therapy,” forgetting he’d told me he instead uses life coaches at his job. Another example: I stopped over one morning and saw remains of a pizza and a dainty box of sparkly champagne gummy...

Son Of Clam Getting my boyfriend to talk to me about his feelings seems impossible. I know guys tend not to be super emotive, but trying to get a read on what he’s feeling is like trying to understand a foreign language. How can I get him to open up to me? — Distressed If only the Rosetta Stone had included a fourth language: Heterosexual Male. The Rosetta Stone, for those who ditched history class to smoke pot behind the dumpster, was a tablet-like rock fragment that turned out to have the same message in three languages: Egyptian hieroglyphics...

Apt. 201B Or Not To B My boyfriend and I have been together for two years and my lease is up in a few months. I was thinking about asking him if he wants to live together. When is the right time to move in with someone, and how do you know whether that’s even a good idea? —Housing Crisis There are people you can share a home with who do not do a slew of annoying things, and there are those who are continuing their tenure on our planet in an urn. As a failed romantic (aka human-nature realist),...

 Fickle-Down Economics I’m a 29-year-old straight woman. I recently came to the odd conclusion that I have no idea what I want in a man. Over the past few years, I’ve been dating a variety of guys and hoping they’ll be right for me, and it’s not working. Some turn out to be nice guys, but some turn out to be jerks. One turned out to be a truly terrible person, but in hindsight, all were obviously wrong for me. In each case, the underlying problems were always there, but I didn’t identify them until things blew up months...