alex ^3's profile at Help.com

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Last 7 Posts Authored

• i need someone to need help… it seems like a slow night. posted (10 months, 1 week) ago
  need someone to need help… it seems like a slow night.…

• Thank You, Golda posted (10 months, 2 weeks) ago
  A funny girl from Pinsk and Milwaukee Spoke to me in bed last night. I met her when she was eight, …

• There’s this great performance I want to see, but it’s tomorrow night and I haven’t got anyone to go with me. posted (10 months, 3 weeks) ago
  I’m feeling a little sad about going alone, Sunday night, at the start of the holidays.…

• Wow - the NY Times is really going after McCain. posted (1 year, 1 month) ago
  Ever since he protested their coverage of his ties to Fannie Mae, it’s been a all out assault…

• …and so it goes (for sara) posted (1 year, 1 month) ago
  [quote sarah63]Goodness, I was almost not allowed to view my own post. Today was a better day. But …

• a no good, very bad day. posted (1 year, 1 month) ago
  it turns out that my academic department won’t be funding me this year - instead, they’…

• How can I say, “I love you? posted (1 year, 2 months) ago
  ” With a firm touch, with a tease, With a photo of your laugh? How can I say, “I miss you?” C…

• All Claimed Posts »

alex ^3's Top (4) Replies by other users' votes

• (1 vote) Rough patch or Over?
  

  hmmmm… i find it hard to believe that you did the wrong thing asking him to leave. sometimes, it is important to express how you feel rather than suffering in silence.
  
  generally speaking, i think that when someone says he’s “not sure” if he loves you anymore, that is really code for either (1) “i know i don’t love you anymore” or, a somewhat different shade, (2) “i do love you but i don’t want to be with you.” many people have trouble understanding (2), but that is possible. “not sure” doesn’t make sense, no matter how much he insists. anyhow, if you’re going to break up under conditions where he is the one losing interest, i think it is important for your self-esteem for you to be the force that makes the decision to actually separate. particularly if he’s giving you this gutless “not sure” business.
  
  on the other hand, it also is important to understand what is happening. i think couples who drift apart often do that because each person doesn’t understand the (sometimes initially minor) doubts that the other person has - and then the chasm just keeps getting wider.
  
  - written 1 year, 1 month ago – voted for by beaumoon80

• (1 vote) My beloved husband has just filed for divorce & refuses to talk to me.
  

  I worry about giving advice without more detail and without knowing you and Pete better - so please keep in mind that we don’t really have enough information to give you a fair response.
  
  That said, your whole description is strange. How could Pete possibly, under the circumstances, have expected you to move? And how could you possibly, remotely, think that it’s a good idea to move yourself and especially your two sons into a relationship with someone that exhibits such low regard for you and your situation. If everything you have written here is correct, I am dumbfounded that you are even remotely considering trying to reconnect with this guy.
  
  I would go so far as to say that your post makes me a little angry. “Love” is not enough to justify marrying someone. There was a brilliant article about this in the newspaper this weekend: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/opinion/06dowd.html?em&ex=1215835200&en=5f040b7757b3d682&ei=5087%0A
  
  If you just wanted to sacrifice your life to a relationship that obviously isn’t going to work out, that would be one thing. But you have children involved! I can’t believe your wording: “Pete agreed to let us stay.” That’s frightening.
  
  These tragedies in your life won’t be the only bumps in the road. And you need to be with someone who is going to stick with you through them. Pete hasn’t demonstrated the ability to do that.
  
  - written 1 year, 4 months ago – voted for by AmandaLynn

• (1 vote) Becomming the “Dating Type”…
  

  OK. i can answer this question since i went from being the best-friend type to the dating type. a lot of this depends on how you approach relationships with women. early on, a relationship can follow two paths, one is towards friendship and the other is towards dating. you cannot have both, and you need to be pretty clear which you’re aiming for. when you’re dating, if you think you don’t want to continue dating the person and even if you think you might prefer to be friends, you probably still have to end it. people who are dating aren’t generally out looking for more friends.
  
  friends meet casually to do whatever activity it is that they share. they don’t cover personal ground quickly, since they aren’t that interested in it. what they’re interested in is the common thing they do together. friends also measure each other less, since they aren’t judging the other for qualities like long term potential.
  
  a date is a date is a date. you ask someone out on a date, even (and ideally) if it’s just a casual thing like coffee. then you ask them out again. you spend lots of time talking in addition to doing the usual stuff like seeing performances or movies. dates usually have a start and an end, and it’s better not to drag them out too much. about 80% of women prefer that you pay for them on dates - that’s a clear difference between dates and friends going out. if she doesn’t want you paying for her, she might indicate it in a this-is-not-a-date way, and there you go. also, women differ on how early they kiss, especially depending on their experience level, but it can come as early as the end of the first or second dates (or as late as the sixth date, so watch the cues closely.
  
  you can, i should note, turn a friend relationship into a dating relationship. that’s a matter for a whole other entry. anyway, be very very careful about that. because it can easily destroy the friendship.
  
  hope that helps.
  
  - written 1 year, 4 months ago – voted for by Fooch

• (1 vote) you know what bugs me
  

  Oooh. I like this post. Interesting point. I DON’T agree with you. At least, not entirely.
  
  You do have to fake your appearance sometimes. Successful people know that other people judge them by how they look. (We can’t help it - sometimes, appearance is all we have to go by.) If you look like you’re unhappy, then people will often avoid you or think poorly of you. Happy people tend to make more friends.
  
  But that doesn’t mean you should go around faking smiles. You need to think carefully about when you can be yourself and be honest about how you feel. Whenever you can, try to be honest. Your true friends don’t want you to fake smiles with them - so be honest with your friends. Close relationships are built on sharing the good times and the bad.
  
  And when you do feel happy, make sure to share it with others. That way, when you’re unhappy, you can fake less. It takes energy to fake, and it hurts a little piece of you. In the end, the best solution is to try to deal with the things that make you unhappy, so you can smile and mean it.
  
  - written 1 year, 4 months ago – voted for by Sans

Last 5 Replies – All 546 replies »

• I’m 13 years old and I don’t really care anymore.
  

  I partly agree with Dr. Ralph and Raver, but not completely.
  
  I don’t think you’re really considering WHY people care about things when you try not to care too much yourself. Caring comes from appreciation, right? You care about your cats because you understand them on a deeply personal level (and they, in their way, relate to you).
  
  You would never want to care less for your pets, I am sure. So therefore, when you really care about something, you don’t always say “don’t care don’t care.”
  
  Are we agreed, then, that there are some things you want to care about, and others that you don’t?
  
  Now, with people, strong relationships happen when both people understand each other on the level that you understand your pets. That takes time and it’s rare. So it’s not surprising that there’s no one you can really trust. (Being 13 was like that for a lot of us… as Raver said). Right now, it sounds like there’s no one you want to allow to get to know you that well, and vice versa. DO NOT assume that that will always be the case, though. You probably will find people you are about, and 20 years might even change your perspective about kids with cancer :)
  
  I can’t tell you whether or not to get help. I do know that you’re not going to stop analyzing yourself and you’re very bright. So, let’s give you some ammunition. First, you need to know about the Roman Stoics. They were the earliest people to develop a philosophy around emotions. Read about them in Wikipedia and check out Musonius Rufus and Seneca in particular.
  
  Next, you need some science. There’s a good book by a neurologist, Antonio Damasio called “Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain.” This book might be too advanced for you, but give it a shot.
  
  If you want even more to read, reply to this page! Good luck.
  - written 2 weeks, 6 days ago

• Can you make someone stop drinking?
  

  Yeah… I know a random book seems like an odd recommendation… but I really, really recommend that you read Lucy Sullivan. You have to get through a lot to get to the drinking elements - but “Lucy” deals with this issue with her father (as well as her initial refusal to admit to herself that he was even an alcoholic).
  
  Angela’s Ashes is another one… (and another case of a father who drinks) and that’s autobiographical. But I found Angela’s Ashes trying, and I’m a very patient reader.
  - written 3 weeks ago

• Grammer question:
  

  [quote mills]Here are a few examples to help you remember where the apostrophe is needed.
  
  “Jacob’s shoes are very cool.” The shoes belong to Jacob (singular: one person).
  
  “I found the dog’s old bone buried in the backyard.” The bone belongs to the dog (singular: a single dog).
  
  “Look at all of the sailors’ boats!” The boats belong to the sailors (plural: there is more than one sailor).
  
  “The children’s dresses were pink and frilly.” The dresses belong to the children, but since the word children is already plural without having to add an “s” at the end, this is an exception.[/quote]
  
  Actually, I think mills’s examples confuse the issue. (And yes, folks, when a name ends in an s, the correct grammatical usage is s’s.)
  
  You don’t just use apostrophes to show possession with people (or dogs). Houses have fireplaces… and they are the houses’ fireplaces. A knife has a blade, and it is the knife’s blade. Cars have tires, and a car’s tires go round and round :) etc….
  - written 3 weeks ago

• Can you make someone stop drinking?
  

  probably not. there are support groups you can go to for information about this.
  
  but, actually, there’s a fun fiction book by an author with experience dealing with this problem…
  
  buy: “Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married” by Marian Keyes
  
  it’s a cute romance story (very “chick lit”) but the drinking side of the story is deadly serious and seems to be accurate from my limited understanding.
  - written 3 weeks ago

• I’m a 20 year old girl, the most I’ve ever
  

  hmmm… in my experience, there’s something wrong with this picture.
  
  women do have to signal when they’re interested in men. there’s a way to make it clear to guys that they can take steps to advance things - slowly - and that you’ll be OK with that. what you don’t want is to end up with a guy that pursues you without any signals (which appears to be what you’re waiting for).
  
  if you walk in small circles, which it sounds like, since you say “everyone knows me,” then some guy has to risk his friendship with you to advance things. and that requires him to take a small leap and you to do likewise. don’t stop being a good girl, but try letting a good guy know that you’re interested.
  - written 3 weeks ago

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