Editor’s Note: Is anything ailing, torturing, or nagging at you? Are you beset by existential worries? Every Tuesday, James Parker tackles readers’ questions. Tell him about your lifelong or in-the-moment problems at [email protected].
Don’t want to miss a single column? Sign up to get “Dear James” in your inbox.
Dear James,
I’m a 22-year-old woman in my first-ever situationship with another woman. We started off as good friends and a few months ago admitted we had feelings for each other. She was seeing someone else casually but then had to leave town for a bit. We stayed in touch while she was away, and at one point I traveled eight hours to visit her and meet her family. During this time I fell head over heels for her, and it was clear she was also interested in me.
Once she returned, however, she revealed that she wanted to be just friends. I felt used and embarrassed. I asked her to give us a chance. At the end of that conversation, we decided to try to make it work in some capacity—the one caveat being that she wanted to see other people. (I didn’t.)
Since then, we’ve had beautiful, romantic moments, although the relationship doesn’t feel as magical as it did before. When we talked recently, she told me that she hadn’t yet seen others—but because of lack of opportunity, not because she doesn’t want to. Meanwhile, I find I’m not being my full self. Typically, I feel secure in relationships. But partly because I’m worried she is seeing others, I’ve developed an anxious attachment to her. I’ve been trying to rely less on her. I don’t want to resent her. This is especially hard because I know what a lovely friendship we once had, and I hope to have a friendship with her if this ends. So I’m really struggling: Is it possible for this to work? Do I need to cut things off completely? Could we be friends with benefits, or should we immediately go back to being just friends?
Dear Reader,
Ah, the anxious attachment. I know all about that. Nothing makes sense, and nothing can be resolved, and nothing can move forward until you get the response you need—and you never get the response you need. So you dangle, you fizz, you drift with wet cheeks through needling clouds of anxiety. It’s a completely existential situation, in my view, because you’re radically in touch with (1) your own incompleteness and (2) the impossibility of ultimate security in this life.
What’s to be done? The original existentialists, all those lovely, gallant, puffing-their-ciggies Parisian men and women, were very happy for everything to be a dilemma. They loved a predicament; they loved a pickle. They loved a situation that had to be lived into and lived through—because that, as torrid and confusing as it might be, is how you know you’re living.
But what if you need an answer? Here, you must consult your impulses. All of the options feel terrible, but I’m pretty certain that one of them, carefully considered, will feel slightly less terrible than the others. And it might have something to do with reclaiming your autonomy, with restoring yourself to a state of, if not wholeness, then at least coherence. A state in which your entire condition of being is not oriented to this other person and what they say or don’t say. Imagine what a relief that would be.
Wondering what to have for lunch,
James
Dear James,
I’m a 19-year-old waiting for life to happen to me. I’ve graduated from high school, and I’m in a holding pattern until my next chapter can begin. In the meantime, I’ve lost all of my friends because they went off to college, and now they have new friends. I have panic attacks daily because I used to be a bright student, and now I feel like everyone is ahead of me and I’ve been left behind. How to find hope? What should I do?
Dear Reader,
All through life we tell ourselves stories about who we are, what we’re doing, and how we’re feeling. The right stories give us strength; the wrong stories take that strength away. It sounds to me like you’ve got yourself stuck in a wrong story. You need to tell yourself a different, better story, and talk to yourself in a new way.
So you’re feeling alone, for the time being. That’s okay. There’s great power in being alone. You can look around with clear eyes; you can make your own decisions.
Fall is coming, the most beautiful season of the year. And although you’re feeling autumnally sad, you can, with just a tweak of the emotional dial, turn that feeling into autumnal joy: a sense of things passing, changing, moving, blazing up into their brightest colors.
Don’t worry about being hopeful. The universe is going to keep on ticking, and it’s going to keep on offering you chances to feel better, whether you’re in a position to recognize these chances or not. You’re young, and you’re strong, and the good stuff is ahead of you. All you have to do is keep getting up in the morning.
Sending you the mega-vibe,
James
By submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let The Atlantic use it in part or in full, and we may edit it for length and/or clarity.
