I’m far more curious about why you went back online. If I was your boyfriend, that’s the bit that would really annoy me. He has, like any self-respecting man, been a big passive lump, while you have actively surfed the world of singles.
I wonder if you are being completely honest with yourself. Relax and don’t go looking for problems where there aren’t any. Work out when the year he paid for is up and then check the site once more. If he’s still there, or his membership status has changed, then you have cause for concern. He took you skiing and agreed to meet your parents – that’s as close to a dictionary definition of love as you are likely to get.
Dear Graham,
Why do women fall for bastards? I’m a decent, upstanding 31-year-old civil servant, with my own hair and teeth, no beer belly and reasonable hygiene and I’ve been single for four years. Supposedly, there are single girls all around, desperate to find steady boyfriends, but in my experience all they want is shallow, bed-hopping fund managers with red Ferraris and huge egos. All my university contemporaries who went into the City have girls hanging on their every word, even the really unattractive ones. I understand that money is a major aphrodisiac, but I don’t understand why women like men who treat them badly.
I’ve read about a dating site called Toyboy Warehouse (www.toyboywarehouse.com) that’s apparently full of eager, older women, but I’m not looking for some kind of Demi Moore/Ashton Kutcher scenario, just a nice, normal girl of my own age.
Where do I start?
Paul A, east London
“Sympathy sex and even pity sex are still sex. Perhaps after four years on your own, it’s time to stop being so fussy.”
Dear Paul,
What is going on here? I thought I understood your plight – the old ‘nice guys finish last’ syndrome – but then you threw me a bit of a curveball with the website. If that’s not what you want, why mention it? It’s like a waiter coming to take your order and you saying that you don’t want the smoked trout and then putting down the menu.
Is there a little bit of you that is so nonplussed by what women want that you’d quite like an older, perhaps slightly domineering, lady to tell you? If so, I completely understand. It sounds quite hot, so why not give it a go?
If you don’t like it, you can just go back to being ignored by the girls as you wait for the lift. Trust me, whatever happens it won’t be like Demi and Ashton. For starters, there are no Demis on the internet and, second, if you were Ashton, even with unreasonable hygiene, you would not be writing to me.
The only other thing I can advise is that if you aren’t meeting girls in your current life then change it. Do all those clichéd things like joining clubs or societies – people constantly suggest them because they work. My other tip is to hang around with the girls who are dating the bastards because when they get dumped you can be there for them.
Sympathy sex and even pity sex are still sex. Perhaps after four years on your own, it’s time to stop being so fussy.
Dear Graham,
My new boyfriend, Paul, is totally unadventurous when it comes to food. I have lost count of the number of times we have eaten chicken breasts and salmon steaks for supper. Whenever I suggest anything more exciting he’s up in arms. His favourite thing is pancakes and when we go out he always has the dullest thing on the menu – soup of the day, or pasta with tomato sauce.
My last boyfriend hardly ate anything at all, apart from black coffee, a horrible thing called ‘grits’ and bagels. But I’m the kind of person who likes to cook when I’m in love. It’s so depressing! Am I picking the wrong men?
Nicholas B, London
Dear Nicholas,
You have a boyfriend. That’s right: you, the pretentious bore, have managed to find a boyfriend. Now imagine the two of you on the sofa watching a movie (I’m sensing subtitles – poor Paul!), eating bowls of dull pasta. Got that? Now picture the scene as you sit alone poking a plate of black cod with a chopstick. Which of these scenarios do you prefer?
As I have often remarked, no relationship is absolutely perfect and usually it is a stark choice between compromise or solitude. Reading between the lines, I feel that Paul is probably making huge compromises. It is highly unlikely that he went online and ticked the box next to ‘dreary food snob’.
Relax, Nicholas. There is room in life for ketchup as well as truffle oil.
Dear Graham,
My wife has kept a diary since she was 15. It is very much a private affair and I assumed that after we got married (six months ago) she would abandon it. How wrong I was. I dropped a pair of cufflinks the other day and as I bent down to look for them under the bed I spotted a large A4-sized book wedged under the bedframe. On opening it, I discovered pages and pages of longhand (dating back nine months), with a recent, unfinished entry in which I glimpsed my name several times.
There was no time to take a proper look as my wife was calling my name from the bathroom next door. But now I know where her diary lives I’m consumed with curiosity. What does she write in it? What does she say about me? What are her views on our sex life and how do I compare to her previous lovers?
Would it be very shameful to take a quick look? My feeling is that it might even be good for both of us – so long as I don’t tell her, of course.
Matthew W, Cheshire
Dear Matthew,
Yes, fire ahead! Read her diary – what could possibly go wrong? I mean, I’ve never heard a story about someone reading a diary and being upset about what was in it, have you?
Matthew, seriously, only read that diary if you are ready to deal with the end of your marriage. I completely understand the huge urge to stick your nose into her innermost thoughts, but try to resist. Tell her that you have inadvertently found where she hides her journal and she needs to find a better hiding place.
Frankly, the lack of imagination she has demonstrated by putting it under the bed suggests the contents must be fairly dull stuff. If she doesn’t move it, then she clearly wants you to read it, so help yourself.
The trouble with diaries is that they don’t come with an index where you can look up M for Me, so you must wade through pages of stuff about people at work and dreary literary passages where she imagines lives for the people she sees on the train. The bottom line is that you’ve married someone who writes a diary and, after the age of 14, that usually means they are that strangest of combinations – a boring fantasist.
I shut my eyes to visualise your wife and see Piers Morgan in lipstick. God help you.
Dear Graham,
Married friends recently set me up with a really eligible lawyer. He’s keen and keeps inviting me to expensive restaurants and to the opera.
My problem is that I don’t fancy him. He doesn’t excite me in any way. In fact, I find him a bit boring and predictable, even though I desperately want to fancy him (I’m 34 and have been single for five years).
Friends (married) tell me that chemistry doesn’t matter. I should give it a go, even if I have to drink a bottle of Prosecco to kiss him. As the French say: ‘L’appétit vient en mangeant.’ But does it in matters of the heart?
Laura N, East Sussex
Dear Laura,
Perhaps the most depressing thing about your letter is that you aren’t even willing to invest in champagne to consummate the relationship. Take this as a sign and move on. Being drunk might get you into bed with him once but, unless you want to live like Amy Winehouse, it’s not a great basis for a relationship.
On top of that, consider for a moment how unfair you are being to this man. Doesn’t he deserve to be with someone who adores him? Your friends may say chemistry doesn’t matter, but I think you’ll find your dream date disagrees.
You talk as if you are stranded on a desert island with this man and the future of mankind rests on the two of you getting together. He’s a nice guy whom you don’t fancy – keep walking, Laura. You may have been single for a while, but surely that is better than running out of excuses not to have sex a
nd see a man slowly realise that you don’t love him. Where’s the fun in that?
Relationships may be all about compromise, but this is like chopping off a leg because you can only find one shoe. Unless this guy is an ex-Beatle, it’s really not worth it.
Dear Graham,
I need some no-nonsense practical advice. I am 32 and have a boyfriend who is generous, kind, loyal, bright and not bad looking either. In a nutshell, he’s exactly the sort of person I know is good for me. My problem is that I’m a typical twisted female. I’m attracted to bad guys and have spent a long time trying to train myself off them. But having found myself a much more suitable boyfriend, with amazing qualities, I find it difficult to conjure up feelings of love.
Your advice would be greatly appreciated.
Camilla E, London
My problem is, I’m a typical twisted female attracted to bad guys.
Dear Camilla,
I admire your commitment to self-improvement. Like Fern with her gastric band, you have shed your old self. Goodbye to bad boys and all the emotional damage they can wreak on a young woman’s heart. Wiping the tears from your eyes, you have sat up late at night listening to Norah Jones or perhaps a bit of Adele and made a list of the qualities you want in a man. So far, so self-improving.
The problems arise when you meet a new improved boyfriend. The part of your brain that drew up the list of desirable qualities is thrilled but, as you have now discovered, safe and sensible are the natural enemies of love and lust.
There is no practical advice for conjuring up love and so you must now decide how you want to move forward. You could decide to settle for this new Mr Right, but do you honestly believe that you won’t get bored and break his heart when you run off with the man who checks the air pressure in your tyres?
The attraction of bad guys is that you might just possibly find one that will change for you, but no good guy has ever suddenly become exciting. Relationships aren’t a science, so don’t think about them so much. Remember that people search for a love potion, not a love formula.
Dear Graham,
How does one turn a friend into a lover? I have a large circle of single friends and one of them is so funny and nice that I’ve started to really fancy him. Sometimes the two of us meet for a drink or to see a film, but nothing has happened.
Just being myself doesn’t seem to have lit any fireworks. Help.
Martha S, Stoke Newington, London
Dear Martha,
Sleeping with friends is often short-sighted. Although it might work out, the price for a night of passion will be your friendship, which will never be the same.
What sort of relationship could it possibly be when ‘being yourself’ isn’t working? Are you planning to put on an act for the rest of your life? Sometimes there aren’t meant to be fireworks, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the long slow glow of friendship for what it is. Slow down and enjoy what you’ve got, rather than worrying about what you are missing.
Dear Graham,
I know this sounds petty but my husband refuses to take the bins out. In all our married life – two years – I have never been able to get him to perform this mundane but deadly task. It is always me who has to empty the clanking bin and lug out the full bag at midnight in my nightie.
With my parents, the deal was always that my father did the physical stuff (bins, logs, digging in the garden, packing the car), while my mother did everything else. I don’t think they ever discussed it – they just agreed on things in a tacit, harmonious way. Of course, my mother got the raw deal, but I don’t think she minded. At least my father did the bins, stoked the fires and knew how to wield a garden spade.
But I’ve married a clueless, selfish man who expects me to do everything.
It may sound crazy, but sometimes I think he can’t possibly love me if he leaves me to do the rubbish every single time. Sometimes I almost wish we lived in one of those desperate, rat-infested areas where the dustmen only come by twice a month. At least I wouldn’t resent my husband and we’d probably have sex more often.
Pippa L, west London
Dear Pippa,
Nobody wants to take the bins out. If I want to show someone I love them, I’ll tell them so or buy them a gift – I won’t lug great black plastic bellyfuls of slop out into the street. The fact is that for two years you have allowed this situation to exist. Why on earth would your husband want it to change? Even I would prefer to hear you whine a bit than to actually deal with the garbage and end up with mystery juice dripping down my legs.
There is only one thing you can do and that is to go on strike. Make it very clear that you don’t mind sharing the task, but he must take the rubbish out next. Doubtless he will resist, but you must be firm. The only way you’ll get what you want is by letting the bin bags pile up. The appearance of cockroaches snaking across your kitchen counters like passengers at a Terminal 5 check-in desk, or rats drinking from the tap, must not shift your resolve or else all is lost.
If it gets to the stage that the neighbours have called in the police because they think there is a dead body in your flat, and he still won’t budge, then I think it is safe to assume he doesn’t love you and that walking down the aisle was about the most energetic thing he has ever done. At this point, it is safe for you to dump all your unwanted rubbish, including him.
Dear Graham,
I’ve just started going out with this drop-dead gorgeous girl, who’s one of those Notting Hill trustafarians: hugely health-conscious, organic and green, even though Daddy’s job involved demolishing the planet. She boycotts Tesco and eats only organic food, preferably covered in mud. And she’s into yoga, of course. Nothing new there – plenty of girls have similar obsessions. But she’s not quite the karmic goddess she seems. Sadly, her idea of a good time is to pile into the lavatories at weddings with a couple of other girls and snort a few lines of coke.
How can she be so hypocritical? How can a person be chemical-free on the one hand, yet pile their body full of drugs on the other?
Ewen L, London
Dear Ewen,
How many dates have you two been on? All you seem to like about her is that she is gorgeous. Everything else seems to irritate the hell out of you. Forget trying to make sense of her pretty head and leave her, because this relationship is going nowhere.
The ethical dilemmas you mention are interesting but, even if she reveals she is using 100 per cent natural fair-trade cocaine, you still aren’t going to love her. If you stay with her simply because of her looks, then guess who’s the bigger hypocrite?
Leave her to her white weddings, so you can get back to enjoying Tesco’s Finest.
Dear Graham,
Ever since I can remember it’s always been ‘poor Camilla’ in my super-high-achieving family. I flunked out of university halfway through my degree to become an artist, did a series of dead-end jobs in my twenties and most of my thirties and had so few boyfriends that people wondered if I was gay. When I was 19, I was prescribed anti-depressants and I’ve been on them pretty much continuously since then.
My sister in contrast has had a near-perfect life that almost replicates that of my parents – Oxbridge, a high-paying job, shiny friends, marriage (to someone equally successful), lovely kids, a beautiful house et cetera.
What is odd is that my life has suddenly turned around, while my sister’s has nosedived. At 38, I’m engaged to a lovely man, I’m off the pills and my sculptures are suddenly in hot demand. Meanwhile, my sister is locked in a vicious divorce battle with her husband. She and her children have moved in with my parents, who are buckling under the strain of it all.
I’ve been trying to offer support but my family are finding it really hard to deal with the fact that I can’t be at their beck and call – and now have a busy life of my own. You’d think they’d be pleased to see me happy, but it seems not. Everyone preferred me when I was depressed and lonely! How can I help out, while getting my family to accept that I no longer c
onform to their negative stereotype?
Camilla L, Aylesbury
Dear Camilla,
To be brutally honest, after all these years, your family will probably always think of you as ‘poor Camilla’.
The important thing is that you don’t. You must live your life for yourself, not your family. Everybody’s circumstances change.
Hopefully, your sister will get back on her feet and everyone can have a slice of the lucky pie again. Your good fortune is not based on your sister’s unhappiness. Don’t get sucked into some weird masochistic competition with her. Enjoy your life in isolation, not relative to what your sister is going through.
It is only in fairytales that there is one sad princess and one happy princess. Real life is much more complicated.
The fact that the family feel able to ask you for help suggests that some of the ‘poor Camilla’ feelings are slightly in your head. If your parents are being too demanding, then just be firm. Ultimately, they will respect you for being clear and honest but do what you can because there may come a day when once more it is Camilla who is asking for help. I hope things improve for everyone very soon.
Dear Graham,
I’ve been with my French girlfriend, Juliette, for 22 months and, although I’ve always been a bit of a Lothario where women are concerned, I’ve never stuck around long enough to get to know any of them properly. Juliette is my first serious girlfriend (I am 29). She has a refreshing joie de vivre that is unlike most English girls, and that’s part of the reason why I’m still hooked.
Ask Graham Page 20