Q: My boyfriend and I are having problems. Our personalities used to adhere like the yolk of a newly cracked egg, but now it’s like we’ve been whipped around, leaving nothing but a few dangling, wispy connections. Should I even try to save the relationship or is the yolk we had gone forever?
A: Unfortunately, most relationships tend to follow the life span of the newly cracked egg you are so quick to idealize. Once cracked, they are generally fried and eaten. You and your boyfriend may have spent a brief, beautiful moment enjoying the exciting heat of a relationship, much like a freshly cracked egg flourishes on the burner for a few brief seconds, but as soon as that egg starts to sizzle, it’s impossible to avoid the necessary flip. You know as well as I that even if you arrive at Downer before 10 a.m., your eggs to order never stay sunny side up.
That yolk will inevitably break, if not as the Downer lady flicks it gently off the spatula to flip it onto your plate, then after you’ve gingerly poked at it with your offending fork. Be grateful that, unlike a relationship that resembles an egg fried over-hard, you have retained some of yourself, and will not be completely unattractive to the next innocent fellow out of whom you attempt to suck all personality.
You have found yourself in a relationship that is ultimately doomed to be defined by food metaphors. Since I am ultimately doomed to carry this metaphor as far as it will go, I can only advise stop fixing a relationship that was meant to be broken, and to take some time off before you’re capable of a relationship that more closely resembles a finely tossed salad — a little less fragile.Q: This weekend, it was my birthday, and luckily I accomplished both of my birthday goals: I got wasted and hooked up with a hot babe I’ve been crushing on for a long time. Unfortunately, I think I went a little too far in accomplishing the first goal, which left me blind to the technicalities of the second. After I brought her back to my room, and just as I was about to seal the deal, I threw up in my bed. She seemed pretty drunk too, or at least she pretended to be, but now I don’t know how to handle this situation. She still spent the night — and not on the floor — but I think she was a little weirded out. What should my next move be?
A: It’s not as if anyone is free from blame in this situation. I would say that you both disgust me, and that I am embarrassed to have been admitted to a college that would also admit you, but that would really be a lie, because I have actually seen boys throw up on girls with whom they are attempting to hook up. At least you missed her and went straight for the bed.
I would say your actions in that regard were the slightest bit commendable. You’re also lucky enough to have found a girl who is clearly so infatuated with your repulsive, drunken self that she was willing to spend the night in a twin bed with you and your rented dinner.
Yet with this knowledge, you still wonder if she might have been a little weirded out? Impossible. Had she been weirded out, she would have left. And had she left, she would be a quitter. And no one wants to date a quitter.