Q. About two months ago, I went to the emergency room with a really embarrassing injury, and I mean really embarrassing—it was the kind of thing where, if it happens to a celebrity, the tabloids go nuts for months. I would tell you in private what happened, but I don’t even think it’s the kind of thing the FCC even lets you talk about on the air. Fortunately, though, I’m nobody in particular, and only the hospital staff and my now ex-girlfriend know about it. Anyway, while at the ER, I met this really wonderful nurse. She was very kind and helpful, very attractive, and she didn’t judge me, and instead put me at ease. At the time, I didn’t know that my girlfriend was about to break up with me after our embarrassing stunt had gone south, so I didn’t bother to get the nurse’s number or anything, even though I think I developed a crush on her on the spot.
Fast forward to a month ago. I was all healed up, and I joined a dating website. One of the first dates they sent me on turned out to be with that fantastic nurse. I was thrilled! We are getting along great and we are very compatible. I can see us being together for a long time.
However, she still thinks something is familiar about me, but can’t quite place where she might know me from. She doesn’t remember our first meeting (although I can’t imagine she would forget the injury she signed me in for). I’m afraid that if I tell her, she’ll be too horrified to continue our relationship. I’m afraid that if I don’t tell her, she’ll figure it out eventually, and she’ll be both horrified and very, very angry at me. Either way, I’ll be heartbroken. I don’t want to be deceptive, but
I just don’t want to take the chance that she won’t want to be with me anymore once she remembers what I did. What can I do to save the relationship?

A. Leaving aside for a moment the question of, “what ‘relationship?’”—it’s been a month, after all—AND the question of whether you should really be in a relationship at all with your dangerous and alarming appetites—you have two things really working in your favor here.
First, as an ER nurse, it is apparent that this woman has seen so much bizarre stuff that she can’t even remember your case specifically. Consider yourself fortunate—anybody else would be unable to forget. Second, if she finds out (that is, if she happens to remember where she first saw you, or while pouring over hospital records, she happens upon your name, or your ex-girlfriend told everybody and she hears it through the grapevine) you can pretend the whole thing was so traumatic you don’t remember her, getting yourself off the hook. This won’t keep her from discovering what is wrong with you, but it should keep her from being angry at you about the deception. For all the talk out there of how communication is so important to relationships, there are certainly some times when keeping your mouth shut is the best idea. This would be one of them.

Q. I am dating my former girlfriend’s mother. Thoughts?

A. Plenty. I’m not a psychic, though—I’m a lifecoach. So if you need advice about it, please write back or call with a more specific question.

Q. My girlfriend and I are both in the theater. We are currently in production on the same play, which is unusual for us. This time, I am one of the “heroes” of the play, and she is directing. It’s nice working on something together, but one thing is really holding me up as an actor. I hate the part she cast me in. I mean, I really hate it. I can’t relate to this guy at all, and I can’t understand why she thought I would be right for it. As a professional, I don’t feel like I can say anything about it, and that I should just suck it up and do my best with it, like any other part. On a personal level, though, it’s still really bothering me. As we go into production, I’m concerned I’m not going to be able to do a good job, and I’m not sure that, if I asked my girlfriend why I got the stupidest part in the whole play, I would like the answer. Still, I can’t seem to let it go. What do I do?

A. You should probably trust that professional instinct and not make a big deal out of this. You got cast, and that’s something to be proud of, whether or not you’re sleeping with the director—especially in these difficult times for the arts. You have a moral obligation to your own career, to the audience, and to the rest of the group, to do the best job you possibly can.
As for letting it go, consider channeling your insecurities and pettiness into your creative force. Maybe your character has seen too much action as a hero and he’s a little bitter. Maybe he lashes out at the other characters. Maybe he drinks a lot and shouts his lines. Sell it as unique interpretation and good acting, and make it “your thing.” You might even get an award for a part you didn’t initially even want.

Q. I worked hard for many years to be able to go to graduate school. Since I was a little kid, I loved ancient Egyptian stuff, and dinosaurs, and I’ve been working toward getting a Ph.D. in archaeology pretty much my whole life. Now that I’m here, though, in the program I always wanted to get my degree from, and so close to my dream, I can’t seem to get any work done. My papers are late, I’m behind on my reading, and I just don’t feel like doing anything. I’ve never been like this before, but I just can’t seem to pull it together, and I need to—and fast! What’s happening to me? Did you go through anything like this when you got your Ph.D.? Is it normal? What can I do to fix it?

A. Have you considered that your insight might be right: that you are a fraud? Maybe you really wanted something that you don’t quite have the drive and talent to follow through with. It’s OK—it wouldn’t be the first time, and it doesn’t mean you can’t be successful—lots of untalented people still manage to make it in their chosen fields. If you can’t make it work the way you thought you could, it’s just a matter of considering other strategies.
Consideration 1: In the cold light of day, are you sure you want to go through with this? It’s OK to stop and figure out something else to do with your life rather than racking up student loans whose totals are like another mortgage if you’re not sure it’ll be worth it in the end.
Consideration 2: Most untalented people who manage to be quite successful do it by surrounding themselves with others who are talented and harnessing that. Look at former President George W. Bush. He didn’t even have his own friends to surround himself with—he used his dad’s—and that still worked for him. Do you have friends around you or by association who can help you get where you want to be?
Consideration 3: For some people, success by association is best attained through relationships. Is your department head appealing to you, or better yet, is your dean? Some people would consider this option prostituting yourself, but only the unsuccessful ones, and as I’m sure you know right now, they don’t count.
If you feel like none of these considerations are worth giving serious thought to, perhaps you are not really as dedicated as you suspected. You really do have to put up with some ridiculous things to finish a Ph.D., and there’s no shame in being too proud or too old or too stubborn to do them. Most people who aren’t total masochists can’t. If you decide you are among those who can’t deal with the experience, you can certainly take pride in a certain level of mental health.

Q. This year, I made several New Year’s resolutions that were really important to me, but I’m having a hard time staying on track with them. Do you have any advice?

A. Indeed I do. I had a similar question this time last year. It went like this:
Q. Only a few short weeks ago, I made all these New Year’s resolutions, and I’ve already blown them all. I resolved to lose weight, but things got so busy at work after the holidays. I didn’t even get to the supermarket in the second week of January, never mind the farmer’s market or the gym. Just like that, I was back on takeout, fast food, and eating out of the vending machine at work. I had also resolved to save money and get my finances in order, but I haven’t been able to do that, and now that I’m faced with it, I’m not sure I know how. I’ve already cut every expense I possibly can. I had resolved to read more books, too, but I can’t imagine where I’m going to scrounge up some reading time in my busy schedule. It seems like I go through this every year. What’s wrong with me that I can’t keep my resolutions? Or maybe, why do I do this to myself if I can’t follow through?

Sound familiar? Here’s what I told that listener:

A. A broken resolution is a broken promise. Do you break a lot of promises to others, or only to yourself? Maybe you need to promise someone else you’re going to do these things in order to make time for them. Or are you simply so unimportant that you’re not worth keeping promises to?
Also, why do you give up on yourself so easily? A few trips to the vending machine do not constitute a lifelong, or even yearlong, failure. You simply let them for some reason. Fear of success, perhaps? Lack of faith in yourself? Secret junk food addiction you haven’t dealt with? It’s impossible to say without more information about what your underlying flaws are.
One thing is for sure, though: until you think you are worth helping, it is very difficult to help you, or even to feel compassion for your problems. I can just feel how worthless you think you are oozing off the electronic page, and quite frankly, it’s very offputting. Work on that.

I hope that helps. Happy New Year!

Q. I have some unsightly cellulite on the backs of my legs and buttocks. What can I do about it?

A. This seems like a beauty question, but I would consider it more of a “teachable moment” for etiquette. Do you really want to invite a total stranger to consider something disgusting about such an intimate area? I assure you, my stomach is churning as we speak.
However, since you insist, it should probably be noted that a lot of people have this and the only thing that seems to work is plastic surgery. If that is anathema to you, you may consider a more frightening and less effective program of plenty of hydration and targeted exercise. Some people claim creams work. I don’t know if that’s true, but I can’t imagine how something you rub on the outside of your skin would break up fat on the inside of your body.
[Ad-libbed berating about vanity follows]

Q. I’m not proud of it, but I went on a couple of pity dates with someone. He’s a friend of a friend, and a nice person and all, but I’m not especially attracted to him, and he’s not really someone I’d want to pursue a relationship with. It doesn’t seem to me that we’re compatible, but he seems to be getting kind of serious. Now I’m stuck. I don’t want to break his heart, but it seems like the longer I take to break it off, the worse it gets. Is there some way to get out of this situation that doesn’t hurt him too badly?

A. Sure. Marry him, and hope you can either grow to love him, or that he will die first. Seriously, you really need to make a choice, here, and I can’t make it for you: your comfort, or his feelings. Any validation I could give you would be temporary, whereas the situation you’re living with will continue far beyond that. I can say, though, that you can’t really be responsible for someone else’s feelings, whereas we should all be fully responsible for our own comfort and happiness. I hope that helps.

Q. A friend of mine went to prison and I visited his wife, just to be a good friend. I wound up having an affair with her, and now he’s getting out. He’s not a really big guy, but I’ve seen him take out several guys at a time in bar fights. He’s pretty tough—and that was before nearly two years of prison. His wife and I aren’t seeing each other anymore, and the two of them got divorced while he was in prison. Still, if he knows about the relationship, or if he finds out, I’m pretty concerned about what might happen to her—and to me. What do I do?

A. Leave town. Next question.

Q. I was thinking about buying my wife a new car for Christmas, but I chickened out. We can afford it, but in these difficult economic times, I am aware that many people can’t, and that those people tend to judge those of us who can. My wife’s birthday is coming up this week, though, so I get another chance. Is a new car still a good gift? Should I hold off on my own gift-giving until the economy is a little better, in case it saves my wife some embarrassment?

A. Why is it that imbeciles with money are always the ones who understand economics the least? No, you festering wad of conspicuous consumption, buying cars would help the economy. You see, what makes an economy—any economy—work is the movement of money through it. Not spending what you have keeps it from moving around and keeps the economy weak. The best thing you can do for the economy right now is to spend what you do have—or even give it away. Stop hoarding your wealth already, you sick anti-American freak.

Q. I enjoy Christmas as much as the next person, but my neighbor has the most obnoxious, bright, blinking lights on his house and they’re keeping my family and me awake at night. He refuses to take them down until something called “epiphany,” which I understand is in January sometime. I understand you had some good advice about a similar situation on an earlier broadcast. Would you mind repeating it?

A. Certainly. The original question, from the 2007 holiday season, was this: My neighbors have a rather gaudy display of holiday lights. How do I ask them to tone it down?
And this is the original answer: Yes, I see why this would be a problem. It’s so hard to keep in the holiday spirit when others are trying to ruin it for you. I’m so sorry you’re having this unfortunate experience.
What you’re going to need is two short pieces of wooden dowel, about 4 – 5” long, and a wire cutter.
Go over to your neighbor’s yard and select the most offensive string of lights they have. Cut a 4-foot length of it with the wire cutters. Best if you unplug it first. Wrap each end around one of the dowels, securing it with a good knot or just by wrapping it around a lot, or a staple or brad gun if you have one handy. Watch your hands—safety first!
When you’re ready, have an accomplice—I mean, a friend—ring the doorbell while you go around back and slip unnoticed into the house, because you’ll need to come up behind your neighbor.
While the neighbor is talking to the friend who rang the bell, quickly slip your festive homemade garrote around his neck, wrap it around once, like a scarf, and pull the wooden handles. At this point, you will have your neighbor’s undivided attention, while at the same time expressing your feelings about his decorations. You may now share anything with him you deem appropriate, about his religious beliefs, sense of good taste, fashion sense, general appearance or bodily odor.
Incidentally, the Feast of Epiphany is on January 6. It marks the day the Three Wise Men visited the baby Jesus. Perhaps if you were a bit more accustomed to your own professed faith, you would know that, and maybe even be less offended by your own holiday’s trappings.

Q. My roommate has allergies or something, and frequently coughs without covering his mouth. When he coughs at the dinner table, I feel compelled to cover my food somehow to keep him from getting his gross bodily fluids in it. Then he makes fun of me for covering it while he’s, you know, spewing mucous and saliva on what I’m trying to eat. It seems to me that that’s adding insult to injury—that he should be covering his cough in the first place, and shouldn’t be making fun of me while I’m trying to compensate for his grossness. Is there something I’m missing here, or is he just a major jerk, as I’ve suspected all along?

A. Probably the latter. It’s important to trust your instincts.
As you know, though, I think it’s also important to seize opportunities offered by any difficulties you may be having. You may be aware that there is some consensus that allergies are essentially the effect of antibodies, which normally chase off illnesses, instead attacking things that are relatively benign to the body. Some physicians and other experts believe that having allergies is caused by not being exposed to enough of these non-hazardous materials, so the antibodies don’t know how much stuff out there is benign. Perhaps by introducing some of his potentially hazardous sputum to your environment, your roommate is merely trying to keep you from having the same condition he does. Consider accepting it with gratitude, in that spirit.

Q. I am about ready to get a new car—well, new to me—but it seems like there are SO many choices nowadays in used cars. What kind do you think should I get?

A. That seems like a rather personal choice to me. However, it might be worth noting that, as large SUVs are becoming less fashionable, they are also becoming less expensive. Thousands of Americans traded in their SUVs over the last year or so for smaller cars, which probably means that lots of dealerships have tons of SUVs on hand that they’re interested in selling. You might get a good deal on one of those.

Q. This is always a difficult time of year for me. Not because I have family problems or tend to be depressed by the holidays, but because I am something of a germaphobe. Cold and flu season to me means not just tissues, hand sanitizer, preventative treatments of all kinds, and seasonal flu shots, but often a mask, regular head and body shaving, bathing sometimes several times a day, and anything else I can use to keep me from getting sick from other people’s carelessness and pestilence. This year is especially bad because of the H1N1 virus, otherwise known (however mistakenly) as the Swine Flu. It scares the living daylights out of me. Worse, as someone without this year’s “risk factors,” I can’t even get on the list for the vaccine, which is in such short supply anyway. How can I get through these next months?

A. It’s not clear to me exactly what you want help with here. Is it your self-professed neurosis about getting sick that you feel is holding you back? Is it a fear of the H1N1 virus (which is no worse than any other flu—it’s just newer), and getting through the next few months until the pandemic will presumably subside somewhat? Or did you want advice about how to be less ungrateful for all you have? It certainly seems to me that anyone who is disappointed in not having sufficient risk factors for serious illness is in need of help, if not a life-changing disaster to help him wake up. Feel free to clarify your question and ask again, or simply to take a trip to some other part of the world where people have real illnesses and actual reasons to worry about their lives.

Q. Like I do every year, I will be hosting the family Thanksgiving gathering at my house. It has been much sadder the last few years, since my mother passed away, but everyone still comes and seems to have a nice time. This year, my father has started dating again, and he wants to bring his new girlfriend to dinner. I for one am not ready for that. I think it is too soon to replace my mother at a family gathering and that this woman is not part of the family. I do want to be welcoming, but it seems to me like we should get to know her a little better first before she joins in as part of the family.
There is an additional problem. My father’s girlfriend is very allergic to dogs, and my father wants me to board my dog elsewhere for the holiday and have my house professionally cleaned of all dog hair and dander. Frankly, I am not willing to do that. For one thing, I don’t have the money and they aren’t willing to pay for it. For another, with hosting the dinner and all, I simply don’t have time to deal with another thing. Most importantly, my dog, who has been with us for eight years now, is much more a part of the family than she is. I don’t think it’s fair to displace him and take him away from his loving family on a holiday (one of his favorite events, when he gets to see everyone and get treats) just for an unwanted and difficult guest.
My father says his girlfriend has no family and doesn’t have anywhere else to go, so he doesn’t want to leave her alone on the holiday. What the rest of the family and I would like is for my father to come along and to keep my dog, but it’s pretty much Thanksgiving with both of them and not my dog, or Thanksgiving with the dog and neither of them. Both options seem unreasonable. What do I do?

A. I’m not certain what the problem is here. You don’t want the guest, and she doesn’t really want to come. She is probably making unreasonable requests just to have an excuse not to be there. It seems to me that everyone should be happy: she doesn’t have to show up, you don’t have to do anything to accommodate her, and the dog can snatch scraps from under your gluttonous diners’ chairs as usual. My advice to you is to stop making a problem out of a solution. It’s supposed to work the other way around.

Q. A dear friend of mine recently proposed marriage to me. We are not in love or in a relationship—in fact, my friend is gay, and a heterosexual relationship between us would be quite impossible. We are very close, though, and we certainly enjoy each other’s company. I’m not sure if he wants to be married for the sake of appearances or his career, or if he just wants to take care of a friend, but at least part of why he proposed was for me to get on his health insurance and live in his gorgeous house, so there are some things that are quite appealing about the offer. I don’t know how I feel about it, though. I always thought I would marry for life—and for love—and raise a family. Is this a good thing to do, or should I stay alone in my tiny apartment, hoping not to get sick or in an accident, waiting for a Mr. Right who may or may not ever show up? If I do marry my friend, what will I tell my family?

A. OK, so far, we’ve seen someone without a clear question and someone without a real problem, and this is a case of someone who knows the answer to her own question. I can’t help but feel that my extensive training as a lifecoach is being squandered on hand-holding.
All right, fine. Look at how you’ve described your dilemma: health, loving friend, beautiful and caring living situation, and security on the one hand; loneliness, cramped living situation, risk of disaster, and uncertainty on the other. How is this not a no-brainer? Tell your family whatever you want.
Now let’s address that larger problem. If you have that hard a time, people, asking questions, identifying problems, and making choices, you really need to hire your own lifecoaches and put them on retainers, rather than just one-off emailing them for free. Please contact me again for rates at dr.meglifecoach@gmail.com. I can guarantee it’s the last time you’ll be emailing me for free.

Q. I moved cross-country to be with a guy I met over the Internet. I thought I was deeply in love with him, but being close by, he hardly seems to be the same person I met online. I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with him—I really did—it was such a perfect match. Now I have no idea what to do. I don’t think it’s going to work out, and I quit my job and uprooted my whole life to move nearly a thousand miles. It was my whole life plan. Do I do whatever I possibly can to make it work out? Do I scrap it and move somewhere else? Try to make a life here without Mr. Wrong? I feel totally lost. I just know that this isn’t working.

A. Clearly, you have made a very serious error in judgment. Perhaps in the future, you will consider more carefully actually meeting someone and spending time with him before you make your entire life plan hinge on him. This is exactly why people do that, incidentally: so they don’t end up where you are right now. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t an opportunity to do something good here. The good news is that your ridiculous choices have left you with a sort of blank slate. Where do you want to go? What do you want to do? Where would you like to be in a year, or five? What would you want it to say in your obituary? What would you like to have accomplished? It’s time to make a new plan that’s not based on some remote stranger. Unless what you wish for is to live your life like some sort of consensual mail order bride, that will almost certainly improve your future—and give you something to work toward. Good luck—I’m excited for you!

Q. I suffer from incredibly dry winter skin, and I do mean suffer. My skin soaks up lotions like a sponge, and it still doesn’t help that much. It gets so dry in places that it splits and bleeds, which is gross and embarrassing. I have heard that you have gorgeous skin and appear to be a mere fraction of your actual age. Can you help me?

A. Well, it is true that I appear to be much younger than I am, but I’m not sure how that might help you with gross embarrassment, or anything else, for that matter. I can tell you, though, that often, difficulties with skin dryness have to do with climate, genetics, and diet. If you can’t move to a moister climate (and we are years away from being able to correct the genetic hands we’ve been dealt, if not decades), so it would seem that the best way to do something positive for yourself would be to address your diet. Do you drink enough water? Perhaps more importantly, do you eat enough saturated and animal fats? If not, that may be the place to look. Saturated fats—which are usually solid at room temperature—are often present in meats such as bacon and sausage, and can also be combined with vegetables as lard, to help improve flavor. That’s the best news about this method: it’s a tasty way to reduce your dry skin problem. Try replacing your vegetable oil with palm kernel oil, coconut oil or beef fat; adding versatile bacon to your meals, leaving the skin on your poultry, and replacing your skim milk with whole milk, or where possible, half-and-half or cream. Just as you got used to the “lighter” products that may be contributing to your dry skin problem, you can get used to the more flavorful ones that can help it. Enjoy your new, moist and yummy lifestyle!

Q. I am a chronic wingman for my much more confident friend. He always talks to women in bars and at parties, and claims to be trying to help me while I either chat up his target’s friend or just attest to his good character. The hell of it is that he often makes up stories about who he is, what he does for work, who he knows, and them I’m supposed to back him up and help him to get together with these women, who he will then promptly never call again. Not only do I feel lousy for helping him lie and be a jerk to women, but I’m also jealous that he can get women to take him home. On top of that, I resent him for making me an accomplice while pretending he’s doing me a favor, but I also feel like not helping him would make me a bad friend. I guess all I want is to find someone to stay in with so I don’t have to go out and watch this guy’s sickening performances, wondering how much my helping him is creating problems for these perfectly nice women.

A. Let’s do a sort of visualization exercise, shall we? What would happen if you were in a bar with your so-called friend, and instead of lending him credibility, you took the “target” woman (as you so charmingly called his victims) aside, told her that he was full of it, intended to try to go home with her and never call her again, but that you thought she seemed nice and you’d like to buy her a drink? My guess is that you’d get a fair amount of phone numbers before your friend catches on—at which point, of course, he would stop asking you along rather abruptly. Helping women avoid your friend, though, is a reasonable way to start conversations with them, and it makes you look like a nice guy who’s looking out for them. Maybe you could keep going out with him anyway. If he stopped making his plans known to you, you could even pick out some random guy in the room and claim he’s your miscreant friend. The woman won’t actually want to talk to him, so that may work just fine. Good luck.

Q. Last night, I received a cryptic email from a friend who claimed to be about to kill himself. It sort of looked like his will, and he sent it out to a whole host of his friends, judging from the email list. He then went on to list some possible plans for doing away with himself: sleeping outside that night when there was supposed to be a hard freeze, jumping off a dam, and a few others. I wasn’t really sure whether he was going to do any of them, but made some effort to get a hold of him to try to find out what was going on. As it turned out, he had been rejected by a girl he had been sort of following around for the last couple of years. He was convinced they were seeing each other romantically, but that wasn’t her perception. So it seems to me that he is coping with the loss of this “relationship” rather badly. My better nature wonders if there is something I should be doing for him as a friend, but I think my stronger reaction to his behavior is that it was unacceptable for him to do that to me, to us, as his friends, and that I should have a different kind of conversation with him entirely. What do you think?

A. Well, the first thing to do in this kind of situation is get your friend to distinguish in his own psyche between sadness, what we might call clinical depression, and actually wanting to die. People who actually want to die typically tend to try to take action rather than sitting at home sending emails and trying to get sympathy, so you’re probably looking at one of the former: sadness or clinical depression. If he’s clinically depressed, he probably needs professional help (preferably the kind with a prescription pad), or at least a lot more exercise and a lot less processed food. If he’s just sad, consider explaining to him that you can be there for him without all the drama.
You see, in our society, men are usually not encouraged to pick up the phone and say to their friends, “I feel sad. Can we talk?” Instead, they have to do ill-advised things like get drunk, get in badly mismatched fights, and wreck their cars. When they can’t fulfill these social needs (for example, if they live in remote areas, and don’t have enough liquor, or suitable fighting partners, or cars whose crashing could constitute a serious loss), they can sometimes be transformed, ironically into drama queens. It’s true: Yeah, I read about a study on it on an airplane.

Q. I have been playing an online video game a lot. Although I have advanced beyond this one particular level, I keep lingering there because there is this girl there. She is just so beautiful. I know she isn’t real—she’s basically just a really good cartoon—but I think I am in love with her. What’s worse, my real-life wife is getting suspicious. I don’t know what to do. Do these characters have models? Should I try to find this character’s model? What should I tell my wife? I can’t think about anything else but this virtual girl.

A. Wow. I could tell you a bunch of things about CGI composites, and the difference between those and actual women, and this girl is just someone else’s fantasy and you shouldn’t let it be yours, and how the mere fact that you’re calling your wife your “real-life wife” is really disturbing. However, the bottom line is that you need to unplug your computer and go outside. If that doesn’t help or it makes you miss the cartoon girl, get some therapy. Lots and lots of therapy.

Q. My husband seems to be online constantly. He says he’s just playing this one game all the time, but I’m suspicious. How can I find out if my husband having an online affair? More importantly, how can I find her if she is?

A. She’s probably just a cartoon. Don’t worry about it, and stop being so vindictive and stalky. The good news is that the two of you are well suited for each other in your creepiness. How about a trip out of town together to reconnect?

Q. Dear Doctor Meg, I understand you’ve been married and had lots of long-term relationships. I am in my thirties, I had always planned to get married and I really want to do it now, but it doesn’t seem to be happening. How can I find someone and get married as soon as possible, so I can get on with the living happily ever after part?

A. My, what a revealing question. Did it occur to you that someone who has “been married and had lots of long-term relationships” has not, in fact, lived happily ever after—at least, not yet? These things are journeys rather than destinations, after all. Living happily ever after is not an endpoint—it’s something you have to work on every damn day. Furthermore, the maximum number of relationships one can have that “work out” is a mere one—and not only that, but one of the major criteria is that it’s the one you’re in when you DIE.
It also bears stating that, if you are the sort of person who has had her whole wedding planned out since she was twelve, not only are you setting yourself up for disappointment (and the embarrassment of a pink unicorn theme to your wedding), but you may very well miss out on the “right” person or situation just because they don’t exactly meet those adolescent expectations—or worse, you could have already.
I would advise you to stop trying to get married right away. When I was in my twenties and I would hear those statistics like, “It’s more likely for a woman over a certain age to get struck by lightning than it would be for her to get married,” I would think it was very sad that these women in their thirties and older wouldn’t be able to find husbands (and of course, might also get electrocuted by atmospheric disturbances). Now that I am over that certain age, I realize what a benighted imbecile I was for thinking that, and I hope you are not still one. I don’t feel sorry for those women at all. It’s not that they are all sad and manless and alone, it’s that they are comfortable with themselves and would need to be convinced that a given prospective husband would be worth the hassle and upheaval. Marriage is a ton of work—even that bad ones—and let’s face it, men are pretty gross—even the nice ones.
You should please yourself. Do things you like to do. Enjoy stuff. If you find someone who likes to do those things, pleases you too, enjoys stuff to the extent you do, and is committed to making Happily Ever After work every damn day after every damn day, then maybe consider beginning to think about making that partnership a legally state-sanctioned one. Or just become an event planner if you love weddings so damn much, find a guy who’s into pink unicorns, and be his legally-sanctioned beard.

Q. There is no nice way to say this. My new boyfriend has terrible taste in music. Everything he listens to seems to be either an 80s hair band or a “Where are They Now?”-style revival of 80s hair bands coming out with more CDs, or imitators—sorry, tribute bands—of 80s hair bands. People stopped listening to that stuff for a reason, you know? Actually, for lots of reasons, as far as I can tell. The worst part is that we’ll go back to his place and he’ll put on some of this terrible music, expecting to “get lucky.” I tried to just tune it out at first, because I really do care about him and I enjoy our time together, but every once in a while, he’ll actually stop what he’s doing for an air guitar solo. Going to my place instead doesn’t help—he’ll just bring a “special mix CD” of the terrible music and insist on playing it in all its obnoxious glory, as if it’s supposed to turn me on. I just can’t deal with it anymore. I don’t expect to change his taste in music, and he really is sweet to me. I don’t want to hurt his feelings. How do I tell my boyfriend that his musical selections kill the mood?

A. This could be a symptom of a much larger problem. The inability to comprehend that bad music is bad is often linked to other issues, such as perpetually living in one’s parents’ basement, fruitless employment, not winning the lottery as expected, week after week, and general spinning of one’s wheels. It suggests a certain detachment from reality—specifically an inability to calculate cause-and-effect responses in the rest of the population. He may not be ready to seek help on his own, but you can help him in small ways by explaining your responses. Remember to use “I”-based language. For example, you don’t want to say something like, “Your music sucks and your life is headed downhill fast,” rather, you want to say something like, “When you play that particular album again, I feel depressed and annoyed, and that makes it difficult for me to perform.”
If that doesn’t work, consider giving him the valuable gift of empathy. Get the worst music you can find, and insist on listening to that. See how that makes him feel, and by extension, how you must feel when he does that to you. If you’re unsure as to what sort of music may bother him, may I recommend Welsh Penillion? That bothers almost everyone.
If that doesn’t work, recall that men are slaves to their libidos. You are likely to win an either-or contest between an act of intimacy and listening to a Poison CD.

Q. What in the world is Penillion?

A. Penillion is a traditional form of Welsh screeching. Technically, it’s supposed to be singing. I recommend approaching it with a culturally open mind or in a spirit of vengeance, like the food. Above all, please do not judge the Welsh culture, which has brought us many good things—beyond just King Arthur and Catherine Zeta-Jones—on Penillion and leek tarts alone.

Q. Like you, I am a professional lifecoach. I have a professional ethics question for you. With medical doctors and clinical psychologists, for example, there is an explicit code of ethics. For lifecoaches and other such professionals, however, there are guidelines, but rarely explicit codes or procedures. So I would like to ask you this: Do you ever date clients? When is it OK to do that in our profession?

A. I personally do not. I dated a former client once (first satisfying myself that all the ethical angles were covered), and I have to say that, after the initial predatory thrill, it was just too weird. Think about it a minute. Do you really want to take your work home with you like that? Just how much do you want to work for free? Isn’t it easy enough to get taken advantage of in our line of work, where people just expect you to help them without remuneration all the time? And anyway, don’t you find our clients to be, well, just a bit too needy and damaged to be good relationship material? There may not be explicit ethical prohibitions on dating clients, but why on earth would you? Good luck with that.

Q. When we first started dating seriously, my vegetarian girlfriend tried very hard to get me to give up meat, and was pretty convincing about it. I went a few weeks not eating meat, but I missed it too much, and I caved. I mean, what is the point of supposedly being healthier and living longer and all if you can’t eat the things you enjoy during that longer life? Do I really want another five meatless years on the end of my miserable, meatless life? I went back to eating meat, just not around her, and I didn’t know how to tell her. I think she assumes I am still vegetarian all the time, even though I haven’t been for about six months now. I’m not all that comfortable with the deception (even if it’s not an outright lie), but I’m a lot more comfortable with it than I am with eating nothing but rabbit food all the time.
Other than that one secret that I still feel a little guilty about, things between us have been going just great. When I found out I would be losing my lease because my apartment building and my landlord are being foreclosed on, my girlfriend asked me to move in with her. I was so overwhelmed by her kindness and what this would mean for us that I immediately said yes… without thinking about how I would handle that problem of my eating meat and not telling her about it. With her generosity, I now feel even worse. What can I do here, other than give up meat for real?

A. The way I see it, if you are not willing to “give up meat for real,” you have three choices: 1., Confess and hope for the best; 2., Continue to practice this deception, which is about to get a lot harder; or 3., Break it off suddenly, disappear, and try to start your life over elsewhere (see tips on doing this from past shows at http://doctormeglifecoach.wordpress.com/). All of these of course have their drawbacks, and all are stressful. The easiest thing to do might be to confess and come up with some medical reason why you can’t give up meat entirely. If you can produce both a doctor’s note and jewelry, you’ll save yourself the hassle of the second two options.

Q. I live in a remote area in a quiet place. I really like it there, but my commute is pretty long, and the closer I get to the city, the worse the traffic gets, and more noticeably, the worse the drivers get. It’s like they’re always trying to get the better of everyone else. They have this “me first” attitude that seems to come before basic safety, and I don’t appreciate it. I would rather be able to trust that other drivers are being reasonable and that we’re all conspiring not to get in accidents together. I can laugh off a few annoying or unpleasant incidents in the course of a day, but when I’m driving so many miles every day, there are so many more opportunities to encounter people driving like idiots, and it all gets to me after a while. How do I keep other drivers from bothering me so much?

A. I would like to applaud your not being a victim about this and asking the right question. The question is not, “How can I make other people be nice to me?” and that’s refreshing. We can each only be responsible for ourselves, after all—you can’t make random strangers in cars be responsible for your happiness or comfort on the road. All you can do is choose to modify your own responses.

Q. Not long ago, I converted to Buddhism. The principles had always appealed to me, and then when I began living in a house with a number of other people, most of whom were practicing Buddhists, it seemed like the right time to make the shift. Overall, I am very pleased with the Buddhist lifestyle (well, as much as Dukkha will allow, lol). However, living with several other Buddhists, some of whom are not as tidy as I am, is proving somewhat difficult. For example, we have a few different kinds of bugs now living in our kitchen (and spreading to other places in the house) because of food left out or poorly stored. It’s disgusting, the communal food supply is compromised, and those responsible will not alter their habits or assist in removing the insects. They claim that killing the bugs would be against our religion. Which is probably true, but the one person in the house who is not Buddhist is rarely home, and I feel badly asking him, while he is home, to kill a bunch of bugs whose residence he had nothing to do with in the first place. I like the overall living situation, but this one problem is getting bigger and more alarming by the day. What can I do?

A. Move out, of course. It sounds like even living in a tent would be more sanitary. Then you can hang out with nature all you want and practice your faith without any contradictions or obstacles of any kind, like you should if you really believed in what you were doing.