Monthly Archives: January 2018

0 What to do when someone gives you mixed signals

Pennelope0214 asks: Hi so I have this guy who is really cute and perfect. I am not sure if he likes me too or not. There have been times when he has shown his care and gets upset when I do something wrong. Like today, I abused a guy and this guy got kinda upset and stopped talking to me. I tried too hard and apologized. After a lot of effort he finally accepted it. When we go for walk he wraps his arms around mine but leaves when someone comes. We always have lunch, dinner, breakfast altogether. Today when he was angry he didn’t even take his dinner. I don’t know what is on his mind, which I’d really like to know.

Hi Pennelope0214 –

So of course, I don’t know anything more than what you’ve told me, but I’ll say this – based on what I know, I like him too! I like that he got upset when you were mean to that other guy (It shows character, like when my human friend Handsome pulls me away and scolds me if I pick on an annoying puppy).

I also like that he shows affection to you, but then doesn’t show it off to others, as so many guys do.

But of course, then I don’t like that he actually leaves! And I’ll bet you don’t either!

So the fact that you eat pretty much all your meals together means he likes you a lot – at least as a friend. But then it’s clear that he’s not letting you know everything.

And here’s the bad news – I have no idea what else he’s feeling. He could feel “brotherly” to you, and enjoy holding you in that way, but be more interested in someone else. He could have very mixed feelings toward you and not know for sure what to do. Or he could be in love with you and frustrated that he doesn’t know how you feel!

So since I can’t read his mind, the only suggestion I can come up with is that you Continue reading

0 Can one be unfaithful to a crush?

AudreyKimberly146 asks: I’ve never had a boyfriend, but I’ve got a crush in the past, and now I’m interested in someone else. But that’s just my ‘official’ status. I’ve actually liked a few guys in the past, yet I only ‘acknowledge’ one as my actual crush. So my explanation may be weird, but please try your best to understand. My ‘system’ of crush is a bit of an odd one. When you play an online game, where you have to build a tower–as high as you can–you gotta start small am I right? Then it’s going to continue building until you mess up. But well, sometimes, new players who starts later than you, can rival you in terms of height, or even surpass you, right? Well, here’s the thing, my system is like that. First, I start liking someone (in the comparison to the tower game, this is when you start the game). I may not acknowledge him as my ‘crush’, but I acknowledge him as an ‘interesting person’. As it grows taller and taller, I eventually label this person as my ‘crush’. BUT. At the same time, another interest may start building as well! It’s not as tall as my crush, but I’m interested in him as well. But the ‘building process’ I am ‘supervising’ right now, isn’t my new interest. It’s my crush! So I won’t care about him. In some possible (rare) cases, he might catch up and I will have 2 crushes at the same time, but it only happened to me once and it dissolved quickly :/ Once I found out I liked 3 (ehem yes, three) boys at the same time, I pressed myself to pick just one. And I did. The other two ‘buildings’ just crumbled down. Well, continuing my story, the new guy may not be my ‘crush’ but I can’t deny I’m interested. But then, at one point, either it’s because of how the pressure of a taller building ‘kills’, I will lose my interest in that new guy. So that’s when he crumbled. But it can also be that the new guy’s building speed was so fast, it surpassed my crush’s height in no time! (Like my case this time.) And so, the crown ‘crush’ is taken by the new guy, and the status of my ‘old crush’ is ‘I moved on’ XD I like to consider this as me being faithful. I mean, geez, I WAS INTERESTED IN ANOTHER GUY YET I STAYED TRUE TO ONE XDXDXD But then, this can also mean that I’m just a cheap girl who falls in love easily. But again, this is just my crush! I never actually date anyone! And as much as I want you, Shirelle, to tell me “no! You are not cheap! You are faithful,” I decided to ask you to score me honestly. Maybe I’m in the middle? Maybe both characteristics are co-dominant? Please tell me!

Hi AudreyKimberly146 –

Okay, so you know how most dogs aren’t capable of mental capacities much beyond “Sit,” “Stay,” and “Heel,” right?  And I’m pretty proud of how clever I am.  But you’re asking a LOT here – WOW!  Handsome tells me you’re using metaphor and simile and all these other verbal gymnastics, and says it all actually does make sense… but he’s going to have to explain all this tower stuff to me before I can answer anything.  I’ll be back.

Okay.

Wow, okay, my head is spinning, but I think I’ve got it.  You’re talking about the process of attachment you get to a crush, right?  How at first it’s just a little interest, but after a while you get more and more attached to this person, and eventually you even feel a commitment to them, right?

And now you’re worried about whether you’re cheap or faithful?

Okay, AudreyKimberly146, so I have one very important thing to tell you about all this Continue reading

0 How to improve a dysfunctional family dynamic.

Prettyandsweet12 asks: For the longest time I’ve wanted to move back to a particular part of the country to be with my cousins. I recently graduated high school and moved there with my mom. At first I was having a hard time because I had no friends here, but I figured it would get better once I got settled in. But I’ve been here for 5 months now and things just stink! I currently take classes online and I occasionally see my family in a nearby state over the weekend, but recently some things have happened and I’m starting to question if moving here was the right thing. My cousins barely come around, and my dad is now married and I don’t even know who he is anymore. I just turned 18 and I had a party at a hotel with my two cousins and she tried to give us alcohol. I didn’t have any but my cousins did, and I don’t know if you remembered but you gave me advice a long time ago on how to deal with my medical condition called myoclonis dystonia, which I still have and am on medicine for, and my dad knows this, but he was still willing to let her give me alcohol; that crushed me, and I feel like he chose her over me because he always lets her run over him. I recently got in touch with my high school crush, who is two years younger than me, so he’s a sophomore in high school (I’m supposed to be a senior in high school but I skipped a grade). He really wants to be able to see me and I want the same; I feel like I need him now more than ever, but I’m faced with a complicated choice: do I leave my mom and find living arrangements where he lives so we can see each other, or do I stay with my mom and put on a happy face like I’ve been doing?

Hi prettyandsweet12 –

I need to confess, I’m more confused than you are, so I’m not sure how much good I can do here! First, one question – when you say “she tried to give us alcohol,” I’m going to guess that that’s your dad’s new wife, but am I right?

But then, my main confusion is – what are all these people doing?! You moved across the country to be closer to your mother, your father, and your cousins, and it sounds like you’re not getting much attention from any of them. Then, sure, the fact that you’re taking online classes means you’re not meeting nearly as many people as you would if you were in high school or college. So it sure makes sense to me that when your dad, who probably just thinks he was being friendly and playful, encouraged you to drink alcohol which isn’t good for your condition, this made you feel really hurt and mad – normally it would be just silly, but given the treatment you’ve been receiving, it would just seem to be the ultimate symbol of everything wrong!

We dogs are very patient, and are famous for giving unconditional love. But even that has its limits. There have been times when Handsome has ignored me too much, so I’ve done things like climb on the white furniture just so he’ll get mad, or he’ll pet one other dog too many and instead of my being nice and tolerant, I’ll just growl and threaten the pooch (I know, I should be doing it to Handsome instead, but I just can’t – my love for him makes me too weak!).

So as I said above, I don’t have any great answers. But I will say, moving to be near your high school boyfriend seems like an invitation for what happened before to happen again – for you to be ready to start a beautiful meaningful new life with someone who may or may not be capable of giving you what you need.

If you’re able to afford it, I’d be way more in favor of you taking a trip to meet him, maybe spend a weekend or so with him, and see how that goes. Maybe it’ll be great, and maybe not. But I’d like you to know a lot more before you make that big a commitment (and take the chance on another disappointment).

And in the meantime, how about doing what I do, and making a little obnoxious noise! For example: Continue reading

0 What to do when your boyfriend lies, denying he was flirting with someone else.

raina1226 asks: My bf and I have been in a relationship for one month. I did a loyalty test on him: I asked my friend to flirt with him on a phone call. So she started the conversation; he also flirted with her and asked her for double-dating, friends with benefits. I heard everything and I decided to break up with him. Now he is asking for another chance, but he is not accepting that he was flirting. Now what should I do? I really want a serious kind of relationship, as my past is not very good. Please help me out.

Hi raina1226 –

Okay, I’ve got to be honest here – I am a huge flirt! I love running up to strangers and jumping on them, I love getting male dogs to chase me in the dog park or on the beach, and more than anything I love to flirt with my best human friend Handsome.

So I’m not going to criticize anyone for flirting. That would make me a hypocrite, and we dogs just never are hypocrites!

But I want you to notice my earlier sentence again: “I’ve got to be honest here.” I’m a flirt, but I’m also honest.

What your boyfriend did with your friend is creepy, there’s no question about it. But what I’m a lot more bothered by is that you say he’s “not accepting that he was flirting.” I think you were nice to only suggest that he was flirting; most people would say he was cheating, or at least trying to. But whatever you call it, what he’s doing now is LYING.

He got caught. Maybe he can say it was wrong of you to set him up the way you did, but he was still caught, regardless.

And again, what bothers me so much is that he’s lying about it.

So usually I am not so definite in what I tell my pack members, but in this case, I’m going to say: Dump Him. There’s a beautiful line a poet said a few years ago, “When someone shows you who they really are, believe them the first time.”

I don’t mind that he’s a flirt, and maybe even his attempt to cheat with your friend was just a dumb attempt at a thrill. But he’s shown you that he’s a liar.

So in this one case, I say… Believe him. And kick him out to the street. You deserve better, and there’s lots better out there.

All my best,

Shirelle

0 What to do when you’re trapped in a bad marriage.

Ahana asks: I am 19 and I got married 6 months ago. My husband is my father’s childhood friend’s son. He (my husband) has loved me since I was 15. Later when I turned 18 he, with his family, came to my place to propose marriage. I directly said no as I’d never liked him. Later he tried a lot to convince me but I never said yes. After few months he tried committing suicide because I rejected him. So I had no other option than saying yes. After that we had our engagement. I thought I would get married only when I turn 20-21 but he was not ready to wait, as he thought that I could change my mind and not marry him. Later I did so many attempts to postpone my marriage, but I failed and he forced me to get married this year. I had no other option. Just after our marriage he tried getting physical with me but I didn’t allow him, so he started complaining to his mom about it, and she would explain to me that we should allow our husbands to do everything they want to do with our body. That was just too embarrassing. Then at last I allowed him. My husband owns a bungalow so we shifted from my in-laws’ house to his bungalow after a couple of months from our marriage . And now he will not let me wear my clothes all day, and has sex with me for hours and hours. His main motive behind this is that he wants me to become pregnant fast so that I can never leave him. Now I really want help – I don’t know what to do.

Hi Ahana –

I have so many thoughts about this. First, where I live in the United States, we tend to have the opposite problem from arranged marriages – so many of our young people fall in love with the excitement of youth, get married and/or have babies, and then realize they don’t know who they’re with and have nothing in common with them, and end up either unhappily together or in a miserable expensive divorce. So that can make arranged marriages (where society or parents pick someone really compatible as a life partner) look much better.

But then I read your letter and my heart just shatters. You see, Ahana, your situation sounds more like ours – my doggy friends. I was in a pound, and was one day from being put to death, when this human came and bought me. I had no idea how he’d treat me, though he seemed nice enough. Then over time, although we had some bad moments (maybe due to my chewing up a lot of things he valued, including his ankles!), the fact that we both wanted a great relationship won out over everything, and we’re absolutely crazy about each other now.

This isn’t your story.

Your husband says he’s loved you for years, but is showing no love at all, from what you tell me. What he’s showing instead is fear. Fear of you not wanting him, fear of you leaving, fear that the only thing that would keep you in the marriage is children. And just like some of my human friend’s girlfriends who were so afraid of being cheated on that they accused him of it all the time (to the point they eventually ruined the relationship; he was so unhappy being accused all the time that he’d leave), your husband’s fear is making what he fears come true! You are deeply unhappy in the relationship, and you do want a solution!

I have to say, I’m also sorry for him. It’s tough to believe you’re not attractive, and even more so when others kind of tell you you’re right. He married a woman who wasn’t attracted to him, and he only accomplished it by threatening to kill himself! What an awful view he must have of himself!

But of course, my primary sadness is for you. I am a very romantic pup, and have seen beautiful marriages (arranged and not) where both people devote themselves to the other’s happiness. And your marriage is not that. Your husband doesn’t seem to care if you’re happy or not. In fact, your marriage sounds like something closer to slavery!

Now I don’t know where you live. In some countries, what he’s doing would be illegal.

But even if that’s not the case, what I would really like would be for you two to Continue reading