This Recording

Plz Advise

by MOLLY MCALEER

Plz Advise is an advice column. You can e-mail me questions about almost anything, but don’t like, take out a loan against your 401k or murder anyone based on anything I say. I'm not a doctor, duh. E-mail your questions to plzadviseme@gmail.com.

Molls,

I used to date a really beautiful and intelligent yet emotionally unavailable man. I parted ways with him when I realized he'd never give me the love I wanted and of course a few months later he tried to come back, professing his mistake. I passed as I'm now with my amazing boyfriend but wished him luck.

I just found out that the ex is in a serious moving-in-together relationship with a really plain, boring, cookie cutter girl. His brother's birthday party is in a month or so and I'm invited. Though I'm happy that we've both moved on there is a touch of "why that bitch?" so to make myself feel better I plan to rock the hell out of my appearance that night.

Here's the question - do I push a corporate "I'm so important" outfit? Or go with a "your girlfriend would never wear this chinchilla vest" in your face casual? Help me, Molls.

Jessica

Back it up, sister. You're in a serious loving relationship with a man and you're going to your ex-boyfriend’s brother's birthday party and planning your outfit around making him and his new girlfriend feel slightly shitty about their lives?

I'm going to assume that you live in a town with a population of twelve and that your ex's brother's birthday is the social event of the year. Like, your town's version of Mardi Gras or some shit. I'm going to assume that you were a surrogate mother for your ex's brother’s wife’s baby and that there's no way you can miss the party without being rude, because homegirl? You have no business going to that shindig otherwise.

There's something about moving on from a situation completely that is just so much more powerful than any of those Romy and Michele-style revenge fantasies you seem to have dancing around in your brain.

Why don't you make a statement about how much better you are by actually being better? Take the money you would have spent on a new outfit and a bottle of wine to bring to the party and take your boyfriend out to dinner. Fuck it, rent a hotel for a night. It seems like you need to be reminded of what matters.

Molls,

Is it normal to be interested in someone you don't know on Twitter because you dig his or her humor? And should I pursue it?

Diane

Yes. Sadly, it is normal. People these days seem to be under the impression that, because someone can deliver a witty line in 140 characters, that they are somehow fuckable and/or crush material.

Someone's funny Twitter feed could imply that they are a thoughtful person with whom you share similar interests and insights. It also could imply that they work best in short forms of communication, have obsessive behavior and are overly cynical/chronically unserious and in many cases, completely self-obsessed. Someone's Tweets, regardless of how authentic they may feel, are a fragment of a greater personality and that personality may not be one you want to tangle with.

Don't do it. Meeting people online is getting more and more acceptable, but asking out a plain stranger on a date because you find their Twitter feed funny? We're not there yet. If you absolutely can’t help yourself, attempt to strike up a dialogue with the person before diving into the dating stuff. Your initial interactions may tell you that this person isn't quite who you expected, or you may find that they're even better than you hoped. Either way, starting with the "I'm interested in you romantically" stuff is mad creepy.

If you want to look at the big picture AKA the faith-having baller picture, I'm a believer that the right people will always end up in the right room together at some point, On the chance that you and your crush wind up face-to-face, do you want to be the person that was sending them (what could be perceived as) weird @ replies on Twitter? That's something you've got to decide for yourself.

Molly McAleer is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Los Angeles. She twitters here. You can find her website here.

Photographs by Jennifer Nies.

All The Advice That's Fit To Post On The Internet

Plz Advise #1: Guidelines for Twitter Romance

Plz Advise #2: Everytime You Go Away

Plz Advise #3: How to Make Friends And Influence Bloggers

Plz Advise #4: More Of A Bro Than You Thought

Plz Advise #5: Martini Time

Plz Advise #6: A General Lack of Self-Awareness

Plz Advise #7: Dump Your Boyfriends

Plz Advise #8: Advice To Keep Close At Hand