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 and keep them under 150 words.

Molls,

My only goal for the past decade was writing, 3 unpublished novels. Adversely, things like kids and marriage were the last thing on my mind. My relationship of 3-years is now an issue. I love my girlfriend and can see marrying her, having kids, but what’s holding me back is money and time. If I had kids my time would be gone. We live together and balancing my alone time/writing and being a good companion is already very difficult. Writing makes me happy. I know this 100 percent. I could devote all my days to this. But I can’t currently. Can I have both? Would I regret ending a relationship with a woman I love because I wouldn’t have the time to be what she wants? Or would I be resentful of the family that takes all my time and means, keeping me from the thing I know makes me happy?

Trevor

Wow. That's so weird that the thought of serious relationship was the last thing on your mind when it was the only palpable thing you've had. Pretty weird. Might be a book idea in there somewhere for you. Maybe just a character. I don't know, I've never tried to write a book.

Stop being a fucking donkey. Why are you punishing this woman because you can't concentrate on your crybaby art? You willingly entertained a relationship for a pretty long period of time and have probably enjoyed most of it, yet you blame her for your inability to get your work done? Gross, man.

You have three options:

1) Dump the girlfriend and finish ONE of your three books. Take it seriously. Finish it and submit it to publishers. If you’re rejected, look into private investors or Kickstarter. You don’t get your entire 20s or 30s to sit back and work on novels at night while you drop your resume into a well of irrelevance while simultaneously blaming your choices on another person,

2) Go to a fucking coffee shop and work there. Tell your girlfriend that you need to work and that you hope you guys can share your success one day and that you appreciate her support. If she's already stuck it out for three years, she should understand,

3) Realize that, while writing makes you the most happy and you’re all Letters to a Young Poet about it, you can't get it done. Hurt to read? Then go back to options one and two and figure it out from there.

Molls,

I've recently started seeing a guy who I have been friends with for a long time. Our relationship has a great dynamic: he's very easygoing and fun and very caring. However, there is one problem. He seems to not be completely over his ex, or maybe the idea of his ex. They broke up a year ago and it was a pretty bad breakup. It hadn't started bothering me until recently when we decided to start getting serious. He'll drop her name in conversation randomly or fixate on something that bothered him about her. He doesn't seem to be AWARE of it, which makes it even worse. I'd like to think I'm cool about it by not ever calling him out on it or making a big deal because I figure that's something he'll eventually get over it, but I sometimes wonder if I'm just in denial about it. It's more annoying than worrisome and I'm wondering what I can do to not let this bother me so much.

Lindsay

It genuinely saddens me to let you know that he's not over her and that you should dump him.

Molls,

So there's this guy. He hooked up thrice (nothing serious) with a friend of mine, but it never took off and ended amicably. Recently she introduced us and I think there could be something there. However, I can't stop feeling uneasy about their past history, particularly given she mentions it jokingly a lot. I've asked her if she’d be bothered if I pursued it and she's said no. He seems great and I've had it a bit rough the past two years and I feel like I deserve to try my hand at happiness within the dating scene having finally reached a place where I'm ready to BUT: Does this make me a bad friend if I do, despite her blessing? Will knowing they hook up ever not cause me pangs? Am I being a head case?

Ash

That'd be a big no and two maybes.

If your friend said to go for it, then that's what you should feel free to do. You may want to consider that it sounds like she's not over it, but it's her job to be honest with you about her feelings. I've had this happen to me before and I wound up realizing that my friend was uncomfortable talking about her feelings with me because she was insecure and generally resented me and that the dude sucked and was not for me. That's worst-case scenario, but it'll still free you of two people that you probably don’t want around.

Just go out with this dude as friends and figure out how you feel. Go mad slow. Hang out with him and see what happens between you and how your friend reacts. Maybe you'll want to vomit any time you think about him penetrating your homegirl, maybe you'll find out he’s not as cool as you thought he was, or maybe you'll hear from her that she’s secretly in love with him and couldn't be brought to tell you. There's also a chance that none of this will matter and you two will hit it off.

As of right now, you're not working with enough information to make a decision and as you said, you deserve to have some fun with a guy. Save your worrying and ask me what I think in a few months when it turns out this dude is a heroin addict and you ask him to watch your cat for the weekend and you come home and all your expensive shit is stolen and you ask your friend where this maniac came from and she's like, "Oh, yeah. I knew him during a pretty wild time in my life. Sorry."

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. She is the co-founder of Hello Giggles.

Photographs by Jennifer Nies.