CAROLYN HAX

ADVICE WITH ATTITUDE & A GROUNDED SET OF VALUES

Dear Carolyn: Is it reasonable to believe that two people can be in a relationship and never hurt each other?

An incredible woman I would love to be with asked me, as a prerequisite for our starting a relationship, to “promise that you will never hurt me.”

Granted, she has been hurt in the past, but this request seems unreasonable. I can promise that I would never do anything consciously to cause her any pain, but life has so many factors out of my control that this request seems idealistic to me. Am I just being selfish?

Dear O.:

— O.

So, you, presumably, have never been hurt in the past?

Nor has anyone else?

Show of hands, everybody, if you haven’t been hurt in the past. Maybe jump up and down. Flap your arms? Anyone?

It’s pointless to make demands that can’t be met, and I agree hers qualifies. You can promise not to be malicious (whether you want to set that precedent is another story), but you can’t promise that, say, your feelings for her won’t change someday or that you won’t become someone she dislikes. You can’t promise not to be human.

What concerns me more than her exercise in futility, though, is her exercise in self-absorption. By demanding special pain consideration, she’s implying that she deserves it — that her pain and suffering are such that her needs take priority. I hope this doesn’t hurt her feelings, but: barf.

We’ve all been hurt. We will all be again. We all deserve not to be recklessly so.

It might be worth looking past (what I posit as) her selfishness to be with an “incredible” person; that’s up to you. Certainly people recover in different ways from broken hearts, and I don’t mean to suggest that those who struggle with it should all be abruptly discarded.

I do think, though, that her me-first response to her past — and to what else, I wonder? — as to factor into your response to her. Some people respond to pain by generating empathy, not needs, by resolving to be stronger and treat others better, not by demanding better treatment.

Maybe the fact that we’re all vulnerable, and all hope to be treated with care, hasn’t occurred to her, either. Maybe there’s your response.

Dear Carolyn: Recently, I began seeing a wonderful guy who is 10 years older than I am.

Obviously, we both realize that in the realm of experience he has a great deal more than I do.

However, he does not know exactly how much more. Even though I am in my 20s and out of college, I was a virgin when we started our relationship.

Now, I realize at some point our sexual pasts will come up and I’ll tell him. When that time comes, how do I soften the news? There are so many things he could think and I do not want him to freak out, so I am avoiding this conversation like the plague. The situation was just never right until I met him.

— Looking For Words Of Wisdom

Dear Looking For Words Of Wisdom:

So that’s what you tell him. If he’d rather freak out than accept who you are, then isn’t that important to know?

Besides, if he had something to tell you, you’d probably rather just hear it than be sold, lobbied or spun.