privacy notice

HIS CHEATIN’ HEART

DEAR E JEAN, I’ve been dating a thoughtful, great-looking guy for four months. He says he loves me and I believe him. I recently posted a picture on Instagram of us, and his ex left this comment: “I had sex with him 2 days ago.” When I confronted him, he said she was lying – but later admitted he’d slept with her “a handful of times” and began incessantly apologising, saying he was a “cad”, a “coward” and a “bad person”. As much as I hate myself for it, I still love him.

The thing is, I don’t know if I can ever trust this man again. He tells me I’m the greatest thing on the planet… so how could he do this? We’re both 24; his friends are all remorseless cheaters, and so is his older brother (who he looks up to); and his parents almost got a divorce because his mother caught his dad cheating several times. Do I give him a second chance? He’d have to go to therapy and prepare for months of celibacy because I can’t even imagine him touching me again. This betrayal has stung so badly, I’m actually considering bedding someone else just to even the score. What do you think? – Disillusioned & Disappointed MISS D& D, DARLING If a snake is sliding up your leg while “incessantly apologising” for biting your ankle, would you send it to therapy? Would you invite another snake into your bed “just to even the score”? No. Go with your first impression, Miss D & D, which I now have the honour of quoting: “He tells me I’m the greatest thing on the planet… so how could he do this?” Drop him. You can’t trust him.

PS: Forget the tactic of denying him boinking rights. That just inspires a brute to boink behind your back.

YOU’RE RADICAL IN YOUR UNCOOLNESS, AND THEREFORE CHIC

DEAR E JEAN, Do you have a guide to having fun? I’m 26 and I think I’m missing out. I speak five languages, keep fit, volunteer and work – a lot. And I feel miserable because I don’t know how to have fun. If someone invites me for drinks, I don’t see the point. Why should I waste two hours chitchatting when I could just go home, read, cook and take a bath?

I actually love cooking, reading and knitting. I do yoga and ballet, and my few friends are older than me. There’s so much I want to do! Read more, write, create my own shirts! And none of it involves having fun. My boyfriend jokes that I have the hobbies of an old lady, and when I go out he calls it my “grandma club”. How do I learn how to have fun? How do I become cool like others my age? (Confession: I don’t watch TV and can’t name more than 10 films or singers, because I don’t care.) – An Alien From Mars MY DEAREST GIRL How about a game? Pick the most fun thing on the following list: knitting, cooking, reading, ballet, yoga, creating your own shirts or a girls’ night out with a squad of old ladies. Har-de-har! Fooled ya! All your hobbies are fun, Miss Mars. Every one of them is deliciously, deeply pleasurable.

So I’m guessing the fun you’re asking about is the kind of thing that causes you to scream, collapse on the ground and pound the lawn in helpless mirth. For this to happen – hold on, you may need to brace yourself with the cooking sherry – you must instigate an activity that whips up surprises.

You want to be paralysed with laughter? Play a game of tag with your boyfriend in the twilight, or roller-skate home from work, or climb a tree without wearing underpants, or speak all five of your languages after sucking on a helium balloon (I don’t know about you, but that would cause me to grip the bench to stop myself from sagging to my knees in hilarity). Or invite the “grandma club” to compete in the World Championship Spanx Races and award the crown to the old lady who manages (while fully shod and clothed) to get both feet into the leg holes of a small pair of Spanx and “run” across the finish line first. As for how you “become cool” like others your age... [Sound of chuckling] Your very refusal all these years to be cool makes you cool.

Tormented? Driven witless? Fear not, help is just a short letter away

WANTON MECHANICS

DEAR E JEAN, I’ve been plagued by painful sex my whole life. I’ve tried physical therapy, hormones, creams, you name it. This pain has been instrumental in the break-up of my last two relationships. To top it off, I’m in early menopause at age 37, so there’s literally nothing happening down there anymore. Do I even bother dating? And at what point do I have to tell my suitors that sex is painful for me? Should it go on my Tinder profile? – Should I Just Get Another Cat? MISS CAT, MY CUMQUAT If Barbie, the fabulous astronaut-veterinarian, with her horse and her convertible, said, “There’s literally nothing happening down there,” I would agree. But you? Please. Aren’t you in possession of the velvet buzz-saw? And doesn’t that

buzz-saw have some 8,000 nerve endings? And after you get done reading this answer, shouldn’t you go count them? Now, let’s get down to business. You mention physical therapy. I can’t guess which therapy you tried, or when. There are so many new ways that may help you: improved procedures, new medication, better “desensitisation” treatments, plus old techniques like Kegel exercises and witchy wizardry (three hours of foreplay!). See a doctor again, but one who principally treats dyspareunia, and take a shot at the fresh fixes. Go!

You ask when you should alert your suitors – over Auntie’s dead body will you alert your suitors. There’s a fine chance the new treatments will lessen the prick of sex. So it will be just a matter of enjoying, as Kevin Costner says in Bull Durham, “long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days”, and getting to know your chap well enough to want to romp in the begonias with him. Then, when you’re ready, a simple “Let’s take this slow” will do. Or if the chap is overly excited and wants to jump right into the bouncy-bouncy, you can say, “Life is a banquet, buckaroo, so don’t tell me all you want is knockwurst.”

PAINTING LADY

DEAR E JEAN, How do I let go of my intense longing to be a successful painter? I’m not asking anymore how to “make it” in the art world. I’m asking how to let it go. How do I give up my 15-year dream?

I’ve been painting since I was nine. I’ve studied at two top art schools. My work is strong and beautiful, and people connect with it. I’ve had successes and shows and press, and I’ve sold work on and off for years; but I’m depressed and scared about this dream not coming to fruition. Because every time a show comes along, I think, “This is it! This is my big break.” Then nothing happens, and I go back to work waitressing. I’m working nine to five, but I want to be working nine to five in my studio.

I so desperately, in my bones, ache for success. But I’m stuck in a downward spiral of self-pity, stuck in the “it’s never going to happen” of it, and it hurts my heart. How do I let go of this now-painful longing? – Painter J PAINTER, MY BLUE J Really? Come on. Get up off your drop cloth, girl! Damn! Waaaa waaaa waaaa – this is what you have to say? If you weren’t feeling that “ache” in your “bones”, I’d be worried. What do you think drives you to paint? A potassium deficiency? What flogs our great painters? Did not Rembrandt, Fragonard, Toulouselautrec, El Greco and Gauguin thrash themselves to shreds with the same little whip of longing and self-pity that you’re beating yourself with? (Note: every last one of those chaps died in penniless obscurity, and now they’re more famous than all the Kardashians put together.)

Fifteen years? Fifteen years is nothing. Van Gogh strove his whole life, and you’ve sold more paintings than he did! I’ve seen your work. It’s splendid. But if you can’t stand the ache, get away from the easel. Be a waitress. It requires even greater genius to be a waitress, of course, now that the world is pathologically fixated on being served a dinner fit to appear in a decor magazine. If you lack the endurance – which is as important as talent – quit now. Because “success” is not what tortures you; it’s your opinions of success. And it’s in your power to revoke those opinions. Great painters may sulk when a show isn’t a hit, but they don’t fold. They make better, more ambitious paintings.

CHECK… MATE? HI, E JEAN, Tonight I was defeated in a game of chess. I’m a talented player, but my opponent was a very attractive woman and I couldn’t concentrate. It got so bad that as she was closing in on my queen, I became turned on. We’ve scheduled a rematch. But if I get aroused every time she makes a challenging move, she’ll beat me again, and this time when we meet, I want to ask her to dinner. I know women don’t like losers. Will she accept my invitation? – Knight Of The Woeful Countenance SIR KNIGHT It’s always proper for a gentleman to become excited when being defeated by a lady – a natural and wholesome occurrence that I hope to see in this year’s US presidential race. But don’t take chances with the rematch. Invite your beautiful opponent to dinner before the game. Good luck!

I’ve made some mistakes in my life and would like to avoid situations where sex usually ends up occurring. Can you think of any places where sex doesn’t happen? Yes. On the medal stand at the Olympics when you’re singing the national anthem and, if you choose the wrong person, in your bedroom after you’re married.