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Ask Laurie

The following Q has been significantly edited for your reading pleasure (not to mention sanity). I wish someone had done the same for me.

Q: Dear Laurie,

I'm an undergraduate student. I'm 21 and quite terrible at reading social cues. However, for the last couple of years I've been living a polyamorous life. There are four people I've been romantically involved with during the same time, they all know about it, and everyone's all right with it. There is:

• A: the most significant. I've been living with him for three years; has since graduated and moved away
• B: the mutual friend with whom we both became involved before she moved away for grad school
• C: someone I befriended at a club a year or so ago, none of the rest have actually met him and he lives in a different part of the city
• D: my roommate, a good friend of A's and mine, this being the newest involvement. And then there's:
• E: I went on an academic trip to China for two weeks; managed to develop a wonderful friendship cum raging crush on my seatmate. We spent an idyllic few days together in Beijing, then came back to the university and have fallen mutually and shatteringly in love. I find myself in a good, old-fashioned, love-inspired, Deep Blue Funk of a thoroughly Shakespearean variety. I'm no stranger to passionate love, obviously, but I can't remember feeling quite like this before.

I haven't seen C for a long time to his chagrin, B is e-mailing me and feeling neglected and D is sulking. I'm just not feeling as enthusiastic about seeing the other people. However, I really don't want to hurt any of them.

My question: Should I keep to the "fake it 'til you make it" philosophy or should I tell them E and I are embroiled in this ridiculously passionate relationship and I currently want to spend time almost only with him?

Sincerely,
Raging Hypocrite

A: Dear RH-

This sounds like the plot to a really bad TV pilot. I'm thinking Threes Company meets The Addams Family meets The Brady Bunch where Morticia, Marcia and Chrissy form a love triangle and each have Jack's child.

How does someone who is "quite terrible at reading social cues" end up boinking five (5!) different men au même temps (that's French for "will boink for food")? I guess you're better at some cues than others.

Ok, someone is afraid of being alone and it's not me. "Fake it till you make it" went out in the 90s along with the internet stock crash and Ally McBeal's dancing baby, baby. FITYMI is good for getting through difficult speeches and awkward first dates, not for chasing venereal diseases and toying with people's hearts and other organs.

What in the hell, may I ask, are you doing? Have you ever stopped to ask yourself that? You've called yourself a raging hypocrite so you know what you're doing is wrong on some level. I know I'm sounding all morally and preachy on you, but, dear lord, you're just a love machine and you don't work for nobody but you. In other words, you sound a little selfish and insatiable and, to be perfectly honest, slightly chemically imbalanced.

You say you're in a good, old-fashioned, love-inspired Deep Blue Funk (DBF!) of a thoroughly Shakespearean variety. I'll say! According to you, all the world's a stage and all the men and women merely playahs¹, clearly. But hey RH, while we're spouting Will, "It's not enough to speak, but to speak true²." Feel me? So, yes, in plain English, tell the others. Free Willies.

BTW, I can respect your need for a booty call while waiting for true love to smack you upside the head but why four (4!) booties? And aren't you the least bit concerned where all these booties have been? You boink two booties and they boink two booties and so on and so on, right?

The Short Answer: A, B, C, D, E-none of these are the right answer, Juliette. May I suggest clearing the stage and reflecting on your rather extreme need to be so physically needed. To be (alone) or not (able) to be (alone), that is the question³.

Lovingly&logically yours, Laurie

¹As You Like It
²Midsummer Night's Dream
³Hamlet