Mail to Males

Mixed Feelings

Dear Joe,

We’ve been hanging out almost every other day and talking every day but I still have mixed feelings about this.  Should I feel uplifted that there is hope I might one day have a relationship as good as you and Blanche do, or should I feel depressed that at my age you already had five years of happy marriage under your belts?  As a friend you are the male version of me, seriously and for true, and a real breath of fresh air.  But as a life example, you make me alternate rapidly between jealous, hopeful, and hopelessly in despair that I will never find someone like you of my very own, or find someone as good for you as your wife has been. Is it better to never know what you’re missing, or to find a perfect example of what you should strive to achieve so that you can see how empty your life is currently?  Love is a hard aspiration because you can only control one half of it— even if I work really hard and become all that I personally can be- there’s still no guarantee that I’ll meet someone for me who’s as cool as you.   I’m so tempted to give up…

For now, it’s time to just enjoy life and be happy you’re my friend.  But my hope that one day I’ll find someone in my future who I’m half as compatible with as you is dwindling…

Love (for real and for true, but only as a friend),

Alice