Dear Dr. Ding
Dear Dr. Ding.
Old and Opinionated
Dear Old And Opinionated:
Dr. Ding’s first reaction to this missive was “Your friend is a stone hoochie” but then I decided that this perhaps was insensitive and a tad hasty. Let me collect my thoughts, which have scattered like a misdiagnosed ADHD child overdosed on Ritalin because they should have chosen a college major by now or at least scored in the top 2% on their psychometrically invalid Exemplary School exams. What? Exactly.
Congratulations, OldOp–you’re friends with someone with poor judgement. Which you know. And she probably has some clue that her way of going about making major life decisions ain’t so hot, which is why she’s hitting you up for your input and, more accurately, your approval. You’re smart to not fall for it, but it certainly sounds like your efforts to not blurt out “Gah! What the fuck are you fucking thinking!” are putting a strain on the friendship.
Your friend is the kind of person who spends a lot of time worrying about what man is going to leave her next, and has difficulty being available as a friend because of all the drama she stirs up and then expects you to listen to. She probably fears other women will take her man unless she’s staked a babydaddy claim, which means she’s pretty damn insecure and probably is stuck at a pubertal developmental level. She views her role in romantic relationships as that of subordinate, or she may be conflicted about issues of healthy interdependence vs codependence. She spits out babies as a means to an end, which is fundamentally immature, egocentric, stupid, and financially unsound. It’s a way of wielding covert power, power she feels otherwise unable to access or utilize. There are probably some thorny daddy issues mixed up in this somewhere. I could go on, but I gotta charge ya for milkshakes as rich as this one.
It sounds like she’s not someone who shares your value system when it comes to relationship/parenting decisions. And admittedly, her ideas about reproducing herself aren’t exactly in alignment with my life ideals, either.
But.
| Etsy: QueenBodacious |
Dear Dr. Ding
Dear Dr. Ding,
I just wanted to get your opinion. Recently I was scheduled to attend a
large family dinner over the Memorial Day weekend. Along with the dinner a
trip into the country to visit various family graves in small cemetaries
located out in a field was scheduled without my knowledge. I had to travel
several hours to get to this family function and stay with those who still
reside in the home town area. After driving for several hours I then had
to ride around in a car for another four hours. Would it have been
inappropriate for me to excuse myself from this part of the family holiday
plans? Along with the grave site tour we spent a great amount of time
touring down gravel roads stopping to see places where relatives had once
lived. Some of my cousins insisted on getting out of the car at each site
to take pictures of holes in the ground where a house used to stand or
barns leaning to one side with only half a roof. I myself do enjoy things
like studying family history but to me this did not seem to be informative
at all. I would much rather sit at the actual family dinner and listen to
the elders in the family tell stories about each other and what it was like
to live through their experiences. Am I a bad member of the younger
generation?
The BAD Daughter
| Etsy: QueenBodacious |
Holy Fuckin Wow
Dearest Dinginators:
As of this moment (or possibly several days earlier, as I can be a tad bit tardy with my interweb doings, owing to my arduous if not preposterous travel schedule), Dr. Ding is officially….. a professional writer.
Check it, on the record, buck nekkid, Dr. Ding is now an all-around dogsbody for UGO.com, muthafuckas.
Hold up. Evil Manservant Jeebes just informed me that it is considered most unseemly to use the term “muthafuckas” and that the more correct and polite term is, in fact, motherfuckers.
Thank you, Jeebes, for that timely bit of Victoriana.
So, if you know any major male geeks out there, send them my way on UGO. Here’s a link to the post.
Peace out, my darlingest, dearest motherfuckers!
| Etsy: QueenBodacious |
Dear Dr. Ding
Dear Dr. Ding,
I’m very interested to hear your response to a particular issue I’ve been dealing with for quite some time. The few people I’ve shared this info with have very little to say after they hear the whole story which might be because there isn’t anything TO say, but still, I’m feeling the need to do something about it. And unfortunately I’m too tangled up inside of it to determine the best way to handle it.
I am a single mom in my thirties. I’ve been divorced for almost 5 years (the divorce was a positive event for me) and my two school aged kids live with me. I haven’t really dated at all in those 5 years – tried the online thing and after countless failures realized that it just isn’t for me. Also, I haven’t ever really gotten too serious about trying to find someone to date – I appreciate the value of being alone and spending my time focusing on other things like my kids and career – so not being hooked up hasn’t really been a huge issue for me. Sure, I get lonely sometimes but it hasn’t ever consumed me.
Three years ago I met a small group of friends that I subsequently ended up spending a large amount of time with. I really loved these guys for many reasons and just couldn’t get enough of being around them. After a year or so I ended up becoming particularly close to one of the guys in this group. He didn’t seem to stand out when I first met him but the more I learned about him, the more I liked him. And that continued to grow and grow and eventually I realized that I had fallen completely in love with him. It was a wonderful realization and a tragic one at the same time. Wonderful because I believe that I’ve never really experienced romantic love before; my marriage was not about love and I certainly didn’t learn anything about it from my parents, so it was a great feeling that felt true and right for the first time in my life. Tragic because … well, because he’s married.
I know at first glance that seems like a no-brainer, “get away as fast as you can, this isn’t going anywhere and you’re only going to get hurt”, right? But it’s everything else about the situation that makes that *not* seem right. Also, everyone I talk to about this suggests the idea that I feel this way about him because it’s “safe”, and I think by that they mean that since there is no chance for a relationship I can experience these feelings without having to deal with relationship issues. That never feels right to me – I do not feel like I have a fear of commitment, I don’t feel like there is anything bad about relationships, as long as you’re with the right person, and now that I feel very confident in my ability to determine the right person, why would I be trying to sabotage my own chances to experience this? I *know* why my marriage failed, it makes perfect sense. I know I needed the past 5 years to learn a lot about myself and I have. I’m there now. So this reasoning never washes with me although I’m in no position to discount it 100%; apparently something is amiss here and since I don’t know what it is I can’t block out any possibilities.
As far as specifics about my relationship with him are concerned, you should know that we are very close. Here are some facts about us:
* It is definitely a two-way thing. The hardest part for me is that I do not understand WHY. I don’t understand why he shares so much of his life with me. I mean although I’d guess there are probably a few sacred issues just between him and his wife, he tells me pretty much every single thing that happens in his day-to-day life. I do not have any other friends that do this.
* We communicate all day long most days of the week.
* It has been this way for over 2 years
* When possible, we get together in person.
* Sometimes we stay out together until the wee hours of the morning just talking.
* We have long, serious talks about life’s big issues.
* We help each other.
* We listen to each other.
* We joke around with each other.
* People accuse us of “acting married” when they are around us.
* We seem to respect each other.
* He is always there for me.
* We have suggestive conversations – never about each other, but we often talk about sexual things and know exactly what it is that turns the other person on. We do this *a lot*.
* He always makes me feel good and important and … loved. He makes me feel loved, but I have no idea if that is what he feels for me or not. Everything else would suggest that this is a ridiculous notion and that I’m just being wishful – maybe I am, but somehow it just doesn’t seem that simple to me.
* We don’t have sex and we’re not having an affair.
* We never acknowledge or discuss the fact that we have an obviously unique relationship.
* He is a huge part of my life.
* When we haven’t talked for a while (relatively speaking), I sense that he missed me
* My kids know and love him.
* My friends know him. I’m sure most people that know me know how I feel about him, I’m not very adept at hiding my feelings. I’d have to say that *he* probably even knows how I feel about him which is just another layer of the issue that adds to my inability to understand it all – if you’re married and you know another woman has strong feelings for you, should you constantly be encouraging her?
* He seems to love his wife (of 9 years) and seems very dedicated to his marriage. As far as I know, she knows everything about our friendship and is fine with it. Most people find that hard to believe but we don’t hide anything or act any differently when we are around her than we do when we aren’t. She and I get along well.
* He and I never talk about this stuff. I’ve never been able to bring this up with him because I’m terrified of losing him.
* Having been through the unbelievable hell that is divorce, I do not want him to get divorced, but at the same time I want to be with him. I guess I keep fantasizing that when his kids are grown, he could leave his wife and grow old with me. And I know that sounds awful but under the veil of anonymity I might as well be truthful about my feelings. I think for now I’d just be happy to know what I really mean to him. Yeah, I *think*, not sure about that.
* One time he almost completely stopped taking to me for like a month (for his own personal reasons) and I became severely depressed. I was very frightened to realize the profound impact that his temporary absence had on me, and pondered the horror of his permanent absence.
I experience this relationship as if it were a romantic relationship without sex. I have no idea what it means to him. Maybe I’ve just never experienced a true friendship before. Is that all this is? Am I just being completely foolish thinking that there is anything out-of-the-norm going on here? What is the difference between friendship and a romantic relationship without sex? Maybe they are the exact same thing. If so how can I continue to be close friends with someone I wish was a romantic partner? How do I lose the feelings of frustration of not ever being able to make love to him? Would it be better to talk to him about this or to just continue to use his actions as cues to assume how he feels about me?
All I know is that I really don’t want to be without him, which is why I’ve been sitting on my feelings so far. Please let me know what you think.
Sincerely,
Clueless And Confused
| Etsy: QueenBodacious |
Geek Love: Brief Elegy for Gary Gygax
Dr. Ding’s almost brother-in-law, Nater, requested that I discuss my first experience with Dungeons&Dragons, thereby repping my set, aka Gamer Nerd Brethren and Sistren. Nate knows a closeted gamer when he sees one, and he’s right, I need to let that phreak phlag phly¹.
Picture it: Shampoo-Banana, Illinois. One languid summer, 1981. Polyester plum-smugglers had just come into vogue, and there I was, playing D&D in our basement with a family friend, and a buddy of his he’d invited over. I don’t remember said buddy’s name, but I think it was something exotic like “Wesley” or perhaps “Todd.” He had a peachfuzz moustache and was wearing (non-ironically you see, for it was 1981) a tight ringer tee-shirt and the aforementioned plum-smugglers, with dark, feathered hair. I also recall that he (more…)
| Etsy: QueenBodacious |
2007 Reflections, 2008 Dreams
Dr. Ding never was too good at New Year’s resolutions; I make them all backwards and counterintuitive-like.
Dr. Ding once made a resolution to eat a LOT more chocolate, and well looky looky…it’s good for you now! Cause and effect, to be sure.
Superheroine JeAnne posted this very clever set of questions from which I’m cribbing here. Rock on, girl.
1. What did you do in 2007 that you had never done before? – Took two cruises with a very dear friend. Swam with dolphins, a lifelong dream. Went to a conference in Laguna Beach. Started blogging in earnest. Joined Twitter and learned everyone goes out a LOT more than I do.
2. What countries did you visit? – Mexico, Jamaica, Grand Cayman Island, California.
3. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007? – More free time. More naps. Getting back into sitting meditation. Regular workouts. More dates with The Beyonce. A truly stellar blog logo. Dingish t-shirts on sale in CafePress.
4. What was your biggest achievement of the year? – Tie: 1) Started investing money. 2) Completed 20 miles of the Avon Walk in Chicago, June 2007.
5. Did you suffer any illness or injury? – Couple bouts of flu. Epicondylitis. Racked my left Achilles. Two vein surgeries. Ew.
6. What was the best thing you bought? — Anything on Etsy, especially Surlyramics’ stuff. A Dremel set for The Beyonce. Memory-foam mattress topper.
7. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder? – Happier, but tireder.
8. Did you fall in love in 2007? -- It seems like every other week I find out something entirely new and absolutely wonderful about The Beyonce. Despite his peculiar insistence on keeping the kitchen counters neat and clean, I remain In Love with him. I can’t help it. He heals me. Well, that and he’s a stone fox.
9. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007? — Vintage 1987 drag queen-meets-former-GothPunk shitkicker, quietly supported by nerd glasses and Ex Officio underpants, and a team of Etsy.com artisans. Plus several pair of sweats from Target, black Uggs, and a penchant for t-shirts from The Mill and The Salt Dogs.
10. What do you wish you’d done more of? What didn’t you get in 2007 that you want for 2008? – I wish I’d gone back to the gym after my 2 surgeries, because now I’m very out of the habit. In 2008, I have the following goals and objectives:
1) Get married. To The Beyonce. In a FIERCE wedding dress. Not sure yet what rhymes with husband.
2) Figure out what rhymes with husband.
3) Plan a trip to Tibet, to take place within the next few years. I’ll be going with Dr. Kat and anyone else who dares accompany us.
4) Get up every day at 6 a.m. to meditate, pray to The Inner Silver Go-Go Boots of GirlJesus, do a lil’ yoga, walk.
5) Remain injury-free when I get back to weight lifting this Spring, and further, if I do get injured, find a neon-pink sparkly cold pack so that the whole experience is more festive.
6) Finish writing Drag Queens From Outer Space! Or: How I Learned To Love Managed Care™
7) Have a costume party for Halloween like I did back in the 1990s where everyone has to (more…)
| Etsy: QueenBodacious |