Dear Sadie,
So there’s this person I used to hook up with on campus who I still kinda have feelings for, but things trickled off at the end of last semester. Now when I see him in person (not often enough) he’s super friendly, but if I text him it’s awkward and distant. What gives? Also, I’m reluctant to bring it up with him since we’re great in person, so it just seems weird to say that things are weird to his face.
-Hot ‘n’ Cold ’18
Dear Hot ‘n’ Cold,
Shut it down. He’s trying to make things less weird by being cool in person so you don’t disrupt the cool by addressing the motherfucking elephant in the tiny fucking room. But guess what? Being chill is a goddamn waste of time. You know who was chill? Neville Chamberlain, and despite the other stuff he did, we only remember him for appeasement. You know, that chill thing where he let Nazi Germany take the Sudetenland to avoid conflict? APPEASEMENT SUCKS AND DOES NOT WORK. Stop trying to be the cool one and recognize that your feelings are valid and he’s trying to hide behind the social restrictions of “chill.” You didn’t even use the word “chill” but I can smell that shit all over this situation, also known as a shituation. Stop being chill and either address the fact that he’s being weird over text to his face, tell him that you want to keep hooking up, you kinda have feelings for him, and ask him if he is into it, or turn the chill all the way up and just freeze him out of your heart. Be nice, but move on. Never date anyone who wants you to act cool and pretends you had the part of your brain that connects sex and emotion removed. That leads to all sorts of weird robot future shit and you are a real fucking person. Stop being chill and start being you.
Dear Sadie,
My mom and I are really close, but she doesn’t seem to know when to stop pushing advice on me. I know I’m only a freshman, but I feel like I have it together enough to make basic decisions about classes to take and how to study. She doesn’t try to force me to do anything, but she will keep telling me to do something until I’ve done it. I’ve brought it up with her, but it seems to hurt her feelings that I don’t want her input. Is there any way to navigate this?
– Family Feud ’19
Dear Family Feud,
Here’s the shitty, gross truth: Your mom is probably right, and you are not going to realize it for a while, and that is just how this whole game works. Her intentions are good, she knows you better than anyone else, and what she’s saying probably has a lot of wisdom. But you know what real wisdom is? Fucking up badly and then dealing with it. Here’s some advice my mom gave me one time: You’re probably just dehydrated, so try drinking some water instead of bitching. What I did instead, however, was take a sip of water, so when she asked me, I could give a really detailed and realistic visual of the water that I totally drank because she told me to. Then, I stopped drinking water and instead watched reality TV to cure myself with consumerist pacification that the government feeds us to repress our revolutionary tendencies. And that was totally not a good cure because I was dehydrated and water would have helped. So what I’m trying to say is that you should pretend to take your mom’s advice (you’re in college, she doesn’t know if you’re studying or boning or eating frosting for dinner) and then realize two years later that she was right and you should have been taking biology and studying with color-coded notes this whole time. Then someday, you’ll listen to your kid lie to you and think, “You dumb shit, I could make your life so easy if you’d let me.” Are you starting to understand the game? Everything is horrible, do whatever you want. IDK.
Dear Sadie,
I’m not afraid of sitting alone in Usdan. In fact, I enjoy it, and I like doing work while I eat. Somehow my staring intently at my computer seems to be an invitation for acquaintances to sit down and start talking to me. This sounds bitchy as hell, but it’s not really what I’m looking for. But I also don’t want to say no, because I like the people and don’t want to look like an asshole. Is there anyway to avoid this, or should I just start going elsewhere?
-Usdance ’16
Dear Usdance,
O.K; you’re a senior. How have you not figured out a way to deal with this by now? You need to wear headphones and mime being busy when people try to talk to you, or you need to screw your courage to the sticking point and say, “Hey, would love to have a real meal some time, but I’m trying to finish this up before class.” It isn’t bitchy, because everyone has scrambled to get work done in Usdan while enjoying the culinary goodness of an all-you-can-eat situation. Where else can you combine eating and working so effectively? Suggest cooking dinner together, or meeting for coffee at some point when you have less work, and stop looking up from your computer! Keep those eyes fixed on the cold, lonely light of your computer screen and avoid human contact at all costs.