HYSTERICAL HIVES and THE JOY OF CHAT

Question 1 of 2

Dear Dr. Lovelady,

I ended a three and a half year relationship last year because I realized that no matter what I did, he and I just didn't have enough in common. I recently started dating this nice younger man and we are very compatible. The problem is that any time he talks about commitment or exclusivity I break out in hives, cry hysterically for the three lost years and generally act insecure. I'm afraid to lose him but more afraid to be with him. What should I do?

Signed,
Nervous

Dear Nervous:

Of course you are insecure. You have seen that attraction leads to involvement which, regardless of the problems in the relationship, leads to commitment and intense pain upon extrication. Or, as Albert Einstein might have put it, if he had written an advice to the lovelorn column:

2 Attraction X (%Time - [Incompatibility/Lust ]) = ? of Rebound Trajectory

This is fine. The key word in your question is "recently", as in "I recently started dating..." Listen. You do not want to get instantly committed to someone you don't know well, especially in your current state of mourning. It sounds as if this person is pressuring you. Tell him to stop. But don't be rejecting about it. You might want to adopt a Robert Mitchum Film Noir style, along the lines of, "Baby, I'm trying to hold back, 'cause when I fall, I fall hard, but it ain't easy, doll, cause you make my nosehairs quiver."

You must take care of yourself. Consider this a note from your doctor to that effect.



Question 2 of 2

Dear Dr. Lovelady,

Can my boyfriend and I keep up with a relationship based on 5 minute phone calls, letters and seeing each other maybe once a year?

Signed,
Long-Distance

Dear Long:

Please forgive me, but I cannot understand how a question like this can come from someone with Web access. Unless you are stuck in a jungle somewhere and have enlisted someone to trek through hundreds of miles of rain forest to find the nearest village with an internet cafe and submit this question for you, you surely must understand that there are ways of bypassing primitive telephone service, let alone the U.S. MAIL, so that you and your paramour can communicate for hours on a single quarter.

Have you never heard of n-talk or chat?

You must catch up with the times. Face-to-face relationships are almost a thing of the past. All across our planet, highly trained scientists are working in clean, bright, modern laboratories, 24 hours a day, to develop and refine simulated neural pathways made of the most durable and highly conductive inorganic substances ever manufactured. When implanted in our brains and connected to banks of high-speed computers, these networks will make actual interpersonal contact irrelevant. All sensory stimuli will be programmed into the system. All emotional and physical interchanges will be created by central circuits. No longer will we have to endure the smells and messes of our base animal functions, or the uncertainty and humiliation that is inevitable when human encounters human. As the technology becomes more and more sophisticated, humans will finally fulfill their evolutionary destiny: to become huge brains in bell jars, perfectly efficient vehicles for intercerebral communication.

You and others like you, bravely attempting to maintain love affairs while thousands of miles apart, are to be considered pioneers in the new technology of interpersonal relations. You are soldiers of the heart, the Lewis and Clarks of Love. We of mere blood and bone salute you!