Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. For this edition, Dan Kois, a Slate writer and editor, will be filling in as Prudie. Submit questions here. (It’s anonymous!)
Dear Prudence,
In 2020, my husband went through a type of emotional transformation. He started reading self-help books and gained knowledge about boundaries, toxicity in friendships, judgment, and resentment in relationships. He gained a language about how to protect his emotions and listen to his body about who was supportive in his life and who was not. Since then, he has cut out two genuinely toxic friends, which was great!
Now, I feel that he has gone too far. Since then, he is in a state of such high alert about who could be transgressing, judging, or being toxic that he is basically trying to cut out every person in his life. “This person looked at me funny. They are judgmental. Cut them out.” “This person unfollowed me on Instagram. They hate our success. Cut them out.” “My mom said a comment about how I am too sensitive. She doesn’t understand my journey. Toxic. Cut her out.”
I really want him to go to therapy to try and get better control of what his emotions are doing, but that is a whole other issue. I don’t want to cut all of these good people out of my life and I can’t be the only person tethering him to humanity. Where do I go from here?
—Too Many Boundaries
Dear Bound,
What a difficult situation! Your husband’s embrace of his own psychic health has short-circuited. He views the world through toxic-colored glasses. Who will be next? How long can you maintain his Damoclean approval before the sword falls upon your head?
You wrote that you think getting control of his emotions is “a whole other issue,” but I don’t think it is. He suddenly has access and insight into emotions that he’s never had permission to explore. It can be heady, understanding finally that there are words for the feelings you’ve been feeling, and that you can take actions to change those feelings. Right now, he’s like a just-licensed teenager placed behind the wheel of a 65,000-pound bulldozer. Sure, he might build a couple of useful walls. But he’s also going to knock a bunch of important things down in the process.
I would encourage him to find a therapist. You don’t need to risk being the next cut by telling him you think he’s on a bit of a rampage, but hopefully, a person who’s embracing emotional health and clarity about self can see that a natural next step is to find a professional to help him sort through all he’s learning on the journey. In the meantime, send his mom a few emails, just to keep in touch.
—Prudie, carefully
Dear Prudence,
I’m a high school junior. I have a crush on a girl in my chemistry class. I have no idea if she likes me or not. None of my friends have ever dated before. I can’t talk to my parents—I’m not sure what their reaction to hearing me talk about having a crush would be, but I’m certain they would either get way too involved in my social life or tell me that I’m not allowed to date ever (and I wouldn’t be able to date until college). Everywhere else that I find online that has dating advice quickly turns into disgusting misogynistic stuff, and as the older brother of three younger sisters, I would die before I turned into that.
My crush and I are pretty bad at social stuff. I actually don’t think she has any real friends. We’re both part of a film club, and we’ve talked after the club meetings and I think we have a lot in common. Also, I’ve seen the way that she looks at some of the actors as we watch movies and I’m pretty sure she’s straight (or at least attracted to guys in some capacity). Every single time she asks me for a pencil or initiates a conversation it feels like my heart is beating so fast it’s going to erupt out of my chest and land on her face, and I feel like an idiot every time I speak to her. The winter formal is coming up, and my friends and I have decided to skip the dance and watch Love on a Leash, a so-bad-it’s-good movie my friend found. My crush found out about our plan and asked if she could come too, and I said sure. What do I do now?
—Searching for Chemistry
Dear Chemistry,
I’ve never read a more apt description of what a crush feels like than yours. Truly, it does feel as though one’s heart is going to erupt out of one’s chest and land on her face. It’s both delicious and maddening; in some ways, it would be enough for the crush to last forever, but of course, you also crave resolution—except that you know it’s possible the resolution might be terrible.
I would like to commend you and your friends for coming up with a great alternative to the winter formal, and I also commend your crush for taking the initiative to ask if she can join you for your evening. That was brave on her part, and suggests to me that she really wants you two to get to know each other better. For now, I want you to consider that your only task. Your goal for that evening, and truly for quite some time after, is to learn who this chemistry-class siren truly is, and to show her who you truly are. What do you have in common? What do you disagree about? What are your dreams, your stupid fears, your favorite foods? Whatever relationship you end up having with this girl—and don’t believe anyone who tells you that friendship is inferior in some way to romance—it will come from being together and being open to possibility. As the canine hero of Love on a Leash knows, the quest for love is truly the quest of a lifetime, but it’s OK for it to go slowly at first.
Also, please watch other, better movies together, too.
—Prudie, alchemically
How to Get Advice From Prudie
Submit your questions anonymously here. (Questions may be edited for publication.) Join the live chat every Monday at noon (and submit your comments) here.
Dear Prudence,
I need to know how to give up on my dreams. I’ve been in a band for 15-plus years and we haven’t gotten anywhere and I don’t see how we can. I know I’ll keep playing and writing music but I hate having hope when I know something is hopeless. I really don’t want a pep talk or “you have to keep at it.” These 15-plus years have been very high effort. I know we are good and many have asked us why we aren’t on the radio or have not made it and I’m tired of coming up with an answer that amounts to “No one gives a shit.” No one wants to hear new music from some unknown band. As much as they say they do… they don’t. Is there something I can tell myself so I can lose this hopeless hope?
—Hopelessly Hopeful
Dear Hope,
For an artist, hope is sometimes indistinguishable from hunger: the hunger that people might recognize how great your work is, that you might get the opportunities or rewards that other artists get. I, Prudence, a singular person who has written this advice column for Slate for over 20 years, rarely get personal. But perhaps today I should. I also write non-advice prose, and I’ve spent an enormous amount of time during my creative life consumed by this kind of hunger. Literally thousands of hours. And it isn’t that I’m thinking about the Pulitzer Prizes I should win. It’s more elemental: What would it be like to have someone praise me for my writing? What would my book look like, up on the shelf? Why did that person have that idea and not me? This ravenous hunger can fill your entire sense of yourself as an artist; can even, for stretches of your life, replace actual art-making.
I certainly will not give you a pep talk or tell you that you have to keep at it. You don’t have to keep at it! But what is it that you’ve been keeping at, exactly? The thing you once loved, making music, has turned into toil: 15 “high-effort” years in search of a result that seems to revolve around “making it,” being on the radio, and similar signifiers of success—goals that the vast majority of bands, no matter how good they are, never reach. You say that you know you’ll keep playing and writing music. Good. Because if you’re anything like me, the way you feel when you’re playing and writing music has nothing to do with that hunger. When you’re making art—when you’re actually in the moment, in the pocket, in the painting, in the page—the hunger disappears, replaced by a kind of fulfillment: the joys and frustrations of actual creation. The more I’ve been able to focus my energy on the page, here, now, as opposed to the future somewhere out there, the more I’ve enjoyed my life and work.
So I urge you to stop thinking of your music in terms of the results it might or might not deliver. And you know what? Stop putting in the high effort. Stop sending demos to labels. Stop hassling bigger clubs for opportunities. In 2023, do only what you need to do to keep making music. Maybe it will be with your band. Maybe it will not. That’s fine! You have a long life ahead of you, and so do they. Maybe you’ll all make music together again later. But for now, disassemble the machine you’ve made. Stop doing all the things that turn your music from art into toil. Write a song instead. Send it to me, and I’ll dance to it.
—Prudie, harmonically
Classic Prudie
My son “Glenn” screwed up big-time at a family wedding and it’s causing problems between me and my sister, “Carrie.” Carrie’s daughter got married last fall and she had an elaborate reception. Glenn had just turned 21 and unfortunately decided to take extreme advantage of the open bar. He got so drunk that he stumbled into the wedding cake table and toppled it over, then threw up on the dance floor near the bridal couple.
