DEAR INDY
BY SS & CT ILLUSTRATION Leslie Benavides DESIGN Daniel Navratil
How do I know the difference between being friends with someone and having romantic feelings for them? I guess the traditional response to this question is: Do you want to see them naked? If so, the feelings are romantic. Obviously this answer has been more or less debunked—you can love someone like that without wanting to sleep with them, and you can certainly want to sleep with someone without feeling that way. But I think there’s still merit in that response, if you substitute in a different definition of naked. Let’s grant that everyone has parts of themselves that they would prefer no one see. You have probably at some point done or been something so evil and/or mortifying that you’re pretty sure it would kill you if anyone found out about it. Maybe you experience hatred more intensely than seems normal, or like attention in a way that seems pathological, or were partially culpable for the death of a class pet. Maybe you just don’t think you’re very smart. In any case, you don’t want anybody to know about this terrible thing you’re hiding, so you hide it as effectively as you can. It’s very possible to be friends with someone without letting them in on your big secret. Probably your friends can see some of it but not all; they might also politely ignore what they can see, for the sake of the friendship. You probably aren't dying for the chance to glimpse most of your friends’ most buried shames, either. In friendship, it’s mutually understood that you aren’t trying to strip away all of each other’s layers and get to whatever newly-revealed horror awaits. In other words: You aren’t trying to get each other naked. Sometimes, though, you want to see everything about someone. You want to know what makes them irrationally angry or sad, and you want to know what drives them to pathetic desperation. You want to know how this person would respond to absolutely anything that happened to them, even if their response was objectively pretty terrible, because it would be them having it. You want to see what they’re like when they aren’t concealing anything at all. Worse: You want them to see everything about you. You want them to look at you without whatever carefully assembled outfit you usually have on, and you want them to like what they see. You can probably tell where I’m going with this. If everything you find out about someone just makes you want to learn more—if the best thing you can imagine being able to do with this person is to know everything about them—then it’s my view that what you feel could reasonably be called romantic. Good luck! -CT
Is a campus roof a good place for a first date? Which roofs are optimal? Roofs can be very good places for first dates, because in climbing onto them you show that you are either athletic or feel irrationally invincible of body, each of which can be very charming to a certain kind of person. This advice columnist has only ever brought love interests to the roofs of off-campus properties, all reachable by ladder or, at the very least, fire escape. But it always went pretty well, and the same is probably true for a university-owned building. I’m going to offer some unconventional advice: If you can swing it, go for a roof that is almost impossible to get onto but pretty safe once you’re up there. You don’t want to worry about plunging to your death mid-date, but you do want the opportunity to show off upper-body strength, willingness to spot or provide a boost, and/or, of course, stupidity.
What's a good thing to do on Valentine's Day if How do I cope with the fact that when I'm with your person is away? the girlfriend, all I can do is think about all the work I need to do? To be in a relationship is to always have a person away. Part of what makes someone lovable is the fact that There are plenty of pragmatic solutions to this problem: you cannot have them all the time. There is some- rearranging your schedule, studying together, etc. But thing especially tragic about spending Valentine’s it seems like that’s not really what you’re asking for; Day apart—it’s the one day couples are allowed, even you’re asking how to deal with the fact that you do feel encouraged, to be together in public. bad. I think it’s actually a good thing that you see work - Sit on a park bench. When someone sits down next and your relationship as at odds. One pretty common to you, tell them the seat is taken. For your person, way to reconcile love and work, if it feels like there’s who is sitting both somewhere far away and very conflict between the two, is to concede to work. Some close inside. industrious-minded people in relationships decide to - Take yourself out for dinner. When the host asks see their relationships as work in the same way they for the size of your party, let yourself hold their pity, see schoolwork as work, not necessarily in that they answer for one, eat for the two of you. put work into them, but in that they believe the rela- Go on a long train ride. Lean into the frame of the tionships check a socially necessary box and will, in window. Do a crossword and leave a few blank the long run, get them something. This view of relafor them. Calculate the new distance from your tionships can make it easier to prioritize them, if you’re person. Measure what, if anything, changes. inclined to anxiety about box-checking (as it sort of - Leave them a voicemail. If they try to call you, sounds from your question, you might be), but it also do not pick up. Let their voice arrive, so you may cheapens them pretty significantly. remember what it is like to hold at least one part of So: You could book “be with the girlfriend” into them close. your Google Calendar and treat her like a box to check, - Order yourself their favorite food. You under- but we’ve already established my perspective on that. stand the power of a shot of vanilla syrup in your You could also spend less time with her and more in the matcha latté. Still do not understand the allure of library, or whatever. But there are lots of people (again— sandwiches brimming with olives. Pick up a pint of it seems, respectfully, like you might be one of them) strawberry ice cream for the day they are no longer for whom no amount of work is enough work. I’m not away. convinced that changing the ratio of girlfriend to work - Make sure your person writes a list of the good would really help you quarantine work away from your things to do when you’re away. The layout of this relationship. Really, my inclination is to tell you that list, this way of being, is not reserved for one day interpersonal connection is the only meaningful thing or a threshold of distance. Let them carry it with in the world, nothing else matters, and being good at them always. work is never going to feel as good as being in love. If you don’t feel that way, you could break up with her—or, -SS better, you could break up with work.
-CT -CT
17
LITERARY
14 FEB 2020
