Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life From Dear Sugar

  It’s mine, my daughter shrieked.

  I was playing with it first, countered my son.

  It’s special to me, wailed my daughter.

  She plays with my special toys all the time, my son bellowed.

  I talked and reasoned and made suggestions that soon became commands, but really, ultimately, there was nothing to be done. There was one head and two torsos. The indisputable fact of that was like a storm we had to ride out until all the trees were blown down.

  I begin with this allegorical snippet from Chez Sugar not because I think your individual and joint struggles regarding your friendship are as infantile as a tussle over a toy, but rather because I think it’s instructive to contemplate in essential terms our desire to have not only what is ours, but what also belongs to those we love, and not only because we want those things for ourselves, but because we want the other person not to have them. That fervor is age-old and endless and a gumball-sized piece at the core of what we’re grappling with here and I invite you both to ponder it.

  We all have a righteous claim to the decapitated head of the black-haired plastic princess. We believe she is ours alone to hold. We refuse to let her go.

  Before we begin disentangling your situation in earnest, I’ll say right out that I’m quite sure if the two of you continue talking silently to yourselves about this icky and weird thing that happened with the man I’m going to go ahead and call The Foxy Fellow you’re going to regret it. And more than that, you’re going to hatch a whole slew of increasingly distorted beliefs about what went down and what that means and who did and said what and it will not only make you miserable and sad and bitter, it will also rob you of a friend who you really should be sitting on a porch with ten years in the future, laughing about what knuckleheads you were back in the day.

  You both did something you basically know wasn’t so great. Your desires and fears and failings and unreasonable expectations and things you won’t admit to yourselves clicked into each other as neatly as a plastic head does into a plastic torso and when you put them together you both got pinched. The same thing happened to you from different points of view. With whom should our sympathies lie? On which woman’s shoulders should the blame be placed? In what directions do the arrows of your narratives flow? How best do you find your way out of this place?

  These are the questions I asked myself as I considered your letters. Every time I tried to straighten the stories out in my head, they got all tangled up instead. I made charts and lists with bullet points. I took a piece of paper and drew a map. I turned your Foxy Fellow imbroglio into a pair of mathematical equations of the sort I never learned how to do properly in school (which utterly frees me to use them for my own whimsical literary purposes). Here’s how they look:

  Friend or Foe: “I solemnly swear that I will never fuck The Foxy Fellow because my friend still has tender and territorial feelings for him and I don’t want to hurt her” + [I am a caring person and fucking The Foxy Fellow would compel me to question the sort of person I believe myself to be] + fucked The Foxy Fellow anyway = eek/ugh2 × [but perhaps, when I really think about it, my friendship with this woman is “not that important”] × and yet there was that time I sat with her in downtown San Francisco while she bawled unabashedly > so – fuck this shit! + how dare she be mad at me! + I was a good friend to her in every other way! + The Foxy Fellow has not even been her boyfriend for, like, EVER! + I am attracted to him! + he is attracted to me! + I’m not even thirty and my vagina is growing cobwebs! + who the hell is she to say who The Foxy Fellow and I get to have sex with in the first place?

  Triangled: “The Foxy Fellow is a wonderful person” + [we “broke up,” though we were never really together, never monogamous, even though he crushed my heart in this really hard-to-exactly-define-way for which I do not fault him because I didn’t have expectations—why would I have expectations? etc.] × it’s pretty clear to me that he wants to fuck my lovely woman friend who watched me bawl unabashedly over him in downtown San Francisco and this makes me feel like puking2 + [what is the meaning of monogamy? what is love? do we ever owe anyone anything when it comes to sex? why do I feel like puking if The Foxy Fellow is “only my friend”?] = accept adamant and profuse promises from my lovely woman friend regarding her plans to not fuck The Foxy Fellow × [sisterhood!] – allow The Foxy Fellow to brush me off when I express my wish he not fuck my lovely woman friend = cry/rage when they fail to not fuck + [how could they? she promised! I thought she was my friend! he never listened to me!]

  In the math-ignorant world of Sugarland, we call this a clusterfuck.

  You are both wrong. You are both right. You both know you can do better than you did. The fact that you failed to do so equals nothing unless you learn something from this. So let’s learn it, sweet peas.

  Triangled, if it really hurts and enrages you that The Foxy Fellow fucks a friend of yours, he isn’t your friend and you should not conduct yourself with him as such. He is your ex, the love you’ve yet to get over for reasons you may not be able to explain or justify even to yourself, the man who is an absolute no-go zone for anyone who’s even remotely in your inner circle. Lose the but-we’re-just-friends-now/free-love mumbo jumbo and own up to what you actually feel: if The Foxy Fellow is fucking anyone, you don’t want to be hanging out with her. Not yet. Not now. Maybe not ever. At the very least, heal your heart before you go introducing The Foxy Fellow to your friends, especially those you’d describe as “witty, sexy, brilliant.” And then brace yourself.

  Though it may seem that Friend or Foe’s choice to break her promise and fuck The Foxy Fellow is what caused all this pain, her actions are not at the root of your sorrow. What’s at the root is the fact that you failed to recognize and honor your own boundaries. You tried to have it both ways. You wanted to be the woman who could be friends with a man she’s not over, but you are not that woman. I understand why you want to be her, darling. She’s one cool cat. She’s the star of the show. She doesn’t take anything personally. But you are not her. And that’s okay. You are your own fragile, strong, sweet, searching self. You can be sad a guy you sort of fell for didn’t fall for you. You don’t have to be a good sport. You don’t have to pretend you’re okay with sharing your interesting and beautiful friends with The Foxy Fellow, even if you feel like a puny asshole not being okay with it. You can say no.

  But the thing is, you have to say it. You have to be the woman who stands up and says it. Not only to the lovely friend who can’t possibly keep the promises she’s made to you while swimming in the shared waters of your wishy-washy ache for affirmation and orgasms, but also to the man himself. Yes, The Foxy Fellow. The one who is, but who is not, your friend. You have to live with the uncomfortable reality that it’s from him that you need time and space. And then you have to take it, hard as it is, come what may.

  Friend or Foe, you made a choice you knew would hurt someone who trusted you—a choice,
it’s worth noting, you explicitly vowed not to make—and afterwards you justified that choice with reasons you could’ve more thoughtfully discussed with her beforehand. This makes you neither “a pleasure addict” nor “a terrible friend.” It makes you someone who did what most people would do in this situation at this moment in your life: a woman who took what she wanted instead of what she needed.

  You are at once blameless in this and entirely responsible. You were sort of set up by Triangled and you were also basically a jerk to her. The reason all that other junk came up in your post–Foxy Fellow contemplations—(your ex, your feelings of being eternally punished for having wronged her, your sense that your friend never trusted you either)—is that, contrary to your claim that you don’t regret what you did, you know you could have done this differently, better, or not at all. What’s at stake here is not only your friendship with Triangled, but also your own integrity. You promised you would not hurt someone you cared for. You hurt her anyway. What do you make of that? What would you like to take forward from this, honey bun? Do you want to throw up your hands and say “Oh well,” or do you dare to allow this experience to alter your view?

  We all like to think we’re right about what we believe about ourselves and what we often believe are only the best, most moral things—i.e., Of course I would never fuck The Foxy Fellow because that would hurt my friend! We like to pretend that our generous impulses come naturally. But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be a selfish jackass first. It’s the reason we have to fight so viciously over the decapitated head of the black-haired plastic princess before we learn how to play nice; the reason we have to get burned before we understand the power of fire; the reason our most meaningful relationships are so often those that continued beyond the very juncture at which they came the closest to ending.

  I hope that you’ll do that, dear women, even if it takes you some time to stagger forward. I don’t know if your friendship is built to last a lifetime, but I know the game is worth the candle. I can see you on that ten-years-off porch.

  Yours,

  Sugar

  ARE YOU MY MOTHER?

  Dear Sugar,

  I moved to a new city a year ago and in the past few months have been feeling so at home and at ease after various bouts of loneliness. I’ve met some great women here, women I might have seen myself being able to date at some point, or at least sleep with for a while. What is the problem with this? Well, I am finding that I am gravitating toward women more from habit than from necessity. I pursue what is immediately available and then lose interest rapidly—sometimes before it even starts—but because I am a sensitive, sensual person, I have a hard time turning it away.

  I guess what I am asking is, is this biological or emotional? I’m a male in my mid-twenties just starting what looks to be a promising career doing what I love. I feel so much love and gratitude in my life, and just typing that sentence made me feel a bit better. I really, really love women and don’t know if I could ever just turn it off. I also don’t want to end up another distant, difficult, noncommunicative male unsure of his own feelings.

  I think part of the problem might be that I feel like I need physical love to be happy and am less of a person without it. Is it more self-affirmation I need? Do I need to convince myself that I will find someone that I really can love and not just pursue because they are available for me immediately? Does this have anything to do with my mother?

  Anonymous

  Dear Anonymous,

  Have you ever read that book by P. D. Eastman called Are You My Mother? In it, a baby bird hatches while his mother is away from the nest and he decides to go out to find her. He can’t fly yet so he walks. He walks and he walks and he walks on his tiny baby bird feet, constantly asking the question: Are you my mother? Each time he asks the question, he’s convinced the answer is yes. But he’s wrong. Nothing is ever his mother. The kitten isn’t his mother. The hen isn’t his mother. The dog isn’t his mother. The cow isn’t his mother. The boat isn’t his mother. The plane isn’t his mother. The steam shovel that he calls a Snort isn’t his mother. But finally, when all hope is lost, the baby bird gets himself back to the nest and along comes his mother.

  It’s a children’s book that isn’t really about children. It’s a book about you and me and everyone else who has ever been twentysomething and searching for the thing inside that allows us to feel at home in the world. It’s a story about how impossible it can be to recognize who we are and who we belong to and who belongs to us. It’s a fairly precise tale of the journey you’re on right now, Anonymous, and from it I encourage you to take both heart and heed.

  Of course you’ve slept with women you aren’t actually very interested in having a relationship with, honey bunch. Of course you have! When you’re single and in your twenties, having sex with whoever comes along is practically your job. It’s biological. It’s emotional. It’s psychological. It’s egomaniacal. And yes, some of those impulses just might have a little something to do with your mom (and your dad too, for that matter).

  The conflicted feelings and thoughts you’re having about love and sex and the occasionally contradictory actions you’re taking with women are developmentally appropriate and they’ll teach you something you need to know, so don’t be too hard on yourself, but do take care not to get stuck. Not getting stuck is key to not becoming “another distant, difficult, noncommunicative male unsure of his own feelings” who sleeps with every mildly interesting and interested woman he meets. We learn from experience, but no need to keep learning the same things from the same experiences over and over again, right?

  You know what it feels like to say yes to women you don’t ultimately dig, so how about seeing how it feels to say no? What space is filled up by sex with women you aren’t all that into and what fills that space when you don’t fill it with them? If you’d like to become the emotionally evolved man it seems so very clear to me that you are on the brink of becoming, you’re going to have to evolve beyond asking every kitten you meet if she’s your mother.

  She isn’t. You are. And once you figure that out, you’re home.

  Yours,

  Sugar

  TEN ANGRY BOYS

  Dear Sugar,

  I am a mother of two beautiful little girls, ages four and two. They are my reason for being; I love them more than words can express. I didn’t think I wanted to be a mother and often said I had no affinity with children. But, my God, when my first was born, it was like a 360 spinout. I didn’t know what hit me. I fell in love and was under her spell instantly. I bonded quickly with both girls and would call myself an attachment parent. The three of us are very close and we’re a very affectionate family.

  I’m aware of the importance of respecting my daughters’ feelings and teaching them about expressing their feelings, not suppressing them. But lately I have been losing control of my temper, allowing this demonic THING to come out of me during times of stress. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not flying off the handle over trivial things like not finishing dinner or being rowdy at the supermarket. It’s more of a culmination where I’m tolerating one thing after another and then I explode.

  I should also explain that my husband, who is an adoring father and husband, works long and unpredictable hours. This kills him because he misses being with us, but it’s just the way it is. He is what I call a pure heart. He is the man who saved me, because before I met him I was a compulsive negative thinker. He is just pure “good” in the way that you don’t see these days. He’s so gentle and fun and loving with our girls and I’m so grateful for that, but he works long hours, so I’m often a single mom and I feel stretched thin. Most days are good, but when I lose it, it’s like gangbusters.

  The thing that frightens me, Sugar, is that I come from a very volatile family background. Not in the sense that my parents were raging alcoholics or freakishly abusive. They unfairly screamed their heads off and intimidated us and hit u
s a lot. We weren’t allowed to make our own choices and were made to feel very powerless. My mother especially would unleash on my siblings and me, and often it was like negotiating through land mines. You just didn’t know when she’d blow. She would say out loud that she wanted to run away, and on those nights I wouldn’t sleep until she was in bed. I truly did think she was packing her bags. She had major issues that I’ve learned of recently. She comes from a dysfunctional background and other circumstances that will take too long to explain here. I think this caused her to go off on hour-long soliloquies about how her life sucked and her kids sucked, too.

  Okay, so that’s the backstory in a nutshell. I’m a woman with low self-esteem who just gritted her teeth through university, got a pretty good job, married a great guy, have a beautiful family, but now I’m scaring myself because of my temper. I’m doing things that I know are not acceptable. Tonight I grabbed my older girl out of her car seat and threw her onto our front yard. She was lying there in shock and started to cry. The prelude to this was a screaming adult tantrum during the drive home. It’s almost like I can’t come down until I’ve had my hit of rage.

  I feel like I totally suck and don’t deserve to be their mother because I know this is wrong but I can’t stop. Today I asked my doctor for a referral to a therapist so I can start talking through these deeper issues. I’m just scared that I’ll never be able to change, and this temper and need to explode is hardwired in me.

  Yours,

  Helpless Mom

  Dear Helpless Mom,

  I don’t think you’re helpless. I think you’re a good mom who has on occasion been brought to the edge of her capacities for tolerance and patience and kindness and who needs to learn how to manage her anger and her stress. You’re entirely capable of doing that. The part of your letter in which you state that you believe you may “never be able to change” concerns me more than the part of your letter in which you describe flinging your child onto the lawn in a rage. Given your situation as the primary caregiver of two very young children with little practical support from a partner, it comes as no surprise that you’ve lost it with your beloved kids from time to time. I have, for short stretches, parented my own two young children in circumstances very much like those you describe, and it is without question the most exhausting and maddening work I’ve ever done.