MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you’ll find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn” columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.

This week Lynn advises Searching in New Hampshire — a 50-ish single mom looking for a man who is willing to date a woman with small children. Where should she look without moving to a bigger town? Read Lynn’s suggestions then come back here to comment!

Opening the lines of communication on March 9, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

There’s a lot said about not pushing people to change and just accepting differences. Yet, good relationships are supposed to involve lots of communicating, which suggests it is for working out differences. How do you know which issues are important and which ones are simply annoying?

— Jonus

Dear Jonus,

Brilliant question. Practical answer: it’s all relative. Here’s a project for everyone wondering the same thing: make a list of all the issues in your relationship. All of them. Even the dumb stuff. Everything. From “We have different styles of handling money” to “”How can she not think that what the President does under his desk is his own business?” to “Ketchup on eggs?” Don’t worry, you’re not going to have to show it to anyone (though Breakup Girl is always curious about these things). Now put it away for a day (you may wish to encrypt it in Navajo). Take it out and add more. Put it away again for a few days. Now take it out one more time, curl up with some chamomile and a highlighter, and read. Now that you see all the issues together in one context, you tell me: which ones are important and which ones are just annoying? My sense is that since you thought to ask this question in the first place, you’ll know what’s worth highlighting.

Love,
Breakup Girl

MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you’ll find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn” columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.

This week Lynn comes to the rescue of Waiting Gamer, who feels a strong connection with a gal that already has a man — yet still encourages him. Should he stay on the sidelines patiently or quit the game? Check out the letter, then tell us your thoughts.

Ask Lynn is the advice column at MSN.com (powered by Match.com), that Breakup Girl does in her mild-mannered secret identity. Same advice, less cape.

In this month’s letter All Confidence is Gone has been shaken by the discovery that her boyfriend has a profile up on an online dating site. Things were going really well, so what gives? But wait, what was she doing on an online dating site? Read the letter at MSN then comment below!

Repeating history on March 9, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I have been played in each and every one of my past five relationships. Now I have hooked up with this girl who seems nice, but I think that it is too good to be true. I want everything to go well but with my luck with relationships it will bomb. How can I be sure that she won’t play me like all the rest? Please get back to me.

— Been Played

Dear Played,

You can’t be sure she won’t play you “like all the rest.” In fact, she definitely will. Because that’s the way you look at relationships.

Listen up. In a strictly statistical sense (and in a world where people get married only once), all relationships but one come to an end. So what you are experiencing, Played, is life. What you are doing to make sense of it all — which is what humans do — is calling it “my luck with relationships.”

Look, people want more than anything in the whole world to be right, right? (Why do you think I write an advice column?) Anyway, you’ve issued the statement “I Am A Person Who Gets Played In Relationships.” And so, in each relationship you get into — whatever its demise — you say to yourself, “There you go. I got played.” Why? Because you (like any normal human) have to be right about the fact that you get played in relationships. Otherwise, you wouldn’t know what to do or , frankly, who you are. And otherwise, you’d have to take a little responsibility instead of blaming “all the rest.” See what I mean ?

So how about issuing this statement: “I Am A Person Who Does His Best to Make Relationships Work.” Now get in there and have a girlfriend instead of sitting around being a bullseye for the bomb.

Love,
Breakup Girl

Well, boil me in beer and ship me to Sheboygan — it’s an update from Chris the Lonely Bratwurst! When we first met Chris, he wondered how he could translate his confidence as an improv performer into smoothness with the laydees off stage, one on one. Later, he wrote back wondering how he could get his all-partnered-up friends to for God’s sake stop calling him The Single One or, at one fateful barbecue, “Chris the Lonely” … yeah.

Here’s what he has to say!

This is Chris, aka Chris The Lonely Bratwurst, aka Chris the Improvising Bratwurst… aka now Chris the Married Bratwurst.

After writing a few times in 2000, getting published in your column, and taking your advice to heart, I figured out a lot of things and actually started dating. In 2003, I met the girl I would eventually marry in 2006. We now live in the midwest and are absolutely loving life.

I can honestly tell you that in the long process I went through to overcome my shyness, you were a difference maker. And I wanted to make sure you know that you can add that tally to the board.

Thank you a million times over, and continue to pass on the good word!

Peace, Love, and Sausages,
Chris

Thank YOU, Chris!

Love,

BG

MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you’ll find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn” columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.

This week’s letter is from a Weekday Dater that can’t wrangle her boy for some weekend lovin’. Is he truly “too busy” for this relationship? Lynn helps her sift through the clues. Read the letter at Happen, then come back here to comment!

Two ships passing on March 9, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I am living overseas and I met a guy over the holidays who was just in town for two weeks. I met him one night and we just clicked. I didn’t want it to happen since I knew he would be leaving, but it did. I always believed that when you find that right guy you will know from the moment you meet him, and with him I got that feeling. It was amazing. Now he is gone but we do keep in touch with e-mail and when he can call he does. The problem is that I know there’s a 95% chance that I’ll never see him again. Now whenever I meet guys I just can’t get interested in them no matter how great they might be. Should I just forget my first love and move on, or should I let time take its toll. I feel so empty without him, though.

— Lonely Without Him

(more…)

MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you’ll find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn” columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.

This week’s entry is from Rave Boy who not only got mixed messages from his ex when she broke up with him, he now hears that she’s been missing him. He wants to know if he should attempt a reunion with his rave girl. Read the letter at Happen, then come back here to comment!

Floating in a vacuum on March 9, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I am currently separated from my wife of six-plus years — have two children (teens) from a prior marriage … one with me, one with her. She has the house — I have an apartment in a remote area. She has a high-power job with the county — I am unemployed. We have been separated for a month. Nothing has been said about the future. I need to know if she wants to be with me in the future???? Should I cut my losses now … and move on — ??? Am almost 50 and don’t really want to go through the dating game again. There are many unresolved issues … but I feel that if the relationship is #1 then everything else will follow suit….???

— Kevin

Dear Kevin,

Okay. I mean this gently: you are definitely lost in space. About whether your wife wants to be with you in the future: well, I don’t intend to be flip, but don’t ask Breakup Girl, ask her. If she does, make a plan. How will you resolve these unresolved issues? What has to happen before she’s ready to have you back in the house? If not, make a plan: how will you handle making this separation official? If she’s not sure…make a plan: when — and how — will she know?

Here’s the danger, Will Robinson. If the relationship “is #1,” then yes, as you say, other things may follow suit. But this is not magic. Thinking “Okay, if I can fix my relationship, then everything else — my job, my future — will be fixed, too!” is about as effective a plan as casting Matt LeBlanc in a scifi thriller. “Other things” “happen” to follow suit as a result of actually vaulting out of limbo, refusing to settle, and taking charge of what’s going on in all areas of your life — not just crossing your fingers, hoping, and idealizing. You may be in space, but you’re not weightless.

Love,
Breakup Girl