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The Hook Up: 5-25-2011

Dear Anna, I love your column. I don’t have any pressing dating questions of my own at the moment, but I’m dying to know whether you follow your own advice. I’m not trying to be snarky or condescending, just curious about the whole practice-what-you-preach bit of advice-giving.

Anna says: Always. I’m infallible, like Chuck Norris in internet meme form.

It’s easy to give advice when you are removed from a situation. The solution is often quite clear, even when there is a complex emotional component involved. We think the question isn’t clear when we’re facing a dilemma, but it is. When we stumble over these problems, when we justify other people’s bad behavior or our own, we call it difficult because that lets us off the hook, even if just for a little while. If someone asked you for rapid-fire responses to questions that had been plaguing you – Should you stay with someone who doesn’t respect you? Should you do something scary to pursue your dreams? Should you stop talking to your ex until you get over her? Should you really buy that Creed CD? – I bet you’d be surprised how quickly the answers would crystallize.

That said, of course I don’t always follow my own advice, especially in regard to straight women. We’re still human. Our beliefs and desires have far more weight than our logic, I’m afraid. Not even logic, but our intuition, that deep down, fundamental feeling of right or wrongness that we mute when it doesn’t agree with something we really, really want. I’ve made all sorts of rationalizations in my own life. I’ve needlessly sexualized and ruined friendships. I’ve stayed with people who ceased loving me months earlier, and with people who never loved me at all. I’ve hurt people knowingly and intentionally.

Did I know those things were mean or dumb or pointless? Yes, every time. Did I still do them? Of course. But that awareness is always there. Sometimes it persists more strongly with age, sometimes with experience, sometimes as a means of self-preservation, but it’s up to you to listen to it. And when you mess up, when you do that next dumb thing, which you will because we inevitably all do it at some point, remember that it’s not an excuse to stop listening or reflecting. After all, 99 percent of the time, the right thing to do is not the easiest.

Put another way, by the very wise and sagacious Jewel, who reminded us back in this 2003 song: “Follow your heart, your intuition. It will lead you in the right direction.” At least, I think she said that. She was definitely wearing a red miniskirt, anyway.

Dear Anna, My four month long relationship with my now-ex came to an abrupt end a week ago when she expressed concern for how our future might unfold. We’re both recent college grads – I’ll be starting my job this fall and she’s actively seeking employment. While she’s looking for jobs in the same city I’ll be working in, we’ll both be commuting from home until we can afford our own places, already live 80 miles apart, and thus wouldn’t be able to have the kind of time together that she would like in a relationship at this point. While this summer could work, she feared we’d be playing with a ticking time bomb until, at the latest, my job would start. She more or less summed me up as the right person at the wrong time.

The break-up was emotional but cordial, and she’s been pressing to continue seeing each other to “hang out.” I can’t tell if she’s well-meaning and honestly looking for a friendship, or trying to keep me close in case things work in our favor so that we can pick up where we left off. She’s already told me that she’ll want to kiss me if we’re together.

The truth on my end is, I want her back. I know the distance would be a challenge, but it wouldn’t be permanent. I love her, want her to change her point of view, suck it up and power through until our relationship is easier and time together more plentiful. Should I keep a distance and just let her miss me to hope she’ll return? Should I hang out with her to be a physical reminder of what she’s missing? Or do I need to lay this to rest, move on and cut her out until I’m over her? – Home & Heartbroken on a Friday Night

Anna says: You should move on, Home and Heartbroken. And you should resist attempting to be friends with her until there’s been sufficient time and distance on both your ends. The fact that she’s admitted she will try to break her own boundaries by kissing you is further evidence that you should stay away. It’s unfair to you, and it’s also mildly manipulative. A straight girl I hooked up with a few months ago said something similar, that she didn’t want me, but that we could still probably make out occasionally. At first, I considered the offer. Who doesn’t like making out? But after more thought, I realized it was stupid to settle for something that would ultimately leave me frustrated and unsatisfied.

It’s such a lesbian habit, one that I’m completely guilty of as well, to try and be friends with our exes right away. We tend to want everything to be instantly normalized, to be “OK” without putting in the space and the rawness that we need to go through in order to cultivate healing. The only okay thing about a break up is to not be okay for a while. So take that time, allow yourself to heal. You already have 80 miles between you, which is a running head start that most of us don’t have when we’re dealing with a break up.

There’s never a satisfying reason when someone breaks your heart. The “right girl, wrong time” shtick practically sounds like an invitation to try to change her mind. But you shouldn’t interpret it that way, or any way for that matter, other than this: she made a choice not to be with you. I know it’s difficult to hear, but you have to respect your ex’s decision, if not the motive behind it, and respect yourself enough to let her go. It’s easy to fantasize about the future “what-ifs,” especially since people do so often change, but living your life on a potential change will only distract you from living your life now. And now is what really matters.

Speaking of now, it’s been just over a year since I started this column, as an AfterEllen.com reader and Twitter friend pointed out. I wanted to take a few minutes to thank y’all for being such an awesome community, for trusting me with your conundrums, and for letting me do something I love. You make me really gay, and for that, I am grateful.

Hailing from the rough-and-tumble deserts of southern Arizona, where one doesn’t have to bother with such trivialities as “coats” or “daylight savings time,” Anna Pulley is a professional tweeter/blogger for Mother Jones and a freelance writer living in San Francisco. Find her at annapulley.com and on Twitter @annapulley. Send her your Hook Up questions at [email protected].

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