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Canadian author Lynn Coady has an opinion. This is her edgy but hilarious online advice column exclusive to DearAnyone.com.

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Coady of Conduct:

I'm a 23 year-old woman. I'm told I'm beautiful and intelligent by my friends. The thing is, I usually go out with guys who are not working or going through some difficulties in their lives. I convince myself that the situation will change. Typically, these guys are really in love with me, but my friends think that I settle for less. They always say I can do better and try everything to break up my relationships. I just believe that love is love and you should love a person whether they're fat or jobless, as long as they love you. But now I've started developing those doubts that maybe, just maybe, I can do better. I have been in and out of relationships recently, and I can feel a bit of judgment and criticism rise up in me in situations where it wasn't there before. If this something I should be worried about, or do we just get choosier as we get older?

Feeling a Change in New Hampshire

Just as I have known a lot of drunks, I have also known a lot of neurotic, insecure single women. In fact, the two are not mutually exclusive. But--wait a minute--I just re-read your first line, stating that you are 23 years old. Kid, you're too young to be obsessively second-guessing your every romantic instinct and worrying how your relationships "look" to your neurotic, insecure friends who are no doubt projecting their neurotic insecurities onto you (as, alas, friends will). Trust me, you figure out what works for you as you go along. You sound like you have fine instincts--love is, as you say, love. Every day in this country, a woman makes herself miserable cleaving to a completely wrong man simply because he looks good on paper, i.e. to her neurotic, insecure friends.

Meanwhile, holy crap, do you know what I would do if I was 23 again? I would go out and unearth the shaggiest, laziest, pot-smoking, skateboarding loser I could find. I wouldn't care if (or what) he smokes, if he eats Hostess products for breakfast, lunch and dinner, or how many days in a row he happens to make use of a single pair of undies. I wouldn't care about the fact that he goes around blaming his lack of job prospects on "society, man." Do you know why? Because I'd be 23, and those guys are hot. Go see "Lords of Dogtown," tell me I'm wrong.