Bootleg Therapy: An Advice Column #2
On boyfriends who become distant, and the search for self-confidence
Welcome to Bootleg Therapy: an advice column for wayward hearts. Think of me as your virtual stranger at the bar with a raspy voice and a weird scar on their cheek; the truth is in the worm at the bottom of the mezcal bottle. Submit your questions anonymously on brokebutmoisturized.com for a chance to be featured.
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I am confusion
Hey bestie, I have never written to an advice column before, but I am thoroughly confused and stoned enough that it had to be my first time tonight. I have been seeing a guy since the middle of January. In the beginning, he was extremely sweet, doting, responsive— basically all of the things you want in a bf. I was honestly thinking dang this is too good to be true. Everyone told me to go for it. So about a month in, we decide to make things exclusive. He has since gotten pretty distant. Not only that, but his jokes have gotten a little too mean. I wouldn’t say it’s a completely 180 from where we started, but it sure ain’t that fun anymore. I guess I’m just wondering if I’m putting too much emphasis on the fact that we’re exclusive? I know the obvious answer, and what I would ABSOLUTELY tell my friends is, is LEAVE DAWGIE. U LITERALLY DESERVE BETTER. So… Do i bounce or naw
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Dear I am confusion,
In 2017, I fell in love with a leather jacket from Zara. Moto style. Belted. It was a $250 fast fashion dream come true for a girl who didn’t even know what Zara was a year prior. I must have refreshed the page 100 times a day for two months waiting for this jacket to come back in stock, that’s how clearly the vision of myself waltzing into The Barbary like Olive Newton-John in Grease had crystallized. When a size small finally became clickable, add-to-cartable, I felt like I’d won the lottery. Like my life was about to change.
The day the jacket arrived was the day I learned about lust. How unsubstantiated build-up primes the brain for letdown. Tale as old as time, you know? There was nothing wrong with the jacket, but there was nothing right either. I felt the leather in my hands and all the glamorous imagery of dark wayfarers and windblown hair and a freshly lit cigarette vanished. It wasn’t long before I started treating the jacket like shit. Letting it suffocate beneath trenches and puffers on the coat rack. Losing the belt at a bar and not even bothering to go back and check for it. And eventually, dropping it off at the Goodwill Donation Center in a stuffed garbage bag.
You, baby, are no leather jacket sewn by child laborers for pennies. But sir is behaving like someone who just realized he’s the least cool person on The Barbary dance floor. And just like my story has little to do with the jacket, how he’s treating you has little to do with you. Right now, he resents what you represent, which is fantasy become reality. Play thing become girlfriend. He knows this is a certain death to life as he knew it, and instead of entombing his bachelor days, he has taken the easy route: sabotage.
Have you ever watched Mad Men? Are you familiar with the romantic quandaries of one Don Draper? Don Draper charms women into love with his Hollywood looks and New York money, only to disappear into the night, spiraling out on Old Fashioneds in dark bars. I’ll never forget the scene when Don calls Faye Miller to break the news that he can’t see her anymore because he’s gotten engaged to another woman. Faye retorts, “Well I hope you're very happy, and I hope she knows you only like the beginnings of things.”
People tend to put their best foot forward in early stage dating. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s all a front (though it sometimes is), just that it needs to feel like something’s on the line to be summoned. The thing about love is that it’s always on the line, whether we like it or not. We are always one red-hot phone call away from a new life in a new state with a new person. And maybe because you were assertive on exclusivity (as you should be), he doesn’t realize that applies to you, too. So now he’s COMFY comfy. He thinks he has this in the bag. He’s making snide comments about how long you take to get ready. Ignoring your texts while he blows his bonus on Draft Kings. The era of “sweet, doting, and responsive” was short-lived, huh?
Not necessarily.
Here at Bootleg Therapy, we acknowledge that men aren’t as individually flawed and malicious as the world makes them out to be. They are pawns in a system that exploits their strength as means of control. This is to say that in these kinds of situations, it’s better to pull out all stops before writing someone off, because they are victims in their own way, too. Look back on how you felt in those days before sir started seeing you as “the old ball and chain” two months into dating. Is that version of him worth fighting for? (and by fighting I mean coolly hanging back until he realizes something is off and thus reverts to kissing your ass) If the answer is yes, then it’s time for an uncomfortable conversation. One in which you say, “hey, I notice XYZ since we’ve called this exclusive, and if this isn’t working for you, just let me know. I’m not here to threaten your independence. I just think what we share is special.” How he responds will be illuminating one way or the other. I hope for you, it’s the good way.
Hunchback Of Nofuckingconfidence
I’ve struggled with having irl confidence in myself and have been told that I seem timid and anxious in social settings. Even had the opportunity to experience getting yelled at by my mom in middle school when I would get dropped off for slouching when I walked. SO how do I grow my confidence at 23? What do I do to make sure no one can step on me?
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Dear Hunchback Of Nofuckingconfidence,
I want you to think about your life on the most basic level: the music you listen to, the clothes you wear, your go-to takeout order. You make these choices every day, independently and automatically. You’d probably get offended if someone tried to make these choices for you, even though they’re mostly inconsequential and have little to do with who you are as a person.
So, why are you letting other people define the much grander, more vital essence of your being?
You wrote to me (and I’m so glad you did) with examples of how your confidence has been shaped by external forces. People tell you you seem timid and anxious in social settings. Your mom told you you slouch when you walk. You’ve internalized these remarks the way anyone tends to fixate on negativity. I even wrote about all the things people said about my looks growing up and how it’s led to chronic insecurity. But at some point we have to take back our stories.
Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you are right.” How you feel about wisdom imparted by Dead Rich White Men is up to you, but he had a point. Confidence is a self-fulfilling prophecy, i.e. you believe you have none, and so you start acting in ways that reinforce that belief. You think, “I don’t have the confidence to try yoga,” and so you simply don’t take a class, proving yourself right. This stops today.
Through some combination of genetics (nature) and being raised in a loud, goofy home where everyone more or less performed for each other (nurture), my confidence has been building steadily since childhood. Never the smartest or prettiest in the room, I’ve always found my footing in an ability to be unabashedly myself. But I can only walk the walk because I talk the talk. This is where that self-fulfilling prophecy comes in: how you speak to yourself matters a lot. It’s not about distorting your reality with unbelievable flattery; none of that “I’m a bad bitch and no one can fuck with me” corniness. You might be a sad bitch with whom many people can and will fuck. But you are one of one with an uncertain amount of time left, and that is incontrovertible. That is the soil from which confidence grows.
Something I’ve embraced over the years is a sort of radical carelessness. It’s not about not caring how you look or how you come off or whatever. It’s about approaching scenarios that require confidence and asking, “who cares?” in the face of your own cowardice.
Want to start a blog? Sure, who cares if no one reads it?
Want to meet new people? Sure, who cares if we don’t vibe? There are like, 7 billion more to choose from.
Want to start going to the gym? Sure, who cares if I look stupid learning the machines?
The quality that attracts us to confident people isn’t their in-your-faceness. It’s the way they glide through the world with a clairvoyant sense that nothing matters and therefore the only option is to do and be whatever you want. Nobody steps on them because they have an innate understanding that anyone who tries to is just as flawed and chicken shit as the next guy. I believe you can adopt this mentality, Hunchback. But it takes work. Are you willing to work?
What makes me feel confident is taking good care of myself. It helps instill a sense of pride, and we tend to be less concerned with others’ opinions when we’re truly proud of something. It’s ongoing maintenance of the mind, body, and spirit. Everything from our diet to practiced peace through meditation, prayer, going on walks, whatever suits you. Start by taking better care of yourself in a way that is regimented, but doable.
This next assignment is harder. It involves getting real with yourself and deciding what you’re ok with and what can realistically change. You’ve been told you’re awkward. In a viable short-term vision of your future, would being more confident change that? Or would it simply make you more comfortable with it? Perhaps turn it into a quirk that you own as a bit? (Warning: never overdo it with self-deprecation. It just turns out sad and annoying). My partner is introverted and occasionally awkward in social settings. He knows this about himself and is fine with it, says it out loud as easily as saying he has brown hair. This is because he’s confident and knows exactly who he is. These two truths can exist at once. And maybe that route would work for you, too. Finding self-acceptance and letting confidence be the byproduct.
The glorious privilege of your journey, Hunchback, is that you are young. Like, enviably young. At 23, you’re deciding how you show up in the world isn’t what you want for yourself. This takes some people well into middle age (if ever) to realize. And you’re resourceful enough to ask for help. We’ve been conned into believing a lone wolf paradigm of self-mastery, but sometimes it pays to be vulnerable and learn from others. You’ve believed people long enough to shrink yourself. Now believe me that you can prove them wrong.
“Men don’t take time to end things. They insist on a declaration of hate.”
The great Joan Harris of Mad Men said this and it’s perhaps another truth to be applied to confusion’s situation. Great metaphor about the jacket. So spot on.
And for hunchback, I really wish people would stop trying to suggest you should be formed by your mid twenties. There is so much growing and discovery to be done. One of the ways to do so is looking inward.