On the Individual

On greatness and killing your ego

How do I accept that I won’t ever be great or outstanding? I always thought I had talent, and maybe I’m not bad, but a great many people are far better. I can’t stop thinking this and it’s causing me great anxiety.

Kill your ego, because nothing you do will ever matter. That’s okay, though. It’s not just you. It’s all of us. It’s taken 100,000 years for our species to hump and grunt its way into momentary dominance on this pale blue dot, but nothing we’ve accomplished is all that outstanding when you consider that a Mall of America-sized asteroid is all it would take to turn humanity into the next thin layer of fossil fuels.

Greatness is nothing but the surface tension on the spit bubble of human endeavor. On a geological timescale, our measurable effect on the planet is a greasy burp. We are 7 billion tiny flecks of talking meat stuck to an unremarkable mud ball hurtling through space in an unimaginably vast universe for no particular reason. There is no difference between kings and cripples, my friend. We’re all the same hodgepodge of primordial goo, and the pursuit of greatness is a fool’s errand.

Pursue happiness instead. Find peace in your insignificance, and just let your anxiety go. Learn to savor the likely truth that the sum total of human achievement won’t even register in the grand scheme, so you might as well just enjoy whatever talents you have. Use them to make yourself and others happy, and set aside any desire to be great or outstanding.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t do your best. You should. If you’re talented, by all means, exploit that talent to the fullest extent possible. Just don’t do it for the sake of greatness. Do it for the sake of happiness. If the distinction is a little hazy, that’s because your ego is doing its best to get in the way. Your ego wants to put you on a pedestal at the center of the universe. It wants to convince you of silly things like jealous gods and life after death. Your ego would never allow you to believe that you are anything other than a special snowflake, which is why you have to kill it.

Annihilating your ego is the quickest way to happiness. Embracing your insignificance will make your anxiety suddenly seem ridiculous. You’ll recognize petty emotions like schadenfreude and envy for the childish tantrums that they are. You’ll stop comparing your talents to others’, and you’ll be able to enjoy being good at something without the need to be great.

I keep thinking there has to be more to life than this, but I don’t know what it is or how to find it.

Nah, there isn’t more to life than this. Stop looking for something that doesn’t exist and go do something you enjoy with the time that you have.

Why is it that having a stable relationship in my 20s, not partying or hooking up with other guys all the time, makes me feel like I’m wasting my life?

Take a step back and realize that you’re the type who’d feel like you were missing out either way.

I keep doing the same stupid shit over and over again. It makes me feel terrible but I can’t figure out how to stop. Any advice?

The behavior won’t change until you do. ‘You’ aren’t going to stop, but you can become the person who will.

Coquette, I’m scared I’m not doing what I want, and I’m only doing what I ‘should’ be doing. How do I tell the difference?

Figure out what you want, kid. If you don’t know that, then trying to tell the difference is kinda pointless. In the meantime, just do your best to avoid falling into a day-to-day routine that feels like a mind-numbing hellscape of compromise and drudgery.

Life is much harder than I ever expected.

You’re confusing your life with your circumstances.

On not going places

Hi, Coquette. Honestly, I’m not sure what I’m doing. I’ll be 26 in 2 months, I’ve dropped out of school hmmm… 4 times now? I’m in massive amounts of debt. I currently don’t have enough to make rent next month so I’m taking a bus from my dream city back to my hometown. I just got fired from the best job (on paper, at least) that I’ve ever had. The only serious relationship I’ve had was emotionally and physically abusive (that ended about 2 years ago). And I still don’t know what I want to do with my life, or how to dig myself out. I read a lot new age-y self-help stuff about staying positive and shit because I’ve dealt with depression on and off and it seems to help. But honestly, I just want someone to give it to me straight – is there any way out of this? I wasn’t always this way – I was a star student and the girl that was “going places”, and I just want to be productive and happy and driven again.

What the fuck? Fired from the only decent job you’ve ever had? Dropped out of school four times? New age self-help books? Ugh. You’re a fucking disaster.

You were never going places. You were never productive and driven. Get that public high school pep-talk bullshit out of your head, because you’re remembering yourself as happy during a time when all you were was innocent.

Stop romanticizing the past, because the brutal truth is that you were weak and unprepared. You couldn’t cut it in college. You can’t hold down a job, and now you’ve got a one-way bus ticket back to what I’m guessing is one of your family members’ guest rooms.

Yeah, your life fucking sucks right now. You’re getting your ass thoroughly kicked by the real world, and you’re not even bothering to give me a list of excuses – probably because you know I’d call you out on them.

Please, do yourself a favor. Take all your stupid self-help books down to the local thrift store and trade them in for one decent Tina Turner album. I swear to everything holy that you’ll get more useful inspiration out of one of her B-sides than you will from an entire wall full of positive-thinking books.

I’m serious. Self-help books are for fucking losers, and staying positive for people like you means living in a constant state of denial. Stop blowing sunshine up your own ass. Your life is a steaming pile of shambles, and a bunch of smiley-faced wish-thinking won’t make it any better.

The only way out of your situation is through slow and steady progress. It will not be easy. It will not be fun. You need to come to terms with the inevitability that you are going to have to work a shitty job, and since you’re a flighty mess, you’re going to have to summon all your willpower just to hold that job down.

You don’t get to sulk. You don’t get to whine. You have to be thankful and grateful and show up every day with a good attitude. (There’s your positive fucking thinking for you.) You will do this week-in and week-out for the rest of your life. Maybe you’ll meet a guy who doesn’t treat you like shit, and maybe you’ll squeeze out a rugrat or two, but odds are good that you’re never leaving your hometown again.

And you know what? You’ll be just fine.

You’ll make your way. You’ll have your set of friends. You’ll do some cute local Etsy shit on the side to occupy your spare time, and then one day you’ll wake up and realize that this is all there is to American adulthood. It’s all there ever was.

The whole time you thought you were ‘digging yourself out’, that was actually your life, and sure, it could’ve been easier, and it would’ve been nice to have had more money, but really, on the whole, it wasn’t all that bad.

On advice for the ages

What single piece of advice would you give to a 5 year old? 10 year old? 15 year old? and so on. It’s vague but I’m curious on what you’d find important for someone to know at various stages in their life.

Age 5: Never stop asking questions.

Age 10: Never stop questioning the answers.

Age 15: Don’t take anything personally.

Age 20: Let go of your childhood.

Age 25: Surround yourself with good people.

Age 30: Hustle.

Age 35: Let go of your bullshit.

Age 40: Change while you still can.

Age 45: Delegate your hustle.

Age 50: Let go of your youth.

Age 55: Go do that thing you’ve always wanted to do.

Age 60: Get the fuck out of the way.

Age 65: Let go of your legacy.

Age 70: Give away everything that you can.

Age 75: Stay connected with the world.

Age 80: Let go of everything.

On living forever

It’s interesting that you seem so nonchalant about death, but I was wondering, if you had the opportunity to live forever, would you take it? I keep asking myself the same question, but I can’t decide if things would become boring or lonely or numbing after a time. All the same though, the lack of existing horrifies me. Even if I know it’s my ego making me feel this way, that knowledge doesn’t exterminate my fear. So, would you live forever if you could?

Please. Our brains aren’t even capable of contemplating forever, much less living it. Immortality is such a ridiculous notion to anyone with the slightest sense of scale.

Sure, if science allowed for it, I’d be down to live a few hundred, maybe even a few thousand years in good health, but you can’t really go beyond one or two orders of magnitude from a natural life span before shit starts getting sticky.

I mean, what are we talking about here? Is this thought experiment one in which you’re a living, breathing immortal, magically destined to walk the earth forever as a biological curiosity? What happens when the rest of the species starts to evolve? Or worse, what happens when another mass extinction event wipes out every living organism except for you? (I can hear you wanting to bring up spaceships. Cool your jets, Gene Roddenberry. That line of thinking creates more problems for you than it solves.)

Then again, maybe we’re talking about some artificially reproduced form of consciousness where you exist indefinitely, snowglobed in a Matrix-like world. I suppose that could work too, but then suddenly we’ve wandered off the philosophical deep end.

Besides, what’s so horrifying about not existing? It’s really not that big of a deal. You did it for billions of years before you were born, and that doesn’t make you the least bit queasy. Why, then, are you so worried about the billions of years that you won’t exist after you die?

I don’t know what I want to do with my life and it’s really fucking scary.

Enjoy that fear. You’re lucky to have it.

Why do I have it in my head that if I’m not famous, recognized as an expert, or popular in my peer group, I haven’t lived an important life?

Because you’re a product of consumer capitalism steeped in celebrity culture.

Is it normal to be nervous about life?

Yes. (The trick isn’t to not be nervous. The trick is to not be normal.)

Is this it? Being social, having friends, making small talk, it just doesn’t appeal to me anymore. Not that it ever really did, but I never thought I’d be so bored with everything at 25.

Go DO something, asshole.

I just turned 22 and I hate feeling so old.

You don’t feel old. You just resent having to act like an adult. Toughen up, buttercup. It gets a helluva lot worse.

Why am I so bored of getting out of bed, taking showers, brushing my teeth, eating, socializing, music, television, internet and basically everything? Ugh.

Because that’s your list of basically everything.

On your best interest

My parents are miserable people with no substance. They see my “best interest” as financial security rather than actual happiness. I go to college next year, and they refuse to pay for me unless I major in business, because it’s “stable”. What do I do? I know what I love, and I have passion, but I don’t have the money to defy my parents and pursue it.

Shut the fuck up and enjoy your complimentary college education, you disrespectful, shortsighted little twat. Major in business, minor or double major in whatever else you want, and then go spend the rest of your ungrateful existence following your bullshit passions until you realize how big of an asshole you were for putting quotation marks around the word stable.

On breaking it down

To others, I look like a success. I know what a screw up I really am. I never really live up to my potential, have bad habits that don’t amount to addiction but aren’t healthy, etc.

I’ve gone farther in life than anyone would have expected from my beginnings. I don’t care about being rich or famous. I could make real contributions to the world, but I can’t motivate myself to work hard.

What the hell is my problem? Why can’t I make a reasonable effort in life? The easy answer is that I’m just smart enough to get away with it. I sort of want your existential answer mixed in with a bit of ass-kicking, please.

No problem. Let me break this one down for you line by line:

To others, I look like a success.

Actually, no one cares. Appearing successful is merely part of the identity you’re trying to project.

I know what a screw up I really am.

This is self-loathing or false modesty. Either way, shove it up your ass. We’re all screw ups, and no one’s ever gonna throw you a pity party.

I never really live up to my potential, have bad habits that don’t amount to addiction but aren’t healthy, etc.

Yeah, this is called ‘being human’.

I’ve gone farther in life than anyone would have expected from my beginnings.

What do you want, a cookie? Tell you what. If you put down that yardstick you’re using to measure how far you’ve gone in life, I’ll give you a cookie.

I don’t care about being rich or famous.

Liar.

I could make real contributions to the world, but I can’t motivate myself to work hard.

Sure, sure. You’d be Tony Stark if you could just put that bong in the closet.

What the hell is my problem?

Nothing. You don’t have a problem. You’re perfectly normal. Totally average. That’s what really scares the hell out of you.

Why can’t I make a reasonable effort in life?

Reasonable to whom? Your parents? It’s a bit too late to be bargaining with the cosmos for their approval, isn’t it?

The easy answer is that I’m just smart enough to get away with it.

No, that’s the bullshit answer. The easy answer is that you’re lazy.

I sort of want your existential answer mixed in with a bit of ass-kicking, please.

My answer is that you are nothing special, and that’s perfectly okay. Don’t be so afraid of your mediocrity. Find freedom in it, and just enjoy your life.

On being a grown-up

I’m in my mid-20s, but sometimes I fall into the habit of acting far less mature than my age when I’m around other people. It’s something I find myself regretting later on when I’m finally by myself. I feel childish just asking this question, but is this really what it’s like to be a grown-up? Wasn’t I supposed to get married or something?

Yep. This is it.

Welcome to 21st-century adulthood.

You’ve been out of college a few years now, and you know what it’s like to put in some of that entry-level grind. Maybe you’re waiting tables. Maybe you’re in grad school. Maybe you’re bucking for some junior-level corporate gig. Whatever. Point is, you’re not the new girl any more, but you aren’t management yet either.

Take a good look around at the view, because for better or worse, this is all you can expect out of being a grown-up. Sure, you might squeeze out a child of your own in a few years, but other than that, the American experience isn’t gonna come along and saddle you with any life-changing, pillbox hat-wearing, polyester-blend responsibility that would otherwise clearly indicate you’re not still one yourself.

Sorry, kiddo – it doesn’t work like that any more.

Your state of emotional maturity might seem stunted by previous generations’ standards, but we Millennials have been blessed and cursed with an unusually extended adolescence filled with social networks, smoking bans and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

The befuddled Boomers and bitter Gen Xers before us are quick to talk all kinds of smack about our relative immaturity, but do your best to ignore the negativity, because quite frankly, this is how they raised us. Besides, it’s their turn to be old and in the way, and they should shut up and be thankful that we’re willing to pick up the tab on their ballooning Social Security and Medicare. But I digress. How tacky.

Speaking of attention deficit disorder, our generation’s extended adolescence is part and parcel of a much grander sociological cycle that also includes the crumbling of the institution of marriage and the death of the American Dream. Good times. I’m not suggesting that you owe your individual immaturity to such abstract generalizations, but it’s food for thought next time you find yourself with nothing but a throbbing hangover and morning-after regret.

Marriage was once the threshold to adulthood. It wasn’t just something you wanted to do in a happily-ever-after sort of way, it was also something you needed to do to survive, but shifting gender roles and skyrocketing divorce rates came along and turned an economic necessity into a lifestyle option, and in so doing, unblazed the trail to official grown-up status.

Things are different now. There is no clear demarcation line, but you know what? It’s better this way. Such things were always arbitrary. Forty years ago, a housewife in her mid-20s was no more a grown-up than you are today. She just thought she was, and ultimately her confusion resulted in things like daytime television, ennui and the aforementioned skyrocketing divorce rates.

You’re just as confused, but don’t worry – that’s what your twenties are all about.

I feel like my life has no story yet.

It does. You just don’t know how to tell it.

If nothing matters why do I have to live by the rules? Why should I do anything I don’t want to do?

Because your actions have consequences. You don’t have to live by the rules. You don’t have to do anything at all, but your life will become a miserable shit-storm if you don’t learn how to play along.

I don’t want to get old. Please make it stop.

Growing old is a privilege reserved for the lucky and the strong, so quit your fucking whining and accept the fact that the human condition is a death march of futility and decay.

If “the human condition is a death march of futility and decay,” which I agree with, is there any good reason for a person to have kids?

Most people tend to find purpose in their children, and there’s something to be said for perpetuating the species.

Can I integrate my fragmented, dislodged, self-reflexive post-modern self into a whole person? If yes, do you happen to know how?

Stop being so full of shit.

On normal happy people

Do normal people exist? I don’t mean heteronormative people—just people who are emotionally stable, have no underlying neuroses, and aren’t secretly in a world of pain/self-doubt. Are those people real or are they a universally accepted fiction?

You’re not asking if normal people exist. You’re asking if happy people exist. The answer is yes, of course they do, but people aren’t static. Neither are pain and self-doubt.

Happiness (or normality or stability – whatever you want to call it) isn’t a permanent gift granted to a select and steady few. It may be found more easily for some than others, but it’s all still just a transitory phase.

Every emotional state, stable or otherwise, is impermanent. It’s all a shifting, flowing, ever-changing hot mess of pleasure and pain, neuroses and normative behavior. Happiness is fleeting, but then again, so is suffering.

Yes, there are plenty of people out there today who are emotionally stable with no underlying neuroses who aren’t secretly in a world of pain or self-doubt, but they weren’t all that way yesterday, and it won’t all be the same people tomorrow.

Your path to being among them is in recognizing that it’s not some country club that you get to join by virtue of any birthright or accomplishment. Happiness isn’t something you achieve. It’s something you discover, and it’s a discovery that can be stumbled upon again and again, depending largely on your ability to be mindful in the present moment.

I keep retreating into inactivity and mindlessly surfing the web. I’ve been asleep for at least ten years now. How can I wake up?

There is no grand answer to that question, nor does there need to be. The point is that you keep asking yourself every day.

I try to stay active, eat right, volunteer, but I am so unhappy. Are some people just sad for life?

Quit looking for an excuse to keep your head up your ass, and stop looking for happiness on the back of your box of granola.

Give me some reassurance that my life isn’t pointless.

No. Go get it yourself.

How do you forgive someone?

Let go of all your anger and resentment for them.

I’m scared that no one will come to my funeral.

That means you’re either lonely or an asshole. It’ll be too late to do anything at your funeral, so I suggest you start dealing with your problems now.

On panicking

I am 25 years old, and I live a very “day-to-day” life style. I have absolutely nothing planned for life. I have no savings, no long term goals, no specific dreams of any sort (other than the vague “contentment with life”). When asked what my dreams in life were, I couldn’t even think of a single legitimate answer. I know the future isn’t guaranteed to me, so there is that. I realize I am still relatively young, but is there a certain time when I should start panicking?

Panicking about what? You could die tomorrow or in fifty years. Either way, your dreams don’t mean shit. They never did, except to the extent that they keep you chasing after that vague sense of contentment, however distant and out of focus it always seems to remain.

Make a plan. Don’t. It doesn’t matter. Sure, it couldn’t hurt to start saving a little money. Lord knows when you’ll need it for a college fund or a Disney cruise or a halfway decent DUI attorney.

This is the part where you’re supposed to keep your head down and work. Be productive. Be a good little consumer. Earn. Save. Spend. Have your well-regulated units of fun on the weekend, but nothing too crazy.

You’ll blink and ten years will have slipped away. You’ll still consider yourself relatively young, but the teenagers will already have started to confuse you. You’ll realize that you’ve accidentally fallen into full-on adulthood. Marriage. Mortgage. Kids. Where the fuck did they come from?

Blink again, and you’ll be fifty years old, just as lost and clueless as you are today. You’ll catch that first real glimpse of your own mortality. Still, no reason to panic. The blood tests came back negative. It’s only a minor procedure. You’re going to be just fine.

One more blink and it’s all over, a day-to-day lifestyle stretched out to its inevitable conclusion, and if you’re very lucky, your last day will include good drugs and a comfortable mattress. That’s it. That’s the most you can ever hope for, because even in that final moment, you still won’t have a single legitimate answer. You never will.

So go ahead, make a plan for your life if you think it will help. Have a specific dream if it makes you feel better. Just be sure to work hard. Stay out of trouble. Fill your free time with yoga and book clubs and fantasy football leagues and cable news. Do whatever you can to avoid gazing inward into that gaping void, because the simplest answer to your question is yes.

Yes, there is a certain time when you should start panicking. Yes, that time is right now. Yes, every fucking second of your waking consciousness should be filled with existential terror at your utter insignificance and inevitable annihilation. Yes, the entire human experiment is nothing more than a sick and futile joke.

So yes, go ahead and start panicking. It still won’t do you any good.

Is it reasonable for a woman to want kids, but not to go through the scream-pee-poop phase by adopting a 5 year old?

It’s not a puppy, you fucking twit.

What if nothing makes you happy. Then what should you do?

Stop relying on external sources for your happiness.

Why can’t I stop feeling like I’m nothing but wasted potential?

Because you’re living your life like it’s a preamble to some eventual state of accomplishment.

“…living your life like it’s a preamble to some eventual state of accomplishment” — Oh my God, that’s me! So, if we’re not working toward some eventual state of accomplishment, then what?

Live in the present moment. Duh.

Why do people get stuck in adolescence? It’s shit.

Yeah, but it’s shit without any accountability.

I wear plaid shirts, and have been ever since I learned to dress myself. Does this make me an asshole?

It’s not the shirts.

What do you do when you realize you have become what you fear most?

Either embrace what you’ve become or change.

I’m a 28-year-old woman. Are my late twenties supposed to be this crappy?

There is no such thing as ‘supposed to be’.

Why is it that I know everything that’s wrong with me, and my life, and how to fix it, but I can’t seem to want to change it enough to actually do it. Why?

Self-awareness is not the same thing as self-control.

On overusing apologies

How many chances do you give someone you’re dating who occasionally says awful things? My benchmark for ‘awful’ is pretty low in most people’s eyes, I’m a self-confessed strident intersectional feminist. I think I’m letting myself down by not kicking him to the curb straight away, even if I do really like him. He’s never made the same shitty comment twice and always apologises and seems to learn… So is this a dumb move, a time for patience or a case of me being a controlling bitch trying to force someone to change? Sorry for rambling.

The quality of your life will improve a thousandfold if you stop using apologies as emotional currency.

You demand them from others as a means of control. You offer them unsolicited as a sign of deference. Hell, you even try and sneak them into your language by saying things like ‘self-confessed’ instead of ‘self-proclaimed’.

Apologies are built into the source code of your interpersonal communication skills, and even though you’re a perfect stranger, I can tell it’s one of the most annoying things about you.

This is one of those traits you learned from your mother. Trust me, you will do well to unlearn it. Apologies are not for everyday use. They are meant to be rare. They are worthless if demanded, and they are useless as a substitute for respect.

As for your boyfriend, chill the fuck out. I’ve yet to meet a dude who doesn’t occasionally say awful things. If you can call a guy out on his shit and he never makes the same mistake twice, then that’s really the best you can ever expect.

On various states of ruin

Over the past four years, I’ve been laid off twice and ultimately spent 16 months unemployed. My self-esteem, marriage, finances and career are in various states of ruin. Presently, I’m underemployed and bitter. I don’t know where to begin. How do I engage the second act of my life?

I fought hard to carve out a career in an industry that I always dreamed about working in. While I treasure that achievement, I have no idea where to begin anew. I feel the weight of supporting a family in my thoughts of career change.

On top of that, after 14 years of marriage and two small children, our relationship has crumbled. I feel a tremendous burden of guilt at the thought of putting my children through our divorce. I know what it did to me as a child.

I’ve been in therapy for over a year now and I’m making some progress. I don’t know that I can get her into couples therapy, but I do know it is the only thing that might save us.

I understand that the shitstorm is going on all around us. I’ve just run out of juice to fight it off. What the hell do I do next?

Take care of your kids, man. That’s it. That’s all.

As for your career, there is no difference between the achievement you treasure and the bitterness you feel. They are the same thing. Let that mess go.

While you’re at it, take your self-esteem and shove it up your ass. It doesn’t deserve a spot on your list of things in ruin. Get your ego out of the equation, because it’s in the way of things that actually matter.

As for your marriage, quit whining and take action. Get your wife into couples therapy. Turn ‘for worse’ into ‘for better’. Do it for your kids, and if you can’t pull it off, keep the divorce amicable.

This is your life, dude. It’s not a shitstorm. You’re just in a transitional phase. It’s not your first, it won’t be your last, and you don’t get to run out of juice. Suck it up and keep going. You may not have it easy, but you’ve got it a hell of a lot better than most. Never forget that.

Oh, and did I mention? Take care of your kids, man. That’s it. That’s all.

How can I stop defining myself by who I’m dating and instead find self worth through my career?

You’re wrong twice, babe.

What do YOU think happens when we die?

Our consciousness ceases to exist, and then we rot in the ground for a hot minute. That’s it, dude. Don’t worry. It’s no big deal. You didn’t exist for the first 14 billion years, and you won’t exist for the next 14 billion either.

What gets your furthest in life: Good looks, social skills, or intelligence?

Showing up.

How do I know if everything I am learning is wrong or not?

Factually wrong? Check your sources. Ethically wrong? Check your conscience. Epistemologically wrong? Check your reasoning.

Tell me what to do.

Think for yourself.

I’ve just come out of what has hands down been the worst experience of my life. I will never complain about depression again. Over the past few months I’ve done some solid reckoning with the abyss, and I’m proud to say I see what you fucking mean. It is good just to be alive.

Fuck yeah, it is.

On what’s wrong with you

Dear Coquette,

I’m in my second year of university and for the past while I’ve been feeling drained. I’m doing well in school and I make time to go out for drinks once in a while — I should be having a better time than I am now, shouldn’t I? What’s wrong with me?

Nothing.

I’m 25. I have a full-time job with health insurance, a secretary, an office and a paid-for parking spot in the city. Why am I unhappy? Why do I want to give it up and go back to school? I’m trying to be happy with what everyone wants but I can’t. What’s wrong with me?

Nothing.

I just worked my ass off on a project at work. Lots of people are congratulating me … but when I hear it, it just falls dead. What’s wrong with me?

Nothing.

I don’t know what to do with my life, and I have absolutely no motivation to find out. What’s wrong with me?

Nothing.

Sex is just so complicated and I always get so nervous and psych myself out that I let it ruin the experience. What’s wrong with me?

Nothing.

I can only come in one position. One position. It’s universal — every man I’ve been with, I can only have orgasms in one damn position! What’s wrong with me?

Nothing.

I’m 21 years old and I’ve never been out on a date. I’ve got plenty of friends and I don’t think I’m boring, so what’s wrong with me?

Nothing.

When boys like me, I get weird. I will like them and flirt with them, but as soon as they want to hang out, I freak out and try to come up with excuses not to. What’s wrong with me?

Nothing.

I really really like this guy. But sometimes when we’re together I get really worried. I worry about when we’ll stop liking each other. Why can’t I just be happy? What’s wrong with me?

Nothing.

I’ve never been in love although I’ve dated plenty of guys. What’s wrong with me?

Nothing.

I always think I’ll be happier someplace else. What’s wrong with me?

Nothing.