My mother has terrible anxiety. Everything is a life-ending disaster for her. I didn’t realise until recently exactly how anxious I am and how much of it is probably emulation. I just thought that perpetually being convinced that something dreadful is going to happen was normal!

(i released them in 1975)

Ariel wasn’t a fish, though! If anything, she lacked the capacity to love Eric because she was 15 and kind of a moron.

I’m kind of glad that I grew up in a kinder gentler time. When our class caterpillars metamorphosed into butterflies I got to take them on vacation with me to Florida and set them free. I still see them from from time to time now that I live here. So no hard choices; just life long friends.

He called Wesley “Ensign Weenie” so he never would have subjected me to that.

Thanks for this essay. I hate the way some guys fling around “Daddy Issues” to explain women’s reasonable responses to selfish or inconsiderate behavior, i.e. “home 1 minute late” is “home an hour you agreed you’d help do this household task.”

Better for you, you mean. It’s extra horrible for the other person. Plus, ghosting or nasty, drawn out breakups aren’t the only two choices. Breaking up doesn’t have to mean horrible screaming matches, especially if you don’t let it devolve in to one. It doesn’t even have to be a particularly long conversation or…

Unless you’re truly afraid they’re going to be irrational (like, boiling a bunny or stalking irrational)? No. You’ve got to suck it up and say “I’m sorry but this is over.” It’s super hard and it makes the person breaking it off feel like shit, but at least the dumpee isn’t spending weeks wondering if he/she is crazy…

Better for whom? It’s not like the emotional fallout doesn’t happen, it’s just that you don’t have to witness it. Generally speaking, if you’re making a choice that leads to another person absorbing a greater share of misery in order that you might be able to absorb a lesser share, it’s not an ethical choice.

It means you need to grow the fuck up, be an adult, and learn how to handle the shit you get yourself into. Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away like you think it does.

take responsibility for your emotions and the affect you have on people - good or negative. if you enter into a relationship with someone you need to act like a responsible human being, no matter how much it makes you uncomfortable. it is deeply disrespectful to ghost someone just because you don’t want to “deal” with…

Her own father was a domestic abuser with an alcohol problem and her mother killed him in self-defense. My guess is that his douchiness felt familiar to her, but at the first sign of drunken violence, she realized her mistake and cut it off.

Again, if Sean Penn behaved like he has in the past (anger, violence, alcoholism), or even showed a glimmer of it, it might be absolutely the best thing. Even if her son was bonding with him. Lots of women leave bad situations with kids in tow and never look back.

Better to cut and run once you’ve realized he’s an asshat.

I choose to believe that he is trolling his mom by dressing as much like her ex Sean Penn as possible. She knows what she did.

I have a dear friend who was ghosted. It was one of the cruelest things I’ve ever seen and it took so much longer to recover that I think it would have from a “regular” breakup.

Before my grandpa became a refugee and immigrated to the US, he was a puppeteer in his home country. He’s second from the left. He was the most amazing, wonderful, funny man I have ever known and 17 years after his death I still miss him every single day.

All bluegrass bands are good names for male genitalia! Earl and Scruggs are great ball names, and then a quick trip to Wikipedia gave me The Beef Seeds, Bob Paisley and the Southern Grass, The Country Gentlemen, and The Cox Family.

Recently though they seem to have turned their back on the banjos and gone for a boring Coldplay-vibe. I got so angry I burned my tweed vest and smashed my unicycle. BETRAYAL, MARCUS MUMFORD.