I Met the Girl of My Dreams and I’m Already Planning Our Future

Fabled Readers! Because the Ask E. Jean column is in its twenty-fifth year, we’ve been occasionally updating answers from the archives. It required two years for this handsome chap to follow my advice—and look what happened:

2016 LETTER: I’m trying to figure out the logic of women—of one particular woman—looking for the underlying formula, as it were. I learned to do the things Miss H loves to do (play hockey). I was always the gentleman around her. So why does she date total douchebags?

—East Coast Scientist

2016 Answer: You are a scientist; let’s do a little analysis. Ready? First, list the chief characteristics of a “total douchebag” (you may also include features of a complete asshole if you wish—the two are often mistaken for each other). Second, review your list and put a check by each element of douchebaggery that you yourself possess. Third, total your score.

If you have no check marks—zero douchebag features—forget it. She’ll never fall for you. Dickwads are her dish. However, if you have a streak of bad boy (an entirely different species), if you are not “always the gentleman,” you strike me as having enough vanity, ambition, and good looks (I Googled you—love the hockey uniform!) to pursue her.

—Ravishing Regards, E. Jean

2017: SILENCE 2018 Letter (TWO DAYS AGO): Good afternoon, E. Jean! No, Miss H did not choose me, but I have better news! I was stuck at Boston Logan overnight, and I walked past a young lady near the United check-in area. It was 2 a.m. At first, I didn’t really notice her, but she giggled and I went up to her, and, long story short, she came to visit me in New Hampshire, and I will visit her in Texas in a couple of weeks! I am very content with her, and she and I will work hard to make a future with each other! Thank you for the advice you gave me two years ago! It was spot-on!

—East Coast Scientist

2018 answer: Wait. Can this be you, Scientist, old boy? Can this be the man who’s so busy looking for the “logic of women” that he would almost walk past his future girlfriend in an airport—yet you “went up to her”? I am ecstatic! But please do not “work hard” at making a future with her. The secret is not “working,” it’s playing. Plus laughing at each other’s jokes. Anyway, I’ve often noticed that the harder people work at a relationship, the less sex they have.

PS: My advice to you about not being “always the gentleman” was horrible. It was bad advice before the #MeToo revolution, and it is worse now. I deserve to be chastised for the rest of my life, or at least for the rest of the week.

This letter is from the Ask E. Jean Archive, 1993-2017. Send questions to E. Jean at [email protected].