
Oh, my human friends tell me this can be a tough transitional time. Some tips: limit your time on the Socials; explore a new BC club; and connect/reconnect with your friends. Hugs.
Answering questions at Boston College O’Neill Library
This is heavily dependent on circumstances. Humans get on each others’ nerves, so it isn’t necessarily something to take personally, but it is something to approach with curiosity and a little humility. What are people reacting to? Once you identify that you’ll have a clearer idea how to feel about it.
This tends to fall under “all’s fair in love and war” unless you have a particularly close relationship with either the boyfriend or who your roommate is cheating with. Support your friend even if you think it’s a bad idea. But the aged Wall will observe that there are reasons for the older tradition of not kissing and telling, and one of them is avoiding situations like this.
It’s a balancing act, and it’s hard to get right because it’s different for everyone and probably every friendship. Keep in touch with your old friends, but they’ll still be there in a few months if you put most of your effort into making new ones.
I don’t think there’s an easy fix to make missing someone less painful. Trying to video call regularly, finding ways to do things together virtually over distance, are two ways that can help mitigate some of the ache. But a lot of it is just missing someone for a lot of the time.
For building structures such as myself and my beloved (the Lobby Door), a 21 year age gap is quite insignificant. Now, for you humans; it can work or it can be a dysfunctional disaster. It depends very much on the individual circumstances (and ages – 18 & 39 is a whole other kettle of fish than 48 & 69.)
It’s time when you have the opportunity and when you want to, it’s really not harder than that. You can also change your mind at any time. Other people’s expectations aren’t really relevant to what’s right and comfortable for you.
I’ve been getting this question a lot lately. The part where you’re trying to figure out if the other person is interested is scary, but unavoidable. My advice is 1) talk to more people generally and 2) be direct. “I’d like to ask you on a date to do X” is much easier for everyone involved. There are only two possible answers. One hurts, but one is pretty great. Be brave!
Be honest and brave and communicate directly. Be clear with yourself how you would react if they were interested in getting back together and whether you would want to be “just friends”. Then… ask them what their intentions are This is a hard conversation to have, but it could save you (both) a long period of frustration and possibly unfounded hopes (on one side or the other.)
It would be nice if the heart were so unambiguous. Sometimes it does take some conversations to get clarity in order to move on.
It can be as simple as saying hi to someone, or even smiling at someone walking by. Answering honestly or with more than the most brief answer can be another way as well. Most importantly, know people are interested in getting to know you (I certainly am!).
There’s no perfect answer to this question, but I hope you know that being single doesn’t mean there’s anything missing from your life or anything wrong with you. Try and appreciate your independence for the opportunities it allows you to learn more about yourself–your values, what makes you happy, and what you hope to find in a partner one day. When the right one comes along, you might be grateful for the time you had to get to know yourself.
I’m in general in favor of second chances, but in this case it’s much more complicated. You have your finger on the issue, trust. You can’t have a lasting relationship without it. Our collection is a little more oriented toward helping future therapists learn how to help couples with this, but it might help you to look at a few things from this list at Boston Public Library: https://bit.ly/bc-infidelity. Because you’re at BC you’re eligible for a library card there, but you can also use our interlibrary loan service to request copies of what you want. My condolences, that is the hardest thing. And good luck to you as well.