The Luv Doc: The Price of Admission

Dear Luv Doc,

I've been thinking a lot about an old joke that goes something like this: A guy runs into his doctor's office and frantically says, "Doctor! Doctor! It's my brother! He thinks he is a chicken!" The doctor says, "Well, have you tried telling him he isn't one?" The guy says, "Well, I would, but you see, I really could use the eggs." I think this is how I feel about relationships these days. I am coming out of a breakup with someone who I have been on and off with for the past year or so, and I know we don't work well and she has since moved to California. However, I can't help but think about all the good times we had together – the time we made lobster at her parents' house at the beach, her calling me in the middle of the night to kill a spider, watching her sing for the first time at the Continental Club. You see, relationships just don't make much sense to me, but somehow I keep coming back; I guess because I need the eggs.  – Hiding in Hyde Park

I will freely admit that I am not the sharpest bulb on the tree, but my editor tells me your life sounds like the plot to Annie Hall. Even still, I'm not sure what you're getting at. Is it that insanity is hereditary? Is it that everybody is crazy? Is it that the doctor is clearly not a psychiatrist because he is irresponsibly trying to make his patient feel responsible for his brother's mental wellness? Or – and this is sort of an Occam's razor type deal – is it simply that the brother isn't overly concerned with his brother's mental health issues because he might stand to benefit from them? That last one seems like low-hanging fruit, so why don't I just pluck it from the bunch? We're not trying to win a Pulitzer here, are we?

Now, I know this is going to sound like some sort of overly simplistic, pop psychology type sentiment, but everybody is fucking crazy – not just the chicken people. I am talking about the normies, the ones who seem totally sane: the high-functioning, stable, rational, non-twitchy, seem-to-have-their-shit-together model citizens with good posture, white teeth, and the type of relaxed, casual comfort that only comes from decades of deeply compartmentalized psychosis. You show me someone who seems totally perfect and I will show you someone with a crawl space full of drifter corpses. That's life. I didn't make the rules, Jesus did ... or maybe that guy we can't draw pictures of? The point is, life is about rolling out of bed each day and making the small tweaks to your sense of reality that keep you from staying awake all night obsessing about the obvious, glaring inconsistencies of this astoundingly ramshackle simulation.

Is it surprising to you that relationships are flawed? Fatally more often than not? Does that make them worthless? I don't think so. The flaws are just the cost of admission – the ticket to ride, so to speak. It's totally normal – even healthy – to mourn someone's absence from your life, even if their presence was an absolute trainwreck. In fact, emotionally unstable, overly dramatic people have a real flair for creating stark memories – good and bad. Just because someone isn't totally right for you doesn't mean they can't boil a scrumptious lobster – or sing an amazing Wanda Jackson cover for that matter – and just because one of your relationships didn't work out, it doesn't mean that you're never meant to have a good one. You just have to pay the price of admission.