Appearing here Wednesdays, Turning The Screw provides existential crisis counseling for the faint of heart. “Because the heart is a lonely hoarder.”

Polly,

There seems to be an abundance of advice-seekers who are 25 and terrified of being alone or 31 and think they’re elderly. What I don’t see is anyone over 40 who doesn’t have their shit together. Is it that they are too busy being surrounded by loved ones to read blogs? Or are they too downtrodden to bother?

There is a perception that young people are bundles of misguided anxiety and that time will sort everything out. And yet everything in my experience contradicts that. (It probably doesn’t help that I just finished reading The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne. Why did no one stop me?!)

After a 13-year relationship, I find myself single — and 40. It’s not a divorce because I was never married. And marriage is not really the issue. Ninety percent of my friends are unmarried with no kids, and I’ve attended exactly two wedding in 20 years, both of them my sister’s (neither involved bridesmaids or a white dress). The issue is that I’m going on month four of what’s meant to be a year-long separation (no illusions there) and instead of having fun with my new freedom like I had envisioned (the separation was not my idea, but I wasn’t 100% opposed to it as a rut-breaking tactic), I’m miserable and panicky.

The problem is that what worked at 27 doesn’t at 40. Yet a good number of the women I know are still living as they always have. I don’t have good relationship role models. We like to stay out late, go drinking, be marginally irresponsible (which is all fine since we are wage-earning grown-ups) behavior that is all in line with the hipster punch line of a Brooklyn neighborhood that we live in. But a middle-aged version of “Girls” is not only horrifying, it’s not sustainable. I’m hyper-aware of the growing disconnect between my insides and my outsides and I feel queasy about turning into the oblivious old lady at the bar.

This seems to bother only me, though.

(The ex, who was age appropriate, also thought I was irrationally hung up on being older than everyone around me, but I don’t think men feel this as acutely. Case in point: I often see aging silver-haired dudes at shows, but never their female equivalents.) Nearly every female I know dates younger and for the time being it’s feasible since we could get away with shaving five years off our ages and no one would question it. But I don’t want to lie, plus I have a hard time with men who used Facebook as teenagers or were in grade school on 9/11. And the point is moot, because I’ve hit the invisible to the opposite sex point. At first I thought I was simply annoyed by youngsters dancing to Bell Biv Devoe because mindless nostalgia rubs me the wrong way (I learned to never trust a big butt and smile long ago). But then I wondered if I was more upset that youngsters who dance to Bell Biv Devoe have no interest in me.

I feel like all the grown-ups got married, never go outdoors after 9 p.m. and socialize by throwing dinner parties in their brownstones with reclaimed wood tables, small batch bourbon in Mason jars and kids playing in front of the chalkboard-painted fridge. Must I await the Dadurday of reckoning to score a viable divorcee?

The obvious solution is to try and meet people outside of bars — volunteering, church groups, poetry readings, whatever — or at the very least expand neighborhood boundaries. But even though I’m chatty (and long-winded, obviously), I’m extremely introverted and never start conversations with strangers first. Alcohol helps, hence the bars.

I’m starting to believe that at some point “there’s someone for everyone” is as untrue a platitude as “do what you love and the money will follow” or as annoying as people who claim to have lost 30 pounds once they stopped stressing over what they ate. I know I’m still new at this but I’m already feeling that I could just as well become a hermit in my new paycheck-eating apartment, ordering Thai food off Seamless and mourning the loss of Enlightened until I eventually keel over.

Are some people just meant to be alone? All my friends are, and now I am too.

Older, Not Wiser

Dear Older Not Wiser,

Back in the mid 90s in San Francisco, you’d see advertisements all over the place for Linda McCartney’s Meatless Frozen Entrees. The ads seemed to loosely refer to a food product of some kind, but all you knew for sure was that the “food” in question 1) lacked meat, 2) was frozen, and 3) was for some reason associated with the wife of the man who wrote “Hey Jude.” Say whatever you want about that lunatic Judith Hearne, but the woman did have passion. And if she put out a food product, you can be goddamn sure she’d tell you all about what was in it.

While I very much enjoyed your letter, it’s the 700-word equivalent of something meatless and frozen. Instead of telling me what you have and what you want, you describe what you don’t have and don’t want, while outlining what everyone else has and wants. The fact that you’re on a year-long hiatus from a 13-year relationship fits right in with the wishy-washy Nowhere Man feeling of your letter. You portray yourself as passively standing still against a background of action: Your partner suggests a break and you agree to it, vaguely hoping to break out of a rut. Your friends go out drinking and dating younger guys and you agree to it, vaguely hoping that it will stop feeling quite so wrong to you. You imagine married people sipping bourbon out of Mason jars at their dinner parties, but insist that marriage is not the issue. As bad as Judith Hearne might make you feel, she at least took action, installing herself in that inherited house in the country, then leering at the handsome young lad tending to the grounds. (Correction: I’ve confused Judith Hearne, the old-maid antiheroine of The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne with Rachel Waring, the old-maid antiheroine of Wish Her Safe At Home. I strongly recommend both books, though!)

Hearne only veers off the path to happiness when she starts to protect herself from other people’s opinions and ideas by retreating into her own imagination. Eventually, she vastly prefers fantasy to reality. Every time she’s faced with a choice that might bring her back into the real world with real people, she condescends and retreats to the safety of her delusions, Don Draper-style — except without the expensive suits and the sparkling cocktails.

This year-long trial separation is a terrible thing for you. It means that you’re forced to experience all of the downsides of being alone — paying your own rent, worrying about what your ex is doing, haunting a half-single life while wondering if it’s your permanent fate or not — without any of the advantages. Trying on singledom for size is like “experimenting” with cohabitation. So much of the experience is defined by testing, by being on the fence, by wondering how things will go without making any concrete commitment, that it’s tough to get an accurate sense of what really being single or really making a commitment might look like. I’m not saying people should court briefly then marry. I’m just saying that it’s often much healthier to take clear action: commit to a partnership (which can be done without marrying) or don’t move in together yet. Break up or don’t. “Trial periods” tends to mean that one person has their cake and eats the other person’s cake, too.

Will you be happier alone? I don’t think you’re gathering new information on that front right now. Instead, you’re living in this limbo state that’s sucking all of the passion out of your life. As a result, you aren’t passionate about anything — not your ex, not yourself, not your friends, not the idea of other possibilities, nothing. In order to change that, you have to form a vision of your life that makes sense to you. Going out to bars all the time and/or dating someone much younger doesn’t make sense to you, so factor that out of the equation right now (instead of dragging your ass out night after night in order to avoid facing yourself).

Now tell me what does sound right. How do you want to be living a decade from now? What aspects of that picture are mandatory (must own your own place, must be creatively productive, must own a pet, etc.)? What aspects are optional? Do you want to get married? Do you want to have kids or adopt? Do you want to travel? Do you want to be involved in activities that don’t include drinking?

You need to decide what you want and set out in pursuit of it. If it’s really important for you to find someone and fall in love, that’s all the more reason to call an end to this so-called hiatus right now. You gave it 13 years. If your ex wants to make a passionate show of staying together (or you do), fine. Short of that, you need to call it quits and move on. The right plane can’t land if the wrong plane is blocking the runway.

Once you’ve broken up officially, then it’s time to commit to some activities that don’t feel lame to you. No one is going to make you start conversations. You just show up and take part, that’s all. We garrulous drinker types always imagine that every interaction depends on our performing for a live audience. No. Regular people just do shit (volunteer, join jogging clubs, throw poker nights) and slowly become more familiar to each other until conversations naturally happen.

You’re never too old to have the life you want. Truly. But you do need to know what you want first, and — maybe even more importantly? — you need to be able to say it out loud, without shame. I don’t know that you’re surrounding yourself with the kinds of people who find these sorts of direct statements socially acceptable. Is there a dearth of passionate talk among your peers? Do they mostly discuss what they don’t like, what they’d never stand for, who they would never want to be?

Fuck the meatless frozen entrees of the world. It’s time to be something, to own it, to announce it to the world without apology. Fuck the hipster hedging, the cleverness, the hiding. Stand up and tell the world what you’re made of, tell them what you fucking want — dearly, desperately, from the depths of your soul — and don’t accept anything less.

Polly

Dear Polly,

I will caveat the following by saying I’m not sure my question is exactly in the ‘existential/life’ category, but as a longtime reader (first-time writer!) I appreciate your generally incisive observations and hope you help me achieve some self-discovery through a different issue than those with which you usually deal.

So I’ve been dating this girl for 1.5 months. She is fun and cool and is super-cute and in great shape and is equally content dressing up for a night on the town as she is cooking at my apartment late into the night, laughing at my terrible jokes, and generally being excellent company. Extremely compatible in issues philosophical, religious, blah blah blah. There’s just this one thing. She has upper lip hair.

I classify it as ULH because it’s certainly not a full blown mustache — like maybe 10–15 hairs, short, barely visible by unaided sight, and then only if you seek for them desperately with a suspicious and jaundiced eye. I only really notice/am bothered by them when we’re making out — maybe I have sensitive lips or something, but I can’t escape the tingly tickle of these uninvited face-guests. It’s gotten to where it’s tough to focus on the pleasure quotient of kissing her because all my mind can do is scheme to avoid the bristly patch. As far as I can tell, she is either completely unaware of her ULH or is in denial.

I think it’s too early in the relationship and, given her pluses, is far too minor an issue to bring up now. But how and when should I? It seems like it’d be SO EASY to fix, and it’s such a minor roadblock it seems silly to not bring it up, BUT, if I were a girl, I feel (is this unjustified?) like I would be utterly mortified to be confronted about this, especially by a man I like and who I want to like me.

Am I a terrible boyfriend for even considering telling her about this? Am I being way too sensitive about her feelings? I wax my back and upper arms regularly (and did so before I met her) out of basic consideration for the fairer sex, and I am your average/not that sensitive/relatively brutish male. I’ve found women to be A LOT more touchy about stuff like this, so I’m kind of embarrassed for her to even have noticed it. Conversely, I, personally, would be deeply thankful and ecstatic for a girlfriend to say ‘Hey, you need to manscape down there a bit’ or ‘lose the scraggly top-of-foot hair, it grosses me out’, because its a super-easy way to make her happy. I feel like the rules are different, though, going the other way between sexes. Am I just nitpicking here? I need a wise woman’s help!

Thanks in advance –

A Hair Too Far

Dear AHTF,

Sweet Jesus. Of course I think you’re nitpicking. You youngsters won’t be happy until you’re as hairless as prepubescent aliens. Your shiny Caucasian bodies don’t scream “sexy” to oldsters like me; they scream Lair of the White Worm.

Still, I did just instruct LW1 to stand up and tell the world what she wants, without apology. And obviously this lip hair thing is messing with your passion in a big way. Even so, I don’t love how you wrote that you’re “kind of embarrassed for her.” She has no reason to be embarrassed, except for her embarrassment at dating a hairless white worm like yourself.

Anyway, if you really feel like you’re in this for the long-ish haul and you want to cultivate a nice, honest dialogue about what works and what doesn’t work for you, I would find some really humble way to tell her about YOUR problem. For example:

“This is really embarrassing for me to say, but lately when we kiss there’s something tickly going on… and I keep shaving my lip smoother but it’s still there. I feel like there might be some tiny invisible hairs on your lip that are maybe a little bristly? I mean honestly, I feel like an idiot saying this because I don’t SEE anything, plus now you probably realize what a ridiculous, exacting metrosexual fuck-wiener I am, which means you’re likely to dump me soon….”

Sorry for spelling it out, but I felt pretty sure you were going to fuck it up otherwise. (Yes, you can skip over that last part. That was just for you and me, baby.)

Anyway, if I’m being honest, my husband’s really bad haircuts and terrible, terrible pants downright haunted me when I first met him. It was like covering a really excellent steak with ketchup. I hinted here and there, but eventually, I had to speak plainly. Talking about it made me incredibly ashamed, though, because I knew these things were bothering me more than any healthy, normal person would ever be bothered by them.

Come to think of it, it wasn’t really about the haircut or the pants (although they were both truly terrible). It was about voicing something minor and stupid that mattered to me nonetheless. It was about admitting that he wasn’t perfect, and that sometimes, the things he said or did (or wore!) were going to bug me, and, me being me, I wouldn’t be able to keep my strong feelings to myself. So, when he reacted confidently, laughing off my pickiness without taking it personally, it was a good sign that the deeply irritating core of my bossy personality wasn’t going to cause him to break up with me. A miracle, truly!

Brand new relationships include all kinds of seemingly shallow and foolish trials, I guess. Who should I be to judge? (In contrast to the shallow and foolish trials of 13-year-old relationships, which are easily eliminated by breaking the fuck up already.) You sound like a nice enough guy. That said, though, if you successfully encourage your lady to wax her upper lip (or even just bleach it, which will make the hairs invisible and far less bristly), and then you find something else that’s unacceptable about her personal hygiene? Well, then you should probably give up on real woman and turn to the smooth, quiet, disinfected solace of blow-up sex dolls instead.

Polly

Are you longing for smooth, quiet, disinfected solace? Write to loud, filthy Polly for pointers on where to find it!

Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) is The Awl’s existential advice columnist. She’s also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead 2011). She blogs here about scratchy pants, personality disorders, and aged cheeses.

Disturbing top photo by Shane Hirschman. Caterpillar photo by Donald Hines.

Is your mind your friend? That depends. Would your friend constantly remind you that for all its relative brevity life is still full of suffering, anguish and a nagging sense of impending doom which never quite goes away no matter what you try to do to distract yourself and is actually a fairly accurate warning that eventually things are indeed going to go wrong and when they do they will go wrong very badly, in the most painful and damaging way possible, and even if you somehow manage to survive it you will be left a scarred and hollow shell whose remaining time on earth will be spent licking wounds, making unaccepted apologies and praying for a speedy and merciful end to it all? If so, then sure, your mind’s your friend. But here are 10 signs that it might not be.

“And here I am today at Howard, a historically black college. Here I am, a guy who once presumed to discuss a section of the Civil Rights Act. Some have said that I’m either brave or crazy to be here today. I’ve never been one to watch the world go by without participating. I wake up each day hoping to make a difference. I take to heart the words of Toni Morrison of Howard University, who wrote: ‘If there is a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.’”
 — If you’ve been waiting for the sketch comedy bit where Rand Paul gives a hilarious speech at Howard University, today’s your day.

“[N]ew research suggests that the shape of a man’s face can indicate whether he is likely to be a good sportsman. The study, carried out at Goldsmiths, University of London, found that Japanese baseball players with short, broad faces are more likely to display acumen on the sports field. It also showed that sportsmen with long faces are less likely to be successful baseball players.”

by Megan L. Wood

Brought to you by Jameson Black Barrel. Click here for more information.

The Brooklyn-Queens Crosstown Local G train is the bane of many weary commuters existence. With twenty stops in Brooklyn and Queens, the G train is the only subway line in New York that doesn’t run through Manhattan. But let’s celebrate the G, it brings friends from Carroll Gardens to Williamsburg and gets you to Target! We put together a list of our favorite bars that are easily accessible from the G train, but there are a few things to remember:

*Attempting to complete the G Train Bar Crawl in one day and drinking alcohol at every stop would be dangerous and stupid. Don’t do that.

*The G is a short train, with only four cars, so it stops in the middle of the platform. You may have to run up or down the length of the platform to catch it. Usually, this is annoying and confusing to tourists, but we’re celebrating the G train so lets call it fun.

*This bar crawl makes the most sense economically if you have an unlimited subway card, or else you’re looking at shelling out $2.50 per ride that could be spent tipping cute bartenders.

*Drinking on the subway is not legal and it annoys other passengers.

Let’s start from the south and work our way through Brooklyn and up into Queens.

Church Ave Stop
Shenanigans Pub
802 Caton Avenue

Some people might call this a dive bar because the drinks are basic and cheap and there aren’t a lot of frills. I think it’s just a typical neighborhood bar where the employees are friendly and the vibe isn’t fancy because the neighborhood is working class — sometimes you just want a tap of Budweiser without being ironic about it. There’s an outdoor patio, a jukebox, and if you hang out long enough the bartender will probably buy you a drink.

Fort Hamilton Parkway Stop
Hamilton’s
2826 Fort Hamilton Parkway

Hamilton’s is a pretty new (and arguably, very needed) addition to Kensington and the only place in a several block radius with wine carafes or flourless chocolate tart on the menu. They have 18 beers on tap and a happy hour Monday through Friday.

15 Street-Prospect Park Stop
The Double Windsor
210 Prospect Park West

One guy I know called the crowd at The Double Windsor Williamsburg’s B-team. He was a jerk. This gastropub with communal seating is right off of Prospect Park and serves craft beer and decent food. They even do happy hour on the weekend, which is key to remember.

7 Avenue Stop
Bar 4
444 7th Avenue

Another bar with a Saturday night happy hour, but this one does karaoke and live music on top of that. The whole place looks and feels more like a living room that happens to have a bar inside it than the other way around, which makes for a cozy and comfortable ambience.

4 Avenue/9 Street Stop
Skylark Bar
477 5th Avenue

Skylark Bar has a variety of beer plus a shot specials, which always have a special place in my heart. The Dirk Diggler gets you a Coors Tall Boy and an ounce and a half of George Dickel whiskey. The decor is kitschy in a way that was super popular five years ago, when everyone thought it was fun to get drunk sitting on the same furniture you can find in your grandparent’s den. Or maybe you guys call it a rumpus room, same difference.

Smith-9 Streets Stop
Closed until April 2013 according to the MTA. I’m pretty sure the MTA thought the Maya apocalypse would happen and when it didn’t they thought, oh damn, now we have to actually finish construction on Smith-9th Street.

Carroll Street Stop
Brooklyn Social
335 Smith Street

Like a casino in Las Vegas, it’s incredibly easy to lose all track of time and your spatial awareness inside the darkness that is Brooklyn Social. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, unless you have children or pets at home who depend on you. The cocktails are the elaborate kind and the bartenders are attractive. Unlike a casino in Las Vegas, Brooklyn Social does not accept credit cards. Once, the bartender gave me a free drink because I did not have any cash and was clearly distressed about the whole situation.

Bergen Street Stop
Bar Tabac
128 Smith Street

So maybe it’s time to eat something? No? Ok, then order from their large selection of French wines or infused liquors and listen to the jazz band that plays here regularly. Maybe you should eat something though, just a bite of moules frittes? On an unrelated note, my friend left a bag of brand new bras from American Apparel here and the waitstaff kept them there until she realized what she’d done and came back to collect them, even though the waitress probably wore the same size and easily could have stolen them. Classy, Bar Tabac, very classy.

Hoyt Street-Schermerhorn Street Stop
Hank’s Saloon
46 3rd Avenue

Hank’s Saloon has live band karaoke so if you’re brave enough to do that kind of thing, this is your place. They also have free pool nights and local mystery beer on tap for four US dollars.

Fulton Street Stop:
Mo’s Fort Greene
80 Lafayette Avenue

If you’re lucky enough to be at Mo’s for the monthly Mo Betta Burlesque, then right on. If not, you’ll still like it in here. They have an entire wall dedicated to 80s album covers and five dollar margaritas on the weekend.

Clinton-Washington Avenues Stop
Brooklyn Public House
247 Dekalb Avenue

Brooklyn Public House never gets too wild and crazy. You can sit down in a booth and order a drink and a bite from a patient employee and maybe sober up if you need to.

Classon Avenue Stop
Rustik Tavern
471 Dekalb Avenue

First Wednesdays of the month have free comedy shows. Happy hour will get you a three dollar glass of house wine and there’s a patio when the weather is nice.

Bedford-Nostrand Avenues Stop
One Last Shag
348 Franklin Avenue

This place used to be called Sweet Revenge, but now it’s called One Last Shag and is still a tiki bar that stays open until 4am seven days a week and serves three dollar mimosas and bloody marys on weekend nights. A dance floor and a backyard round out the all around awesomeness.

Myrtle-Willoughby Avenues Stop
Brooklyn Stoops
748 Myrtle Avenue

You are now in the neighborhood of Bedford Stuyvesant, a place that’s lousy with front stoops. If you don’t have your own, you can hang out in the wooden patio behind Brooklyn Stoops and play beer pong while you eat french fries topped with bacon and cheese.

Flushing Avenue Stop

There aren’t any bars off the Flushing Avenue Stop. You could walk way over to The Wreck Room (940 Flushing), but its probably best just to skip this stop. Or open the only bar in the area and I’ll visit you there.

Broadway Stop
Zamaan Hookah Bar and Restaurant
349 Broadway

If you’ve made it this far, you’re in South Williamsburg. Use Zamaan Hookah Bar as an opportunity to take a break from drinking and try a house blend of pomegranate, blueberry, and jasmine flavored hookah. Outdoors, they have a patio with a retractable roof and heat lamps in the winter.

Metropolitan Avenue Stop
Metropolitan
559 Lorimer Street

Skeeball, you guys. Metropolitan has skeeball. I guess you could play pool or buy happy hour drinks and take adorable photo booth pictures, but I think all of that just detracts from time to play skeeball.

Nassau Avenue Stop
Enid’s
560 Manhattan Avenue

After entering Enid’s you’ll wonder two things: what are those frozen pink drinks and why are most of the women drinking them? The answer to your questions are: Frozen Harrisons which is a sweet and sour tequila drink, and because they are delicious and only five dollars during happy hour. At night a DJ spins from a platform over the bar like an angel who loves Notorious B.I.G. looking down at everyone.

Greenpoint Stop
The Diamond
43 Franklin Street

The expansive beer menu and the free, full sized shuffle board table are why everyone loves The Diamond. Yes, that is an old ski lift car in their backyard. No, I don’t know why.

21 Street
Alewife
5–14 51st Avenue

You’ve made it out of Brooklyn and into Queens, where the rents are cheaper and the Greek food is more authentic. Alewife is a two story gourmet gastropub with an emphasis on, obviously, ale. One dollar for oysters and five dollars for draughts.

Court Sq Stop
Dutch Kills
27–24 Jackson Avenue

The last stop on our G train bar crawl is Dutch Kills, a sweet little speakeasy with bartenders who can make anything on the menu, but would prefer to make something special just for you. Let them.

Photos: Wikimedia Commons

“With egg freezing, women can use their own banked eggs later in life to effectively rewind their biological clock, becoming mothers in their 40s, 50s and beyond. It’s a technological game changer that just might allow women to defy the notion that they can’t have it all.”

Two of Brad Paisley’s heads could fit inside one of L.L. Cool J’s.

Uh oh: “I am fairly certain I am going to abandon the résumé process. The Web is your CV and social networks are your references.”

• “Contrary to assurances it has deployed U.S. drones only against known senior leaders of al Qaida and allied groups, the Obama administration has targeted and killed hundreds of suspected lower-level Afghan, Pakistani and unidentified “other” militants in scores of strikes in Pakistan’s rugged tribal area, classified U.S. intelligence reports show.”

• “A number of small banks used $2.1 billion in government cash intended to boost small-business lending to repay bailout funds from the financial crisis, a government watchdog said Tuesday in a report that also concluded the banks lent less money than firms that didn’t take bailout aid.”

“A new genus of bat, with distinctive badger-like black and white markings, has been identified in South Sudan, U.S. researchers say.” Oh sure, there are photos.