Warning. The language of this column is direct and explicit.
My fiancé is a man, I am a woman and we have been together for almost three years. We live alone in separate houses, but spend about three or four nights a week together. We both had the vaccine, the booster, we wear masks in public etc etc. The Monday before Christmas I began to feel mild symptoms but the test I underwent negative. My boyfriend felt good and that week we spent a few nights together. On the morning of Christmas Eve I had a second DIY test and tested positive. I then canceled the appointment with a friend expected for that afternoon and I talked to my boyfriend. Our plans for Christmas Eve included a dinner with some of his family. An hour later he calls me and tells me that his test is negative and that the best thing was for me to put myself in solitary confinement on Christmas Eve and also on Christmas Day. He was still determined to meet his family.
I burst into tears. He had already been exposed, and if his primary concern was to protect his family, the logical thing to do was to minimize contact with them, not me. I couldn’t believe she was going to leave me alone at home for Christmas after we’d been in contact so much that week. And he knows that spending the holidays together as a couple is important to me! He called me back, we talked and eventually offered me to go to his house and sleep in the spare room. Arriving at her house, she changes her mind and we end up sharing the same bed. The next morning I wanted to clear things up and he tells me he’s angry about my behavior. He thinks she was selfish and took the risk of exposing him further. I’m really confused and hurt by the whole way things have turned out. Which one of us is acting like an asshole?
–Flamingly Upset Couple Knows Conflict Over Virus Is Dumb
“I will not attribute the title of ‘asshole’ to either the author of the letter or her boyfriend,” Dr. Stacy De-Lin, who shares sound scientific advice about covid-19 on her priceless Instagram profile, told me. “But there is a clear public health answer to this question: the writer should have isolated herself from her boyfriend immediately after discovering she was positive and her boyfriend, knowing he was significantly exposed, should not have attended any meetings with his family. “.
Even if Dr. De-Lin doesn’t feel comfortable assigning the title of “asshole” to either of you, FUCKCOVID, I am the one who takes the initiative and splits the epithet in two – in a Solomonic gesture. wisdom – assigning the title of “asshole” to both. But you shouldn’t be too upset, FUCKCOVID, because it’s easy to see how this never-ending pandemic is bringing out the asshole in each of us.
“In addition to dealing with public health, we must consider the incredible toll in terms of mental health that about two years of the pandemic have imposed on us,” says De-Lin. “Many deeply wished to see our family and friends, and were devastated when these plans were further delayed this year. In addition, guidelines on rapid tests, as well as those relating to what vaccinated people can and cannot do, are constantly changing. No wonder her boyfriend wanted to find a way to see his family and thought he could do it safely. Nor that the writer did not want to be alone at Christmas when, I’m sure, she already felt very isolated “.
And to see things in a broader perspective, FUCKCOVID, it’s not like you’ve punched a flight attendant or said, “Let’s Go, Brandon!” to Joe and Jill Biden on Christmas Eve. You just got sick of it. And you were right on one point: if there was one person your boyfriend should have seen, that person had to be you. Considering how much time you spent together after you had the first symptoms (before testing positive), you could reasonably argue that, rather than exposing him to risk, you had already exposed him before. And so, in the name of risk reduction, he could and should have canceled his family reunion, instead spending the holidays with you. And that’s what he did, right? And so, as hurt as the idea of spending Christmas alone may have hurt you, that’s not how it went, right?
So we want to give that asshole of your boyfriend some credit? That said, he could reasonably have argued that you should and could have isolated yourself when the first symptoms emerged, without spending several nights with him before, predictably, testing positive. And if you wanted to vent your anger that he suggested that you spend Christmas alone, perhaps that prompted him to vent his anger at not being able to see his family. Because ultimately, FUCKCOVID, it was the same desire for human contact that prompted you to put your boyfriend at risk (by spending time with him after symptoms appear) and your boyfriend to contemplate the risk of putting in danger his family members (spending time with them after being clearly exposed to the virus). And so by acknowledging each other’s bullshit, perhaps – true to the spirit of the holidays – you can forgive each other and turn this fucking page.
While talking to De-Lin, I asked her for some advice for all of us – all of us assholes – on how to get through the next wave of this seemingly endless pandemic. “We have a few ways to avoid the spread of the omicron variant: get the vaccine and the booster, isolate ourselves when we are positive or after high-risk exposure, wear masks indoors and organize our meetings outdoors,” De told me. -Lin. “The omicron variant of covid-19 is not only much more contagious than any variant we have seen so far. It also comes at the worst possible moment: that of the holidays. This is why it is spreading rapidly across the country and around the world, with hospitals already close to collapse, which makes it more important than ever to avoid infecting ourselves and spreading the virus ”.
And as difficult as it may seem – and it seems quite difficult, looking at things in the long run could help us get through this moment.
“It is important to remember that this wave, and the pandemic itself, will become much less severe and we will be able to reunite with our family and friends again, as we did before, without fear,” says De-Lin. “In the meantime, I hope that the author of the letter, her boyfriend, and all of us, can be patient and lenient with one another in these challenging times.”
You can follow Dr. Stacy De-Lin on Instagram @stacydelin_md.
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In the mid to late 1980s, when I was a child, my father had an extramarital affair. For some reason he confessed to my mother in the early nineties. She got mad and they separated for two years. My sister and I stayed with our mother during the week, and at the weekend we shared a room in our father’s apartment, a two-room apartment. During that time my mother spoke frequently and loudly badly about him, calling him “the man in the apartment”. After two years they got back together, probably “for the children”, but my mother kept accusing my father of infidelity. My sister and I knew the name of her ex-lover, as my mother talked about her every time we passed a motel or at other random times. Even today he continues to call my father “the man in the apartment”.
I hated it and thought we would all be better off if they just got divorced. Their theatricality (my mother’s theatricality) and some nuns with an incredibly punitive attitude instilled in me, a straight male, the idea that boys are stupid and evil, and that girls are bad and punishing. I have developed a sense of shame about being male, accompanied by a resentment towards women, problems I still struggle with. Today my parents are well over their seventies and my mother has even gotten worse. She somehow managed to find my dad’s ex-lover online and uses his photos as a screen saver. He constantly brings up the story of my father’s betrayal and rages on him daily. All this has been going on for thirty years! Right now I’m out of town for the holidays with my mom and sister, and my dad told me maybe he’ll leave home before she gets back. Can the situation be saved? Should I insist that he stay? For the first half of my life (I am almost forty years old) I have been passionate about my mother. Things have radically changed in the last few years. My father knows how to behave like a real idiot, but his torture has lasted too long and does not deserve all this.
–Sad And Disappointed Seeing Ongoing Nightmare
“The victim of extramarital affairs is not always the victim of marriage,” said the famous psychotherapist and writer Esther Perel. Your parents’ marriage may be the single best example of a marriage in which the cheater is (or becomes) the victim. Yes, SADSON, your father did your mother a wrong when she had that relationship thirty years ago (a relationship she would have done well to keep quiet about). But if your mother hasn’t been able to forgive your father and / or stop punishing him – or worse yet, if she has readmitted him into the house just to be able to punish him every day for the rest of his life – then it’s been a long time since your mother has surrendered his moral superiority to your father. A person who cannot forgive infidelity after a reasonable period of time (such as a two-year separation) should not take back an unfaithful spouse. And a person who cannot resist the temptation to involve his children in a long and vengeful campaign of self-pity, in order to destroy his unfaithful spouse, really shouldn’t have children.
Your dad should leave home, your mom should have a mental health assessment, and your sister should stop – finally – letting your mom abuse you like that.
PS I hope there were other women too.
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I am writing simply to say thank you. When I was a teenager, at the end of the first decade of the 2000s, my head was filled with fantasies of sadism and domination, and I was convinced that I was a monster. But I discovered your column and you have occasionally answered some reader’s questions about extreme BDSM. As cruel and whimsical as the person’s fantasies were (consensually), you always responded without judgment, talking about BDSM safety best practices, wishing him the best. Yours was the first voice to tell me, albeit indirectly, that my sexual fantasies were not the sign of a sick or hopelessly evil mind. You’ve probably heard this sort of thing from a lot of readers but it doesn’t matter. I wanted to tell you that your column basically saved my life. I can never thank you enough.
–Savage’s Advice, Dude, It Saved Me
Thank you for this sweet message, SADISM. I hope my column has not only made you feel better about your fantasies, it has also prompted you to seek out consenting adult partners who are eager to fulfill them with you and for you!
(Translation by Federico Ferrone)
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