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Dear Breakup Girl,

Hi. I'm the same Charity Girl from waaay back in your very first True Confessions column. My ex and I eventually broke up, though it was hard. I'm finally getting my own life back. Yay!

So I meet a nice guy through work. An engineer who is very sweet and kind and seems to have his life together. He's shy, but after a couple of months of sporadic contact he eventually works up the nerve to ask me out. We meet at the restaurant. I smile and ask what he's been up to. He says a lot has happened to him, but he doesn't know if it's appropriate dinner conversation. I step right into it and encourage him to tell me what's wrong-- thinking this is an illness in the family, the death of a beloved pet, I don't know.

Instead he tells me he has this "affliction" (his word for it). He's Bipolar, do I know what that is? Ummmm. Yes. He proceeds tells me his tale of woe, culminating in an episode for which he was hospitalized for a week. I feel terrible for him, but at the same time I can't help but think this is too funny. I want to laugh out loud at myself. I mean, I've just started to recover from the long and painful relationship with my ex who suffers from a whole catalog of mental "afflictions" -- manic depression being at the top of the list.

It wasn't as if I had all my hopes pinned on this new guy, he just seemed like a safe way to jump back into the dating pool. And now he lays this on me...how do I be nice a supportive from a distance? I don't want to be involved with this guy at all -- he has a marvelous support group of friends, lots and lots of friends, in fact, of both sexes, so he doesn't need my help. How the hell do I blow this guy off without acting (and feeling) like a cad?

I'm glad that he told me of his "affliction" but at the same time -- isn't that a little heavy to lay on a person on the first date? Especially as the conversation opener? If he didn't want to talk about it, why not answer my question of "what's up" with the standard "Not much"?

So I'm beginning to draw some conclusions here. Either the majority of datable men are -- what's the word? damaged? High-maintenance? (I don't want to sound callous or cold, but...hey, I've lived with this kind of guy.)

Or it's me. One of the reasons I wanted to go out with the new guy is that he's the absolute opposite (dare I say polar opposite?) of my ex. Not opposite enough, apparently. I feel like must have a flashing neon sign above my head "Needy Types Apply Within." What am I projecting that attracts these nice but, excuse me, messed-up boys? I am really discouraged by this. It took me so long to work up to the point that I wanted to date again and then wham! I wasn't expecting too much on this first date after the train wreck that was my last relationship (like I said, he just seemed like a safe place to start). But this goes beyond just normal bad date -- I'm stuck in the middle of somebody else's icky problems once again.

I've already decided that I will gently and politely decline any further invitations from "affliction" boy. But how do I keep this from happening to me the next time? Every time I meet a new guy: "Hi -- nice to meet you. I just have to ask, are you currently on medications? are you depressed? any other "afflictions" I should know about?"

Do you have any encouraging words, any idea why this is happening to me? I understand I will run into other people who have problems (doesn't everyone have problems)? But am I expecting too much when I want to date a man who doesn't have to be on anti-depressents to make it through the day? The whole idea of even trying to go on another date is, well frankly, depressing.

-- Charity Girl

Dear CG,

On the one hand, it's good that we've identified certain "afflictions" as Actual Physiological Events instead of dismissing them as, say, hysteria. On the other, well, in the age of McProzac, pills for fat, and pathologization/syndromification of every imaginable human foible ("I'm nervous on first dates with near-strangers. My doctor diagnosed me with Obsessive-Compulsive Hyperactive-Imagination Repressed-Memory-of-High-School-Rejection complex"), the odds that you will meet someone with some sort of affliction (that is, "affliction") are extremely high to begin with.

Whether or not this affliction should be discussed on date one is, of course, another story (and perhaps a sign of the cultural tell-all talk-show malaise called Too Much Informational Tendencies.).

Whether or not it's a pattern for you, CG, is another another story. You're looking for a pattern; voila, there it is. To the degree that there is one, who knows? Maybe you do really come across as stable, nurturing, sane -- someone to whom, God forbid, people feel comfortable "opening up." So they come to you. But you've got some choice in the matter, too.

So decline futher invites from this gentleman, fine. That's all there is to do. To diagnose a Syndrome here would be a little ... well, I'm not about to say hysterical.

Love,
Breakup Girl

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