Thursday, September 18, 2008

Mad Communication Skilz

Dear Jason Adair the Unlicensed Therapist,

Yo so here it goes dam i need help so bad!!!!! im really depressed and sad because of this. U see im 13. I really like this girl ok. we were really cool until one day i had to screw it up by sending her a letter/poem. WOW. So she didn't like me i guess and she sent me an email saying she wants to be my friend instead which is a lie because we never had a conversation since then. So My close friend who is 12 and she is 13. he likes her too he told her and she told him that she liked him too. I was so sad dam. next day. we had an event in school ok and i was with my friend ok. Then she comes and starts flirting with him. dam. he was with my like the whole time. so sad. I later went outside and cried. some girls saw me and asked me wut was wrong i said nothing. the she left my friend and came to me her name is kate. so kate comes and says come wid me i said no ( dam it ) then she asks wuts wrong i said nothing ( dam it ). she later leaves unhappy too. dam but i felt better because she asked me which meant she cared wow it felt so good man. Ya so now kate and my friend are like together but not dating. So what do I do man please please help me !!! i really like her man. how can i win her bak or something. dam im in soo much pain right now...... help

Dear ......Help
I want to tell you to forget about this girl and to move on, but if there's one thing I remember about girls, and being thirteen, is that the emotions you're feeling right now are so much larger than your rational mind can really deal with. This is totally normal. As for what to do about it, my advice is to play it cool. I'm not saying you should ignore this girl, but take great pains to treat her as if you're not interested in dating her. The truth is, once a girl says she's not interested, and a guy makes a plan to "win her back" he develops a stink of desperation, and everyone can smell it. Once you get that stink on you it's really hard to get off. Unfortunately, the way Kate is acting, you might be stinky already, in which case you really should move on. Take that pain you're feeling and channel it into improving yourself so that you'll be more of a catch for the next girl your teenage hormones target. First and foremost, work on your written communication skills. If that letter/poem you sent to Kate was as incoherent as the letter you sent to me, she might not have even understood what you wanted. Also, DO NOT WRITE GIRLS POEMS. There aren't many guys that can actually pull that off and not seem either creepy or shallow. Instead, read some poets who have good stuff to say about love and relationships (Emily Dickenson, E. E. Cummings, Charles Bukowski) and send their poems instead of your own, kind of like a poetry mix tape. That way you get the double impact of a good poem and being seen as well read. Good luck with the ladies, and before you send another letter to anyone, read it to yourself out loud first.

Your Young Love Cheerleader,
Jason Adair the Unlicensed Therapist

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Technically Speaking

Dear Jason Adair the Unlicensed Therapist

I have a problem. I have a very important video blog I need to start posting, but the camera folks who agreed to help me several months ago have dropped the ball faster than the 49ers. Can you help me?

Everett Nolan


Dear Everett,
The first piece of advice I'm going to give you is gong to be a bitter pill for you to swallow; for the love of (insert name of deity you pray to here), stop using sports analogies. You're better than that Everett. As for your video problems I totally understand and sympathize with you. Here's the deal, you don't need "camera folks" to do an important video blog, or vlog as the kids call em'. The worst thing you can do, productively speaking, is to get technical people involved. The more high tech your equipment, the more time it's going to take to shoot and edit your important footage. I've found that when I need to get something done effectively and efficiently, the best tool for the job is my digital camera. It takes decent mpg movies which I can quickly download and edit on my computer. This video, is one I shot on my lunch break with my little Sony CyberShot. Yes, the quality is not HDTV, but it's better than most vlogs that are shot with web cams. And compared to the project I did before it with camera folks, it took no time at all. (the video won a vegan pot pie in a sketch video competition.) People that watch video on the internet are used to low tech presentation. What they want is interesting content. A perfect example is the greatest vlog I've ever seen, authored by a thirteen year old pop culture critic/freakscene who calls himself sexman. Keep it simple and wow the internet with your wonderful important video blog, unless you're making another lame ass sports vlog. In that case disregard the above.

Monday, September 8, 2008

What's Really Bothering You?

Dear Jason Adair the Unlicensed Therapist,
I have a serious problem. I still love my husband but I do not like him. We have evolved in different directions. I appreciate that he is a good man and a good father to our children. He is responsible and reliable. All the things some other women would kill for. But the way he eats his cereal sickens me and the way his dental floss clicks drives me insane. Do you think this feeling of disgust will pass?

- Looking my husband down in the mouth

Dear Looking,
I've actually received numerous letters concerning problems like yours recently. The whole "love but don't like" dilemma seems to be all the rage in 2008. What makes this trend interesting is that the problems people are having are never things that would be deal breakers, much less a cause to seek guidance from an unlicensed therapist. Growing too far apart is a natural process for at least 50% of married couples, while complaining about ridiculous things seems to affect more like 98% of married couples. Is your relationship really so good that the worst problem some people face is, "I can't stand the sound of my wife's voice"? Come on people! If your spouse had joined the Klan, or killed a neighbor and buried them under the potting shed, or loved the movie Sideways, you might have a argument worth making. As for the disgust, I'm wondering if it's not a little self loathing for feeling like you're a loser for falling out of like with this good man. The horrible truth is you don't need a good reason to fall out of like with someone. Unfortunately, without a big problem to work out, (i.e. Loving the Movie Sideways) it does make it harder to fix. So, I don't know if you'll ever get over the disgust. One thing that will definately help is to leave the room when your husband eats his cereal, and don't be in the bathroom when he flosses.

Sideways was a stupid movie,
Jason Adair the Unlicensed Therapist