“Mr Lear, I have recently started seeing a lady a fair bit older than me. She is a single mother and we have slept with each other a fair few times but I just can’t seem to make her need me. I have this weird infatuation with her…Why? How? Help?”

(This is genuinely a first. I have never been asked a question where maternal knowledge is a must-have in order to give a good response. Anyway I will try and help as much as I can.)

I’m guessing this mother is simply looking for some good fun without having any of the strings normally associated with someone who is a parent? The advantage of your situation is that she will in no way think you are interested in getting involved with someone who has “baggage.” The quotation marks unfortunately are used in order to highlight the fact that most single mums with young children will think that potential partners will only see the children as “baggage.”

Look, here’s the thing. I bet you have met the kid, I bet if it’s young enough you’ve held it and even changed its nappy or whatever. You do these things because subconsciously you associate the mother with needing a paternal like partner; hence you seek to fulfil this need you think she yearns for.

Ok. Try to knock this natural “I’m going to try to look like I’m really responsible and caring,” side on the head. She doesn’t want it. She has become independent and assuming the Dad is not in the picture she probably has quite a high level of Intolerance for men.

Very much appears that you’ve established the fact you are willing to play that part here chap, so ideally you need to relax totally away from that.  Don’t try to make it look like you’re “there” for them, she doesn’t want it and she probably doesn’t need it. Your availability is unattractive, she’s still a lady after all and by their nature they hate men who fall over themselves to try and get their approval…

Even if you really want to become a trio… then you need to make it look like you are needed. It sounds like you’ve spent enough time with the two. Pull away from it and make yourself unavailable, maybe she will thank you for the space or maybe you will in fact suddenly be craved.

Generally it’s a mum or a “milf” and in that is actually somehow appealing to a young man such as you. There is no need to make the relationship any different than a normal girl. She has the same needs as anyone else. Dates etc…Meh…She’s done all that and just wants some fun. If you’re clingy, you will fail miserably.

Attraction  is based around a pulley system…you are in no position right now to be in love so it’s the flirty bit you need to be good at. Speak to her often then not at all…just appear like you aren’t the guy who will catch her when she falls then eventually she will want you to be.

Also. No one lives in epic romance. Stop watching American Pie and idealising a situation that you can think can impress your friends with?

Brilliant question though Mr “Anonymous.”

Yours

Mr Lear.

Q "I'm a fool to still love someone who's used me and lied to me aren't i?"

Unfortunately for pretty much every human being, carnal desires are uncontrollable. Freud claimed that every little thing we did, every single action is driven towards sex. What is highly controversial nowadays is the fact that Freud at no point instigated that it was for reproduction purposes...Love itself is not a prerequisite of passion and as such sex itself is nowadays more of an act of recreation, you have to truly believe that the "love" you feel is in fact love rather than some sudden insecurity of him having severed the emotional attachment...Were you truly in love?
       You are absolutely not a fool to still love this person who lied to you, the fact you were in love with him presupposes that you knew him incredibly well and with this knowledge perhaps his actions were perhaps not a total surprise. You tend to love everything about someone. That is a condition of love. The small things, the petty things, even certain repulsive traits others run away from, you embrace. By being in love you are so wrapped up in the other person that in certain aspects you live their life. His actions are a part of who you are...you love him because of these actions therefore you yourself are inclined to believe they are right. You are not a fool for loving him, you are perhaps a fool for not seeing the extent to which love clings to every part of you and manipulates positively every action.
What makes this entire situation quite unbelievably cruel is that you automatically dislike yourself because you are trying to hate yourself for feeling the way you do...which is horrendously ironic. It's a vice of human nature as it is so bizarrely in our nature to love yet a complete contradiction to hate the one you love. What puts the icing on the cake is that because you love him...every single little thought you have of him is completely intensified so you feel so much worse. His lack of faith, lies and usage of you have simply objectified you and you feel like you need this to live happily. Everyone loves the idea of having to be needed, it's NATURAL. Because you now know he doesn't need you is less of a repercussion of distancing, but more of a change of scenario...
Perhaps the best advice I can give to you and anyone in this particular situation, is to not fight it. It's natural to feel torn apart in this case. Don't blog, don't phone, text, BBM, Ping or page him. It feeds his knowledge that you need him and your lack of dependence is unattractive (not that that is a bad thing, if anything you want him to distance himself from you)
Don't feed his ego by parading your love. It sucks, love is the best feeling in the world until someone abuses it. NPC. Neutrality, Passivity and Climax.
Neutralise your feelings by not shouting them around. Love turns to hate quickly but both are incredibly similar.
Passivity shows lack of interest and although self harming slightly, news will reach him of your apathy.
Climax. Your feelings will bring themselves to a close eventually.

Love's oxygen is reciprocation, without it it will fade i promise.
All the best.

Mr Lear

How do I get someone to not have a grudge against me?

I have this opinion that when someone has a grudge against someone, the only way to sort it out is either to accept the fact that he or she is disliked by this person and avoid them or talk to them and come to some sort of mutual understanding or in the case of it being someone of the same sex, resort it physically.

The horrible thing is that if the person who is the "Grudger" can't let go of it and really has a problem with the "Grudgee," then the Grudger will always see it as their duty to try and make as many people as possible share their dislike for the Grudgee.
In this situation, the first option is completely useless because the Grudgee will inevitably keep running into things being said about him through the notorious grapevine, confrontation will be utterly unavoidable.
The confrontation doesn't necessarily have to climax with the old squaring up and fisty cuffs, it can be in a  controlled climate where quiet words can be exchanged hospitably.
Here's the thing, unfortunately because the Grudger is usually a bit of an insecure moron, he has by this time (if it has gone on long enough) become accustomed to disliking the person and has gained some attention for it. Woop Woop doesn't our society rock...
In which case our poor Grudgee has not got the ability to draw his arch enemy Grudger into the open for a chat.
The ideal situation to end this dispute would be to completely catch the Grudger off guard, by this i mean attending a bar or a mutual friend's party where you know he will be. If he sees you there he will most likely not separate himself from the crowd because he will want to avoid the possible confrontation, of any kind.
At some point though, he will inevitably be separated so be patient. Wait until he is a good few metres away from his cronies and that you are completely on your own. Say very loudly..."What problem do you have with me?"
Saying it loudly will draw attention to the conversation, people thrive off seeing a confrontation that they are not a part of.
Make sure you are right in his face, the chances are this person will not be bigger than you because he would have said the horrible things to your face, unafraid.
His response will most likely be "huh?" You have to make sure that you are a hundred percent certain this person is the chief Grudger, if he isn't then other Grudglings will all quickly step in to help him. The masses want to see if their Grudger can stick up for his own words.
The next couple of moments decide everything. If he simply walks away, pull his arm back and get in his face again. Without promoting violence, you must show that you are completely unafraid of it's possibility. If he says his exact feelings back to you, then you're onto a winner, if he claims that he's said nothing, his grudglings will not follow him and his attack will fail because no one will care if he can't enforce words with actions. If you are sure the result of the oncoming discourse will end physically, make sure you are never less than a yard away from him and make sure you strike first and hard, if you hit and miss then he will have the advantage of having a real excuse to hit you and an angry assailant poses more of a threat.

Mr Lear.

What the hell is Physical Theatre and why?

Today I attended a class held by a distinguished Physical theatre creator.
I thought it would be enlightening to see this new progressive form of theatre in action and see if it's simply the work of some drama enthusiast hoping to perhaps gain some prestige, or in fact a whole new form of art.

I was asked along with a few other interested attendants to firstly walk around a space bare foot and "feel the way my body worked," with specific attention to be paid to the way my heels hit the floor and my body swaying with the motion. "Does your mind body react to the fact it's being scrutinised?" "Now you are paying such close attention do you feel each individual muscle and tendon 'twinge' with the elegance of the movement you always take for granted?"

At this point my phone rings loudly and cuts the zombie-like aura of this strange situation. The lady who takes the class, who had her eyes firmly shut at this point, (perhaps due to narcotics, I couldn't be sure) hisses violently and briefly opens her eyes to snap a fierce yet slightly red eyed glance in my direction. I apologise,  and turn off the phone that had so ignorantly ruined the moment. The class continues.

"What i would like you to do now is to form two lines, like the carriages of a train you must embody to the precise details of the one who leads you" After a less Wildesque approach, she tells us to copy the person at the front of the line. I decided to make the most of what was in effect, an absolutely ridiculous situation, led by now what I assume to be a lady on so much crack that she sees us simply as spotty butterflies, swirling aimlessly around in the air to tickle her purple pilled fantasy.

However, something magically ironic happened to this prejudice skeptic, he was captured.
I suddenly did start to feel the intricacy of every movement that we supposedly take for granted. The sways, the closed-eyed crawling and the roliing around seemd to be releasing me from some sort of constraint that we feel in society nowadays. When it was my turn to lead I scuttled and collapsed and ran and barked... I felt like no one was looking when in fact I was being followed in every way. Somehow the fact that others followed what I was doing (as was the game) gave me confidence to explore every inch of creativity. When I had to follow once again I suddenly felt a massive wave of sorrow, as if I my ideals were being repressed and had once again become a solitary figure in chain of being. Without purposefully coining part of Ron Burgundy's classic line, those who followed were in some kind of "glass case of emotion."

 The sounds of our breathing added some kind of fluidity to the movement whilst our footsteps added a kind of warm noise. We each realised that our body, whether intentionally or not, expresses everything about us. There must be some kind of symbolic gesture in what we became but I cannot put my finger on it.

After an hour break, we returned to find ourselves lethargic, slightly embarassed and dislinking the idea of doing it again. Despite our feelings of resentment, off we went again. This time my feet felt like anchors and my arms like tree trunks...others were similar. We had gone from ballet dancers in Swan Lake to truckers on a pub crawl, the antithesis of energy and beauty. I couldn't help but draw parellels between what had happened to us and that of those under an extremist dictatorship. To begin with, we had flustered and flown in some sort of overwhelming natural rebellion against etiquette; those who stood agaisnt a tyrannical oppressor but now we simply followed because we had lost the energy to fight, out actions were less sharp and exciting and we simply followed to avoid any confrontation.

Perhaps that is a little far fetched. Draw whatever you can from the situtation. I think i must have found it interesting that we all claim to be unique, but because uniqueness is common....it's pretty standard. If we all flew around wildly, then no one would blink.

What am I talking about.
Yours Confudeddly,
Mr Lear.