Dear R,

I hate to break it to you, but I don't think there's much you can do. It sounds like you're not crushing on this guy, but are (or were) just close friends with him. That makes things slightly less complicated, at least, even if your pain is just as real as if you wanted this guy to be drawing hearts with your name on it in his notebook.

The only thing you can do is talk to him. Tell him you miss him, tell him you miss staying up late discussing how the newest X-Files suck (or whatever). He might not realize the effect his relationship is having on you. But don't expect him to drop his old lady to run back to your platonic arms. He's probably getting action. From hanging out with lots of guys throughout college, I've learned that to young men, getting action supercedes pretty much everything else.

He might tell you he'll make more of an effort to hang out with you, but even if he means to hold up that promise, he probably won't. This girlfriend thing might be about more than just action. That doesn't mean he doesn't like you anymore, just that this new woman makes his insides feel wobbly, and the wobbly feeling is addictive.

Then again, maybe he will start hanging out with you more. If he doesn't, though (or if he tells you he can't spare any time away from her), you have a couple of options. You can tell him that if he's not going to hold up his end of the friendship, he can't expect you to be there when his romance comes tumbling down. Or you could tell him the opposite, that when his romance comes tumbling down, you'll be waiting, ready to listen to him complain about what an annoying chick his girlfriend was, until he finally gets over it and becomes "normal" again.

In the meantime, though, hang out some more with your other friends and find out how cool and supportive they can be. Or seek out the best friend of your guy's girl and form a little reject club.

Dear Beth,

When I take a shower I wash my butt. (I hope I don't offend you -- everyone does it even if we don't talk about it.) What worries me is I find lint there occasionally. It doesn't bother me that much, except that the lint is always blue. I would understand it if I wore nothing but blue boxers but I have red and white and other multicolored boxers and the lint is always blue. My belly-button lint is always blue as well. Is someone planting this blue lint in my body crevasses just to make me crazy?

Lint Strewn in Luxembourg

Dear Lint,

In a sketch on Sesame Street from my childhood, a little boy plays with colors. He mixes yellow and green and ends up with blue. He mixes the blue with red, and he gets purple. He thinks that if he mixes all the colors together, he'll end up with the most beautiful color ever. Of course, that doesn't happen; he ends up with a poopy gray-brown color.

But this is what's going on with your body lint. All the colors are mixing together to create one apparently single-colored ball of lint. While you think the lintballs are blue, they're really gray. You didn't mention you were colorblind in your letter, but you are. Thanks for writing.

Dear Beth,

I am a big fan and love your Dear Beth section. I noticed that the poor soul that wrote the letter in your "Why do girls suck?" entry [see February 10, 2000] lives in Alaska. Are you aware that the male to female ratio in Alaska is like 50 to 1?

You should tell that guy to go to Miami, there are plenty of fine available chicks there.

Helpful in Harrisburg

Dear Helpful,

Thanks for sharing your apparent wealth of geographical/demographical knowledge with Ask Beth readers.