Uncle Matthew
‘I think you dismiss your girlfriend too readily: who is to say what a pair of boots, tight-fitting tank-top and strategic (if expensive) plastic surgery might achieve?’
Dear Uncle Matthew,
I am doing something which I think might be wrong, and I need your help. I am a fresher and I have recently become involved with a much older woman. She is my manager at work and, although to me she is very beautiful, I am told by my friends that she looks every bit her age (which is 53). I know it seems an inappropriate age gap, and my friends say they don’t understand what I see in her, but my mother left me when I was only four years old, so I find myself relishing the attentions of an older woman. My friends say I am sick, but I don’t know how to stop. What should I do?
Lovesick, Vanbrugh
Dear Lovesick,
In matters of the heart, it really should not matter what your friends think. What is important is what you and your partner get out of the relationship. You say she is your manager: presumably therefore she earns a salary well in advance of your own, owns a comfortable (and hopefully unmortgaged) house and will shortly be enjoying a healthy pension. Statistically speaking, it should only be another 30 years or so before all that could be yours. I advise you to stay the course, and perhaps make a stronger commitment to each other, preferably of a legally binding sort. In couplings across the generational gap, I find that perseverance is its own reward.
Yours prenuptially,
Uncle Matthew
Dear Uncle Matthew,
I think I love Angelina Jolie more than I love my girlfriend. I know it sounds strange, but I think she understands me better. The worst of it is that my girlfriend has cottoned on and has confiscated all of my Tomb Raider games, and my copy of Mr and Mrs Smith. She asked me outright if it was true and I couldn’t deny it. I can’t live without Angelina, but I am worried that if I don’t overcome my obsession, I will lose my actual girlfriend who, though decidedly inferior, is at least more available to me in the flesh at present. What should I do?
Torn, Halifax
Dear Torn,
It seems like your infatuation with Angelina is in danger of breaking up your existing relationship. You need to do something drastic now, or things may end up getting hopelessly out of hand. I think you dismiss your girlfriend too readily: who is to say what a pair of boots, tight-fitting tank-top, shorts and strategic (if expensive) plastic surgery might achieve?
Yours pixellatedly,
Uncle Matthew
Dear Uncle Matthew,
I can’t stop myself being vocally racist, sexist and offensively right-wing. This sort of thing is social suicide at a place like York, but I just can’t help it. I recently posted on a public website that single mothers shouldn’t be at university because they should have ‘kept their legs shut’ in the first place, told a dark-skinned student that he probably only got into university on the quota system and verbally abused a man in the pub for being Argentinian (when he turned out in fact to be French). My political views are having a terribly adverse effect on my social life. What should I do?
Misunderstood, Derwent
Dear Misunderstood,
Fitting in is never easy, especially for those like you who seem to have a lot to say. Rather than compromise your views, why not try and find some friends who feel the same as you? You will discover that they are not difficult to seek out. For example, there is a group of people who have been repeatedly posting leaflets through my door. They seem to be just as worried about immigrants and Britishness as you are (in fact, they even decorated the letter with some lovely Union Jacks). They must be lonely too, as they are continually asking for “my support”. I’m sure they would love to welcome a new friend of your intelligence and wit.
Yours dictatorially,
Uncle Matthew
