The Last Resort: Advice Column w/Alex Cameron
Discount advice for the desperate and disillusioned
This month, we are blessed by the explosive philosophical brain of artist and musician Alex Cameron, who, despite being a twisted human (like all of us), has given me and others mostly excellent and very sound advice. We lived within in a metre of each other for about 3 years on the road, sometimes even shitting in cubicles next to each other while maintaining a conversation (a level of intimacy no one should get used to or have to endure) and without a doubt, we have faced the good, the bad and the oh so ugly side by side. He’s been there, done that, and I trust him to give you the advice you need. Don’t DM him for more, he will not reply. Do listen to his new single Sara Jo.
And now, there are two characters you need to familiarise yourself with…
Carry on.
Q: If you were crazily in love with someone, more than you ever thought possible, and they didn’t love you, or if they did -they didn’t act upon it although they knew how you felt, and there was someone else wonderful and hot, very wonderful, who loved you, and you were starting to get feelings for them despite your heartbreak, would you do it? Or is it unfair to the second person?
A: Let me start by saying that because I can't ask you questions about your situation (are you in a relationship with either of these people? Do either of them have restraining orders against you?), and I can't ask you to elaborate, I'm gonna have to make a few assumptions here - firstly, so that my response is helpful not only to you but to anyone else who may be reading. Secondly so that I can use examples from my life and make sure they're relevant. And finally, to make sure that if anyone, yourself included, is being stalked in any way, that we can safely and with dignity, kibosh that big time.
So, my first assumption is that you're not in any sort of agreed upon relationship with either of these people. There might be feelings in the air. There may also not be any feelings in the air. There may have been some sex. You might have shared a kiss. Long conversations or a date. Things like this. But I'm assuming there's nothing official and there are no titles (boyfriend, girlfriend, stalker etc).
The second assumption is that you're not all friends with each other. Your new admirer, let's call them King Skin, may be an acquaintance of the person you're crazy about, let's call them Big Dog - but I'm assuming they're not close friends. And again, if you really take a good hard look at the situation and get even the slightest sense that you are stalking someone here, I gotta say - cut it out immediately.
Now, stay with me.
There's a type of person out there that likes to order their second drink before they've finished their first. That same person might light their second cigarette from the cherry of their first cigarette. We call that chain smoking. In Australia it's called a donkey root. I still can't figure out why it's called a donkey root. It's not like donkeys have sex backwards. Or face to face even. Depending on which end of the cigarette is which end of the donkey. Anyway - if you're that kind of person, you'd be chain smoking, or drinking heavily on account of you're in a heavy place (grief, heartbreak, massive blow to your ego) or simply because you can handle it. Personally, if I were to drink or smoke in that fashion - I'd find myself with a skin-full in no time. Utter inebriation. No good. Why do I know this? Cause I've tried it. One time I even woke up laying in the middle of the road at about 5 in the morning. It was a quiet street. And the last text I'd sent was to my girlfriend at the time - it contained a picture of a tree on the side of the road and it said 'check out this tree.' She didn't respond. Not just because it was a shit tree, she was upset because she was worried for my well being, and when she found out I'd just been drinking like a pig - she was pissed off.
Ordinarily, I'd like to think that if I'm ordering a second drink before I'm finished with my first, it's because the first drink has become warm, and even a bit shit. In that way, it can feel wrong to start on a new drink when my first is still sparkling away with effervescence, the ice cubes holding true to their structure, and the straw un-chewed.
So the question you gotta ask yourself is, can you handle it? Can you take up an emotional commitment to King Skin, when you're not finished with your feelings for Big Dog? Because whether or not it's unfair to the King Skin depends on your answer. It's not impossible to know yourself. And if you don't have enough personal romantic experience to base your next moves on - then you gotta use some other kind of metaphor - like the drink analogy. How are you with your alcohol? If you don't drink at all - think of something else that suits you. I'm going with alcohol.
Love triangles can be like heavy drinking. It feels good to start with - you're floating, on top of the world. You become outgoing. Your favourite songs sound like they were written just for you and your special dance. Take the bus? What is it 2AM? Hell yeah that sounds fucken terrific. Then you come to and you've pissed yourself on a friend's couch and you're afraid to check your phone with all the texts waiting for you, asking if 'you're alright?'
Things get all fucked up when you're in love. And when it's not reciprocal? You can just forget it. You got these cupid chemicals flying around your brain. No sense of direction. When I think of cupid flying - I see a beautiful baby commanding the airspace. Dead eye shooting motherfuckers with a crossbow. But when that love has no where to go? When the person you love doesn't love you back? I don't think about the majestic hovering of the kestrel. I think about the desperate dip of the moth. Moths can barely fly. That's a dodgy set of wings they got there on the moth. They go up and down and forwards and backwards. And each direction feels like the wrong one. They hop off a ledge and straight away need to rest. They look scared doing what they've supposedly been designed to do. And they're all dusty. What I'm saying is that being in unrequited love can undermine your logic. It can fuck with your abilities. It gets you writing into advice columns on the internet. And trust me, I've been there. I used to call up the mental health hotline just to see if someone would talk to me. But once they found out I wasn't going to hurt myself they'd just ask me for my address and send me a pamphlet on mental health awareness. So you gotta take that into consideration. You might not be thinking straight. You've done a good thing to reach out to somebody. I apologise if you were expecting Holiday here, but Holiday vouches for me. I've got good things to say. People just need to ask.
Let's think about it here. Being in love with Big Dog isn't enough to make them love a person back. Your situation proves that. Unwanted attention is no dialect in the language of love.
There's no method here. No formula for perfect timing. I once started up a relationship with someone right in the middle of getting my heart shattered by someone else. Now, granted we were real young - I'm talking 16 years old - but if anything, that made the feelings more powerful, and not any less important than if the same thing were happening to a group of adults. The interesting thing is, from what I can remember - starting fresh with someone new that was genuinely interested in me, sort of put my previous crush into perspective. It almost made my old obsession seem ridiculous. Like, how could I have spent so much time and energy on someone that didn't really care about me? This new person is sending me nice texts. They're calling me up to talk, and not just about the Irish backpacker who'd gone down on them on the park bench near their house. So in that way, moving onto a new relationship helped me make sense of the old one. I'm not saying this is a bulletproof approach that can be applied to your situation, but this is an advice column, and I'm not exactly gonna write this shit on a cubicle wall somewhere. Plus, now I don't bare any ill will towards the Irish. Which would be a burden I don't have the strength to carry around with me everywhere I go. I love the Irish. Even that backpacker with the silver tongue. See? I'm lighter now. Not so heavy, caught up on an old unrequited love.
The answer to your last question changes depending on the decisions you make. Yes, it is totally unfair if you decide to start a relationship with King Skin and you let your old feelings for Big Dog get in the way. You start ignoring their texts on account of Big Dog starts showing you attention. You spend more time doing your improvisational comedy online masterclass just cause Big Dog was into that kinda thing - than you do thinking about King Skin. You find yourself masturbating before King Skin comes over for movie night, just so you can say you're too tired to have sex. Things like this are an indication that you are being unfair to King Skin.
Now, on the other hand, if you decide to kick things off with King Skin, and you are emotionally balanced, that is to say, you respond to the undeniably hilarious comedy stylings of Melissa McCarthy with laughter, and to the downright brilliant dramatic method acting of Jeremy Strong with tears. And if you are able to be honest in a healthy way - like say, you talk about your coeliac disease and its effect on your gut health in a light and conversational manner, maybe with a funny anecdote about how you had to find clean gym shorts in the school lost and found in 7th grade, and you're not texting photos of your stool to them at 11PM on a weeknight asking 'is this an OK color?' Then I'd say you're in a place where I can give you the green light.
My advice to you is this. Be honest with King Skin. Tell them you're still hurting a little over a previous crush (no need to name Big Dog here) that didn't work out. Don't go into details. Don't make them feel self conscious on account of you went full Mel Gibson over someone else - remember they have feelings for you, try to appreciate that, not belittle it. Just let them know that these old feelings are getting their head kicked in by these new feelings that you're having for them, but that it might take a little time. You're not trying to kill your old feelings for Big Dog, just beat the shit out of the feelings a little and film it and upload it to reddit/carpark_fights. King Skin should not only appreciate you're demonstrating that you can be an honest person, but they should be flattered that they could come into the situation and give you a new sense of love. And if that's unfair then I don't know what fair is.
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