Dear Good Greatsby: Are You Secretly in Love with Me?

After numerous last minute cancellations, it falls to my assistant Ken to serve as a guest panelist and help answer the question of Kim Pugliano who seeks advice in sorting a sordid love triangle–one that a licensed therapist might call imaginary but one which this unlicensed therapist takes very seriously.

Dear Good Greatsby~

How do I convince a happily married smoking-jacket wearing family man that he is indeed secretly in love with me and not my friend, who for the sake of protecting her identity I will call Lenore Diane? I understand that I too am happily married with a kid, two dogs, a cat and a recently deceased fish but that doesn’t mean another man can’t be secretly in love with me while still acting, blogging and hanging out with his family. I can see it in every word he writes and that one time he commented on one of my blog posts. I’m not stupid, I’ve had men top secretly in love with me before. “Lenore Diane” keeps posting on my Facebook and commenting on my blogs about his secret desire for her and it’s quite frankly breaking my heart that neither of them will come to your – I mean THEIR senses and accept reality. Any suggestions?

Kim

Dear Kim,

Paul: I understand your plight because I’ve spent a large portion of my life trying to convince women to admit they’re in love with me.  You may think this behavior would stop once I got married, but in actuality, it only started once I got married.

Occasionally I’ll catch one of my wife’s friends checking me out–usually when wearing my smoking jacket–and I tell my wife, assuming she’ll be flattered her husband is so desirable and therefore feel good about herself, but she never believes me.  This frustrates me and I begin exaggerating the evidence to convince her and when the story is recounted over time “checking out” grows into “hitting on” and soon “hitting on” turns into “begged me to run away with her”.  Eventually these stories find their way back to the friend in question who inevitably confronts me, requiring me to try and convince her she’s in love with me.

“Why are you telling everyone I’m in love with you?”
“Why are you telling everyone you’re not in love with me?”
“Because I’m not.”
“Come on.  Are you saying the other night at Blue Frog meant nothing to you?”
“What night at Blue Frog?”
“Four months ago?  The night I wore my smoking jacket and you couldn’t stop staring at me?  Does that ring a bell?”
“Everyone was staring at you.  You had ketchup all over your face.”
“I had handsome all over my face!”
“The handsome must have been hidden under all that ketchup.”
“Why aren’t you in love with me?  I’m very charming.  And smart.  I read War and Peace and I can complete a Rubik’s Cube in three minutes.  And did I mention my charm?  Part of my charm is how effortlessly I manage to constantly mention I’ve read War and Peace and can complete a Rubik’s Cube in three minutes.”
“I’m just not in love with you and you’re not going to convince me to fall in love with you either.”
“Could you just pretend to be in love with me? Just to be nice? And maybe you could tell my wife how lucky she is?”

This is why I find it completely plausible that this smoking-jacket wearing blogger might be secretly in love with you.  I have it on good authority that he tried to write a post based on an anagram of your name, “I Kin Lop a Mug”, as a secret message to you, but could never decide whether to include the ‘G’ in your name because he knows it’s silent.  But you’ll be happy to know his Friday Love Letters always contain the letters K-I-M-P-U-G-L-I-A-N-O scattered throughout the post–even the ‘G’, although the posts do also contain the letters L-E-N-O-R-E-D-I-A-N-E.

Ken: Paul doesn’t just try and convince women to admit they’re in love with him, but he also tries to get men to admit it.  He doesn’t use the word love with men, but about once a day he asks me, “Am I maybe the most impressive person you know?” or “If you could have the life of any celebrity alive or dead–and the celebrity has to be in this room–who would it be?” even though it’s just the two of us in the room.

Also, have any readers personally met Kim Pugliano or Lenore Diane?  If so, can anyone confirm they are real people and not fake profiles Paul has created?

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