Hello BrainScramble world!
I’ve had the idea for a gossip/advice column for a long time, and I’m am beyond excited to have been able to finally bring it to life for our ‘Secrets’ issue. I adore gossip, secrets, & the taboo, and I am always eager to be an ear for both my friends and all the anonymous askers out there! I’ve been there, trust me; in a conundrum, a pickle, or whatever Situation with a capital ‘S’ one might find oneself in, and sometimes, what you really need is the guidance of a stranger. We at BrainScramble HQ are dedicated to only quality advice, and have put our heads together to give you guys the best tips we could devise. Love you guys lots and we hope you enjoy!
XOXO Miss Scramble
Dear Miss Scramble,
Broke up with my boyfriend and talking to a new guy. He’s perfect and better than my ex in every way but I still miss my ex. What do I do?? We are no contact.
Dear reader,
Breakups can be weird like that, the way they just addle the mind, huh? But first things first, if you still miss your ex, there’s no benefit to getting with someone you want to pursue a relationship with. It’s unfair to them, and to yourself- the two of you will never be on the same page, and someone’s bound to get hurt.
On that note, though, ‘missing-your-ex’ seems to be a constant state of life for most. It makes sense, you shared part of your life with that person. Times might have been bad, sure, but they were good once too. I think most people need some time alone after that, and I think you might too. It’s not all bad though. Time enough, and eventually, you may still reminisce on the moments you had, but realize that the person you shared them with doesn’t exist anymore, at least to you. Once you feel like that, you’ve opened yourself back up to pursuing something serious again.
In the meantime, though, stay friends with this person. If they’re as great as you say, you’ll have a good time together regardless. You never know what might happen in the future. And have fun! Don’t relegate yourself to a state of loneliness while you sort things out. See your friends, go out, and get to know yourself again. It’s summer, and being single is fun!
Wishing you luck,
Miss Scramble
Dear Miss Scramble,
i keep stalking my boyfriend’s (of 1~ year) ex girlfriend (dated for 4 months) because she looks like she belongs, like completely belongs, in every group of friends she is in. im jealous of her ability to find a purpose and place for herself in various social settings. im jealous of how she can attract love—true, whole, platonic love—whereas i stumble in every conversation and shudder at the thought of being perceived. he’s not in love with her and we are very happy together, but i still find myself searching up her name, wondering at how she—or anyone, for that matter—learnt to be a functioning sociable human being.
- some small inanimate object floating in space
Dear Small Inanimate Object Floating in Space,
I hear you. Though, I suppose in space, can I really? This is tough, and I understand why you feel this way. It can be so hard not comparing yourself to your partner’s ex’s. Personally, I suggest the block button. What’s out of sight is out of mind. Don’t even give yourself the option to search her up, all it will do is hurt you more. Focus on you, because I am sure you are just as lovely, if not more.
Can I tell you a secret? The key to any conversation? Everyone feels this way. I feel this way constantly. For years I let those thoughts wreck me and I hid myself from the world. That was until I realized, why should I? Life is so much more enjoyable when you’re not so focused on every little detail you don’t like about yourself. At the end of the day, she, just like you and I, is human. I’m 100% sure she’s told a joke and had it fall flat on the floor or tripped over her own shoe laces.
And remember that he is with you! He loves you! I suggest opening up to him about these feelings. Your partner is someone who knows your heart and wants to see you happy.
The next time you talk to someone, even if it’s a simple “Hey! How are you?”, try to really listen to what they’re saying. Ask follow up questions, tell them what you ate for dinner last night, share an embarrassing story, LAUGH! I make a fool out of myself constantly, and most of the time (sort of), it’s on purpose! Jealousy and vulnerability and embarrassment are underexplored emotions. People are so nervous all the time, everyone is caught up in their own heads. The hard truth of the matter is very few people think about you as much as you think about yourself. No one else is analyzing the little things, they’re far too focused on how amazing you are! Let yourself be you, even if it’s scary, even if it hurts.
Love, in all its forms, will come flying in once you do. And, you’re already part of the way there! As corny and cliche as it sounds, once you learn how to see yourself, everyone will begin to see you as well. Get to know you. You are your oldest friend, your own life partner. Love yourself like you love the people in your life. Love yourself like you know you deserve to be loved. Do it wholly. Don’t half-ass it! I’ll know!
Yours,
Miss Scramble
Dear Miss Scramble,
I need some input. I am TIRED of men not being able to form a simple, cordial friendship with a woman. Every time I act nicely to a guy, as a decent human being does, they take it as an invitation to something else. Can I not just be friends with men? Why is it that they misinterpret kindness as romance? Am I the problem? I would greatly appreciate your advice
– Anonymous
Dear Anonymous,
First, I’ll start by saying you are, most definitely, not the problem. This is a tale as old as time. One likely as divisive as the chicken or the egg (Which did come first? I can never bring myself to care). The thing is, you can be friends with men, you can build lovely, PLATONIC, relationships with them. You must remember that you are not responsible for their feelings, which, trust me I know, can be very hard, and is easier said than done. The unfortunate truth is, you can’t control how someone else reacts to you, or how they may personally interpret and/or misinterpret in many such cases, what matters is your intention. Set your boundaries firmly, and make your intentions clear if you feel they’re being lost sight of. True friendship can move past this. If they are unwilling to accept your answer, then they’re not your friend. Move on to the next! Give yourself only to those who deserve it.
Yours,
Miss Scramble
Dear Miss Scramble,
One of the prompts is “Maybe you have feelings for your best friend”….Well, surprise! I have feelings for my best friend. I’ve been in love with her for four whole years now and I haven’t done a single thing about it. Ouch! There were times in those four years when I was so sure she liked me back, and there were times where I knew she liked other people (she would tell me, herself). And throughout all of it, I stayed quiet. For every pathetic poem I published to Substack about her, there are two more sitting in my notes app that dissect my heart even further. I do regret not confessing to her, back when we both lived at home, seeing each other every day, and living in a world that held the possibility of us actually being together. I regret not expressing how I feel in those countless nights lying in her bed, curled in her embrace, slowly drifting asleep. Because now we live hours away and only see each other when school lets out, and it’s nothing short of terrible. The time we get to spend together is so fleeting; making me not want to change what we have (had) into something different. I want to keep us the same, like we were: me, worshipping the ground she stood on, and her, well, I don’t know. I can no longer tell if she still loves me to the extent that I love her. My heart pounds as her eyes find mine when she’s laughing, I can’t help but smile as everyone around us treats us as an inseparable pair, my brain snaps to her when someone mentions the idea of love. She regularly appears in my dreams in the most innocent of forms, replicating the moments we share: lying in bed together whispering, making breakfast together in the morning sun, deep embraces after time apart. I know that as time passes, we are only going to grow further apart, straying down our own paths (paths so far from one another, each of us with a dream that the other would not enjoy living), defining our own lives, separately. As much as I dream to have her as mine forever, it would suffocate her. We would not work long-term, and we have passed the window for short-term. I still love her, how could I not, but it no longer feels worth it to even try. I want our friendship to end peacefully and positively. It feels like I’m already convincing myself of the answer, but I ask anyway: It’s been four years. Do I continue waiting for it to fade? I appreciate any opinions you have to offer. My apologies for this monster of a submission.
From, a courage-lacking coyote
My dear Courage-Lacking Coyote,
If there is anything I have learnt about love, it is that it doesn’t listen. It follows no logic, no fairy tale pattern. It can be gone when you wish for it most, or like for you, can last seemingly forever, not ever really going away. One of the things I’ve had to teach myself to do is to stop forcing it to follow my logic. Unlike an overly analytical brain, it has no concept of the schematics of long distances or short-term versus long-term or future lives that don’t align. It plays no game of stats, can’t be measured the way minds like mine and yours would like it to be. Love is. Love goes on.
I understand you, though. Love itself is simply not enough. There are other factors, reasons why love is so difficult, reasons why hundreds of poems and books and songs are written about it. However, I have found that when something means enough, you are able to hold those reasons in your hand, make them small. Really, there’s no reason you can’t simply make it work. It may not be easy, sure, but love is the greatest motivator. Isn’t it worth it?
You seem to have convinced yourself of the impossibility of the two of you being together. But I ask you this, courage-lacking coyote, are you content to wait forever for it to go away? Do you want to get older, grow apart, maybe wishing you had just said something, be stuck wondering? To see her in everyone you meet, feel that memory in your chest every time?
Really, what are you so afraid of? Of things being different, maybe. I understand that, I do. But things will always be different. You and her will be different regardless of what you may or not say to her, regardless of how tight you hold her. That’s how life is. Anyways, as far as I’m aware, you aren’t a fortune teller. You don’t really know how the cards will fall, whether or not these obstacles you’ve thought of will hold true. I would argue that at this moment, it doesn’t matter all that much. What matters is you, and how you treat your love.
I think that’s the biggest thing you need to think about. Regardless of whether or not the two of you end up together, whether the friendship fades (and really, I know she cares for you well enough to not let it), don’t you want to at least know that you tried? That you let yourself feel something enough to want to have it?
And anyways. Things may fade, but they never really go away.
I’ll leave you with this, a favourite quote of mine:
“There is still time.”
Always, there is still time.
Miss Scramble
Dear Miss Scramble,
As far as secrets go, mine might initially sound to your ears as most mundane. I am a liar. This is a fact that I had taken for granted most of my life. After all, are lies not sins so minuscule that many of us let them slip into conversations like we ourselves believe them? Little lies, white lies, half-truths; they define the perceived validity of all that we say. Perhaps twenty percent of everything ever said has been a lie. Perhaps it is more, or less, it does not matter.
I’m not quite sure what a pie-graph of my lies or my truths may look like. In all honesty (pun intended), I’m not quite sure I know when I am lying anymore. See, fact and fiction have never been to me as to most others. Do stories not contain truths? Don’t facts spin tales? Somewhere, my reality has been lost to fiction. Facts embed themselves within the stories I tell. So do the lies. I tell them to myself, to my friends, my family, strangers, I even tell them to the invisible audience I can’t shake from imagining is listening to my every thought. If I validate it long enough, perhaps I’ll someday convince myself it is really there.
Sometimes I catch my lies as they hit the ears of a conversation partner. Sometimes I plan them out before I even speak. Other times I struggle to remember what is real, and what is fake. I recall with fondness an event, an accomplishment, a friend, only to begin second guessing my own memories. Was it a fabrication? Was it something real, though less beautiful without the rose tint I doused it in for any audience willing to listen? Am I nothing more than a patchwork of stories written by my own mind? Where is reality outside of what I say, what I think?
I hurt nobody, my fabrications are, for all intents and purposes, harmless. Intellectually, I know the only person I should be concerned for is myself. But I am not.
My secret, Miss Scramble, is that I am fully content to live a lie. I am content to forget the undesirable truths, and embrace the comfort of fantasy. I am content to dig in my heels and stand proud on a platform of fiction, only fragile so long as I let myself remember it is not real.
Yours in secrecy,
The Storyteller
Dear Storyteller,
The thing about living outside of reality is that eventually it gets harder and harder to return. Why wouldn’t you want to live in a world of fiction, a world where everything is seemingly perfect and non-mundane? What difference does it make, really? In the mind’s eye, you can be anything, live anything. In fact, I doubt you’re alone. A good amount of people take pleasure in simple lies. Actually— (shameless self-plug) a writer on Brainscramble wrote about just this (“liar, liar”, Issue #16. Shoutout Elisa).
However, when it gets to the point you’re at, when you can’t discern between a fabricated living and truth, things get tricky. Remember, the people in your life live in reality. They don’t exist as themselves in your platform of fiction. The further you go from what’s real, the further you go from them, too. You can live in fantasy worlds, but you live there alone. And in the meantime, life goes on without you. As someone who had an overactive imagination coupled with a sense of non-belonging as a preteen, I know this particularly well. Life really does continue without you, regardless of whether or not you participate in it. And the more time you spend with your head somewhere else, the more alien reality feels. The less you are a part of it. It’s a lonely feeling, really.
I get it. Truth is scary, simply because of its undeniability. No matter what lies you tell, the truth remains the truth. Try as you might, it stays the way that it is- it may be ugly, difficult, mundane, but still, it is as it is. To me, that’s beautiful.
My advice to you is to be careful of taking the unreal too far. Try to microdose fantasy instead. Put on a fake persona at trips to the bar, use a fake name at the coffee shop. Adopt a new style while travelling abroad. But in the moments that matter, in conversations with the people you care for, remain as you are. Exist as you, exist with others. Give yourself, be known. Come back down to planet Earth! You are wanted here.
Wishing you a pleasant return,
Miss Scramble
Dear Miss Scramble
I am in quite a bit of a scramble (for reference, I identify as a woman). I have feelings for this guy and I know he thinks he has feelings for me too. But… I am convinced he is gay but is too christian to realize it and it is quite a sensitive topic for him so I haven’t brought it up. What should I do?
– Anonymous
Dear Anonymous,
I have to say, this one has baffled us over at Miss Scramble. We have so many questions.
Do you want to date him? How do you know he’s gay? If he’s gay, why do you think he has feelings for you? If he’s gay, do you still want to date him? What is the extent of your feelings? Are you close enough that you could bring it up? Update us.
Anyways, the overall consensus is that you should probably just leave it be. I think self discovery is a path he has to travel on his own. The best you can do is be there for him throughout it, show your support. And hey, if you both have feelings for each other, might as well go for it. Sure, he might eventually turn out to be gay, but you don’t know that yet. Besides, who hasn’t dated a gay guy at some point? At the very least, you can add it to your Toronto dating resume.
Incredibly curious to know more,
Miss Scramble
Dear Miss Scramble,
I love my boyfriend so much and he is the most perfect human being, but I cannot stand his parents. I find them annoying, dull, and they have very unhealthy eating and living habits. A lot of my frustration also comes from the fact that they’ve never really moved away from home or gotten a new perspective on things, and tend to lean somewhat conservative in their political views in a simply uneducated way. That said, they raised him well and are good parents to him, and have always been kind to me as well. My boyfriend has a good relationship with his parents, but he is not very similar to them. Although I would never tell my boyfriend this, I have this fear that he will morph into them and that disturbs me. Even the thought of my parents meeting his, even though we’ve been dating for over a year, seems like too much. I think this might be getting in the way of me actually imagining a future with him. Thoughts?
Dear Reader,
I hate to say it, but you might be the problem here. Your view of your boyfriend’s parents is very flat, and I wonder if you’ve spent the time to understand them. Although it sounds simple, it’s worth remembering that people who are different from ourselves exist. Adults, especially, have lived so much more of life than we have. They’ve had different experiences, suffered, loved, grieved, aspired. Just because you aren’t currently seeing that doesn’t mean that it hasn’t happened. I don’t mean to accuse, but I think you’ve minimized these people, written them off simply because you see them as different than yourself.
Luckily, though, it’s easy to expand your understanding of someone. Talk to them. Ask them about their lives, learn their stories. Sure, they’ve never moved away from home, but who’s to say much hasn’t happened at home? I think of my hometown, how in only forty years it transformed from farmland to a bustling city. What would have been like to see that change, to have your neighbours move away, to see the fields you grew up become lively townhouses filled with young families? I have no idea. I haven’t lived here that long. Actually, I haven’t lived that long, period. But there are people who have, people who can tell me exactly how it feels, if only I ask them. A person might seem dull, but you have no idea what lived experience they might have to share. All you have to do is take the time to listen.
Over time, you may get closer. At the very least, you might appreciate them. Dually, they may take interest in you, and your beliefs. I understand the frustration with political views, but if they aren’t extremists, a conversation might enable them to expand their world views. In regards to a healthy lifestyle, invite them over for healthier meals, offer to go on walks with them. Don’t point out the flaws you see, but rather present them with new experiences. You aren’t going to fix or change anyone, and that shouldn’t be your intent, but by developing a relationship with them you can enrich both of your lives. If this isn’t something you’re comfortable with, it could be worth talking about with your boyfriend– he could invite them instead of you. Again, don’t accuse, don’t try to fix, but give them the space to expand.
Concerning your fear of your boyfriend turning into them, that’s all it really is, a fear. You can’t see the future, and you certainly can’t control it. What you can control, though, is your fears. Don’t let them affect your view of your boyfriend; see him as he is now. Try not to distort your relationship by projecting an imagined idea of what’s to come onto him.
At the end of the day, love is work. People are work. Partners come with families, just as they do everything else. People never exist as sole entities, and things are never simple. If you don’t see the worth in putting in that work, then I agree. Maybe there is no future for you and this person. But if you love them, and if you care, try. At the very least, try. And then see how things go.
Wishing you the best,
Miss Scramble