That's what he or she said, Jan. 24

Question

I have need of relationship advice, and I'm asking you because I'm apparently a masochist who enjoys being mocked by strangers, hooray. So here is the situation: I'm a young woman, and have been in a relationship with a young man for several years. More often than not, he treats me well and he is smart, kind, and funny – he's a good guy, you get it. But recently, I've been having doubts about our relationship and feeling depressed at times; I feel bored. I feel like there's no longer any excitement in our relationship, and I often consider what it would be like to date other people. I often find myself interested in other guys, and the majority of it just being sexual attraction. Even with all this, it weighs heavily on me, and I find myself loath to leave my boyfriend. Am I a bad person for feeling this way, or am I justified in my feelings?

She said

By no means are you a bad person. People have needs and wants, and sometimes they are for other people that aren't their significant other, and sometimes they are for pizza.

As I have never had such feelings for anyone other than the person I am with who also reads this newspaper on a regular basis and I see all the time, I will relate it to pizza. Sometimes you're eating pizza that you love and you start to feel like maybe it's missing something, but you don't want to change your pizza because all that is the pizza you love. To clarify, just like your significant other, you love that pizza. However, maybe you see a friend who has the same kind of pizza, or something similar, but they have topped it with something interesting like a different kind of sauce or a vegetable you can't pronounce.

"Oooooo, child," you think. "That pizza looks fresh."

But that pizza is not fresh. Just because that pizza is different does not mean it's any better. It probably tastes like crap, and has an STI that you will inevitably pass along to your current pizza, and then your elaborate charade will be for naught.

However, if you are bored with your pizza, it's probably bored with you too, and you should probably try some salad or a Calzone or something.

He said

To begin with, a warning: sarcastic masochism can get you into some troublesome situations if you're not careful, and as such I would suggest you watch your wit.

As for your real problem, you are indeed justified in your feelings. You and your boyfriend are a few years into the relationship, and the honeymoon phase is over. Just because you're not married, doesn't mean it won't be as boring – all right, that's a little cynical. In reality, being a spouse is way more exciting than being a boyfriend or girlfriend, usually due to the fact that spouses have fully under-developed people to be responsible for.

Am I saying that you should get pregnant just to spice up your relationship? No, stupid, you should be working harder to follow my serpentine logic. What I'm saying is that you have hit the married-couple rut, but you have the uncommitted luxury of daydream infidelity. Instead of nutting-up and buying some new lingerie and downloading the latest Kenny G's Greatest Hits to spice it up, you find yourself wondering about other dudes.

This is natural — I don't care if you feel guilty, as doing anything because of guilt is, at is base, still selfish and worthy of meta-guilt — so address it and move on. If you want to stay with the dude, find a way to make it interesting again. Explore by indulging your fringe sexuality and as well as his (be prepared, you never know how furry or "tentacle-y" your boy might be).

However, if you're done with him, let him know, while keeping in mind that you ended the relationship because you weren't getting laid enough. No matter how awesome this dude is, he will not have mutual feelings.