Use your head

Dear Dr. Lovemonkey,

I am a middle-aged married man with three children and a wonderful wife. Our marriage has had its ups and downs, but my biggest problem is how I fantasize all the time about my old college girlfriend. I know that she lives a few towns away, but I’ve never contacted her and I don’t plan to! I’ve never told my wife about this woman. Even though we all went to the same school, they never met. What’s going on? Do I have a serious problem? What should I do? This is bugging me.

— Stuck on Her

Dear Stuck,

No, you do not have a serious problem. People indulge in sexual fantasies about other people, including those who are not their spouse or significant other, all the time. It is rather common, and as long as you don’t act on it, it’s fine. Don’t tell your wife about your fantasies. You can imagine how many relationships and marriages would be destroyed if everyone decided to discuss with their partner, at length, their sexual fantasies involving others.

My minor concern is that you say this is "bugging you." If, armed with the knowledge that there is nothing wrong or unusual about your fantasy, you continue to be "bugged," perhaps you should discuss it with a therapist. My own advice, however, is, don’t worry.

Dear Dr. Lovemonkey,

I am a single mother, 38 years old, and I have a 9-year-old son and a 15-year-old daughter. They are good kids. They are doing well in school. They have never gotten into any serious trouble, and we generally like their friends. My reason for writing this letter is that our 15-year-old daughter is a rather frequent watcher of the Desperate Housewives television show. She has told me she thinks it is funny.

I work on weekend evenings when this show is on and have never actually seen it. I’ve seen bits and snatches of it here and there on Access Hollywood and other show biz shows. I have also read a lot of commentary pieces about this show and wonder if I should be letting my daughter watch it. It sounds like it’s primarily about adultery, bad parenting, and a variety of other extremely bad behaviors. What do you think?

— Semi-Desperate Mother

Dear Semi-Desperate,

Dr. Lovemonkey thinks this is a television show we are talking about. You indicate that your daughter is intelligent, well-adjusted, and hangs out with a good group of peers. The idea that intelligent, well-adjusted 15-year-olds will take cast members of a television show as role models is highly unlikely.

That your daughter told you she thought the show was "funny" indicates that she gets it. It is a satire. I would be concerned if there were some sort of social/historical precedent. For instance, if when Hogan’s Heroes was a top-rated show, teenagers started setting up their own concentration camps, because they found Sergeant Schultz to be such a zany and lovable character, we could worry.

Back in the ’70s and ’80s, lots of teens watched Dallas and Dynasty, but very few of those viewers grew up to become amoral, fabulously wealthy evildoers (nor, thank God, did they start wearing clothes similar to Joan Collins’s character).

Yes, you’ll always have the one kid in 20 million who doesn’t recognize Superman reruns for what they are and leaps from the garage roof with a bed sheet tied to his neck. This is a level of disturbance that would be noticed in the child, one thinks, before he tried to fly. I suspect that your daughter is highly unlikely to spark up an illicit affair with a local gardener because she saw a desperate housewife do it. She knows these are not real people and that they are behaving badly for our amusement.

Send questions and romantic quandaries to RUDYCHEEKS@prodigy.net