How Can I Tell My Boyfriend That He Cannot Borrow My Car?

Advice from Lord Birthday

Q. How can I tell my boyfriend that he cannot borrow my car? It’s pretty much his car now.

A. Wonderful question. This happened to a friend of mine once. The boyfriend believed that, because he used the car more than my friend, the car was essentially his. “Finders, keepers!” he said, which didn’t make any sense, because he found nothing, but we knew what he meant. He meant: I am annoying.

To address this situation, I would suggest sitting down with your boyfriend, in an emotionally neutral location of your choosing, and asking him a series of increasingly complex hypothetical questions, such as “What if we had two cars? One for me and one for you? And you stopped driving my car because you had your own car? How would that feel? Would it not perhaps engender good feelings in our relationship? Because our possessions, i.e., our cars, would be treated according to their nature? Let me put it another way: when you drive my car constantly, sometimes without even asking me, I feel upset. I feel mad. I feel unspeakable anger surging like a red-hot tidal wave through my brain. I love you, Big Boyfriend, but enough is enough. This is my car, and I need this fact to be recognized by the people of my world, which, for now, depending on how this information is received, includes you.” Yeah, maybe just say that last part. The direct part. Skip the questions. Go straight to the heart of the issue (with love). Puppy up.

Q. How do I get the smoke alarm to stop working?

A. Weird question. STOP working? I have never encountered this problem. Let me think. Perhaps you mean that the smoke alarm is beeping and will not stop for the life of you? And accordingly you are on the verge of madness? I understand that. That is a bad time, the beeping, the ungodly blips of indoor squeal. I hate a day that features indoor squeal! OK, answer: I think you should just remove the batteries, and if that doesn’t work, you’re going to need to move. Sell your house, cancel your apartment. Because see, there is literally no hope in trying to fix a smoke alarm that beeps without batteries, because this means that it is haunted, maybe by a weird old Puritan named Baldwin, and you cannot throw a Haunted Thing into the garbage can. Have you ever seen a Haunted Thing there? No, because of the laws. So good luck. Remove the batteries and pray for No Baldwin.

Q. How do I ask a waiter at a coffee shop out? Not like “Wanna grab a coffee,” right? Or just like that?

A. Just like that. It would be funny to ask them to have coffee, because they WORK in coffee, like that is their job, so when you said it they would be like “Huh?????? That is so funny that you said that.”

Another option that stays with the coffee theme—which, to elaborate, is dry and funny and will certainly either a) create an immediate bond with them or b) destroy all hope of a connection—is to say something like, “Hey, Coffee Johnson. Yeah you. Coffee Johnson. I like your look, Coffee Johnson. I want to get to know you better.” The waiter (who, to be clear, you have re-named “Coffee Johnson”) will then either pretend to kiss you on the noggin (a good sign) or ask you to leave the store forever (a bad sign). Good luck puppy up. Let that coffee jockey know.

Q. How can I be a better person at my library?

A. Ah, yes. Library sins. Don’t worry, my friend, many people are bad at their library. In fact, truth be told, a small joy of this life is acting wicked among the books and tools and VHS cassettes of your community. Look, libraries are not temples. They are not places to say “I love you God, please let me taste wealth,” i.e., they are not fallen churches, even though they smell like the Bible Boys of yesteryear. A library is a place to lose your personhood, to become a calculated fog, a mist, a light breeze that ruffles the dresses and bowties of the other souls gathered there, each of whom is also in the process of leaving their book-linked bodies, becoming holy in their own special ways. In other words: you do not need to be a better person at the library. You need to let your light drip out, let it push you toward something that you are called to do. This is real power. To discover that you are nothing, and to let that nothing shine.