The Luv Doc: Uncool!

Dear Luv Doc,

Here's the thing: I've been dating my boyfriend for months, but I am really nervous he is going to cheat on me one day. I can't tell you why. I can't tell you what has sparked this but I am just worried for myself that one day I will find something that will reveal him talking to someone else. It is something that just drives me insane. Perhaps it's paranoia, but how do I change my mindset to "if it happens it happens"? Or change my mindset in general? Should I stop checking his phone?

– Help

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Yes, you should stop checking his phone. There is no ethical gray area here. You need to cease and desist. Leave this sex-crazed lothario and his extensive contact list of super-hot girlfriends (and that one experimental guy) alone. Uncool. Everybody deserves to have at least one place where they can hide their dirty laundry and bury their skeletons. That skeletons thing is a metaphor, by the way, but if you go snooping around and find an actual skeleton, that still doesn't make it okay to snoop, it just makes you unlucky.

Yes, unlucky. Finding a skeleton is almost never a lucky circumstance. Sure, it's a nice heads-up to get the fuck out of the crawl space and maybe go tell someone about your boyfriend's windowless van full of bloody clown suits, but it's not something you're going to feel especially good about regardless of the outcome. The finding of the skeleton is always the scene right before a bunch of additional people get murdered or mutilated.

Now, I am not saying that your boyfriend is necessarily a machete-wielding psychopath. I am just saying that if he is, you don't want to get caught checking his phone log. Even if he's into something relatively harmless like defecation/humiliation or yarn bombing he is probably leaving clues someplace other than his contact list. For instance: Does his mailbox look like it's wearing leg warmers?

That said, I truly believe your overactive imagination is driving you bat-shit. I know I personally can think up an exhaustive list of unspeakable depravities, and I haven't even met the guy. Your mind must be churning out horrifying yet plausible scenarios by the second. You probably haven't slept in months. I may be a fake doctor, but I can assure you that is not healthy. Sleep deprivation leads to all sorts of psychoses. You need to give your brain some downtime to sweep the mental confetti off the floor.

So here's my prescription. Stop thinking about your boyfriend. Start thinking about you. Start pursuing things that make you healthy and happy. Yes, spending time with your boyfriend might be one of those things, so do that. Bang him senseless. Bake him cookies. But take some time to recognize the things that make you happy and pursue them relentlessly and with abandon. Share them with him and other people. Nerd out embarrassingly on life and its limitless possibilities, and if you look up someday and he's "talking" the brains out of someone else, that will surely suck, but at least you won't have sabotaged any chance at happiness by worrying about what hasn't happened.