The Luv Doc: Kitten Milk

Dear Luv Doc,

My ex-boyfriend broke up with me nearly two years ago. At the time, he said he felt trapped and that he wanted to try dating other people. Of course, he ended up immediately dating another girl from his office. I was crushed. It took me a very long time before I could even go out with anyone else, but eventually I started dating and while I haven't found that perfect guy, I am really happy with my life and how it has been going ... well, except for one thing. My ex is always around, and he is always trying to get me to come back to him. The girl he left me for broke up with him a few months later and ever since then – almost two years – he has been bugging me to get back with him. I keep telling him it isn't going to happen, but he won't give up. It's really annoying, especially when he shows up at my apartment when I am with a date. He hasn't done anything wrong, really, he is just annoying and I am so over it. What can I do to get him to leave me alone?

– Crowded

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When I was a very young kid, one of my earliest remembrances was a week in the summer when a young kitten came scratching at our screen back door. When the kitten first appeared, my father gave me and my brothers strict orders not to feed the "damn cat" because it would come by every night if we did. I was a weak-willed toddler at the time, and so later that night after dinner I put out a dish of milk on the back porch, and sure enough, the next morning the milk was gone and that kitten was curled up by the back door when my dad left for work.

I know this because when my dad got home from work that evening he interrogated me and my brothers about who left the milk dish out until I confessed. I received the obligatory spanking (this was the Sixties – before Dr. Phil) and was told to never leave milk out again. That cat came back for the next five or six nights, but eventually it found another family with a chump toddler. Or maybe it was eaten by coyotes. The point is not so much that my father was a strict disciplinarian who hated cats – he was, but rather that, being raised on a farm, he was totally right about not feeding the kitten. It did go away ... eventually ... after several anguishing nights of heartbreaking (at least to a toddler) mewling at our back door.

You have a kitten scratching at your screen back door. If you want it to go away, you need to stop feeding it milk. Yes, even a little bit of milk. Like answering the phone, or the doorbell, or your email, or your Snapchat. Yes, even the one with the puppy ears and the big tongue. Cut him off entirely. Either that or let him in. Just know that he might eventually shit on your carpet and run off with some other pussy.