The Luv Doc: The Replacement

Dear Luv Doc,

Since 2022 I have been in a relationship with a divorced father who has a teenage son. He and his ex have a shared custody agreement. Over the last year and a half, I have gotten to know his son and we now have a good relationship, but when I was first getting to know him, he would say things to me like, “Mom never gets upset when I play Madden” or “My mom makes better pancakes than you.” His comparisons were mostly about inconsequential things. It didn’t really upset me, but eventually I had to sit him down and tell him that I am not trying to replace his mother, so it’s not a competition. To his credit, he has backed off on comparing me with his mother. Sadly, I can’t say the same for his father or his friends. Their comparisons always favor me, but it annoys me that I am still being compared to his ex. He always tells me how much funnier/smarter/prettier I am, or how much easier I am to talk to – things like that. I know he is trying to compliment me, but I don’t want to be compared to her at all. It makes me feel like I am just a replacement, even if I am an “upgrade.” Me and his ex are so unalike it’s not a compliment to me when someone says I am better than her. Even his friends compare me to her, and that annoys me even more. The worst part is that they will sometimes do it around his son, and even though he has been sweet to me, I can’t imagine it doesn’t get under his skin. I truly do believe his dad wants me to feel loved and accepted, so I don’t know whether to complain about this behavior or just let it go. I don’t want to ruin a good thing, and I am sure everyone means well, but ...

– The Replacement

You need look no further than Donald Trump and his Ritalin Rasputin – the “richest man in the world” – to know that men are stupid and “will make mistakes” ... because ... hey, “nobody is going to bat a thousand.” Let me just say what everyone has been thinking: Elon’s White House presser – during which an overdressed toddler, aka “The Omen VII,” was nut-checking our pouty-faced combover-in-chief on live TV like some preschool bully on an Adderall binge – that presser was basically a modern-day Sermon on the Mount ... if you sub Jesus with an ADHD Neo-Nazi South African immigrant douchenozzle who has more anchor babies than Jesus had disciples. Long story short: No one better than a Nazi to deliver the profound revelation that men are going to get shit wrong. That’s why we need to be patient and forgiving while they take a few decades to make a bunch of mistakes (and I want to be clear that I am not talking about Elon’s 13 children) while they self-actualize and ideally become decent human beings. You know ... just like the roughly 4 billion vadge holders who somehow managed that modest accomplishment without the benefit of a blood emerald trust fund. Please try to understand that white men – especially transphobic billionaires with translucent skin – have it especially rough. Maybe we should all have a little more empathy and a little less judgment, K?

Now, by no means am I comparing your boyfriend’s relatively minor transgressions to those of the aforementioned white supremacist future Mars colonizer, I am simply trying to say that perhaps good intentions aren’t sufficient reason for a hall pass. The annals of history are chock-full of well-intentioned – let’s just be honest, mostly dudes – who felt like violence, terror and genocide were perfectly acceptable collateral damage in the quest to fulfill their bold visions for the future. In fact, if the Nazis hadn’t thoroughly ruined my interest in German culture, I might have learned to sprechen sie deutsch and might possibly be able to cite a speech by der führer where he said, in so many words, “Look, we’re going to make some mistakes. Nobody is going to bat a thousand – even in a thousand-year Reich.”

I will grant that patience is a virtue, but patience for the ignorance and incompetence of egomaniacal white dudes who aren’t fucking reading the room is nauseatingly passe – and we aren’t even two months into Putin’s Piss Tape Puppet Regime. So, in the generous, loving spirit of enlightenment, please share with your boyfriend that if he wants to compliment you, he needs to find a way to do it that doesn’t invoke his ex. If his son can somehow manage it, surely he can as well.