The Daily Rumpus
Get Overly Personal Emails
From Stephen Elliott
Dearest Sugar, Light of My Thursday Afternoons:
I teach a few creative writing courses at the University of Alabama where the majority of my students are seniors graduating in May.
...moreDear Sugar,
For those of us who aren’t lucky enough to “just know,” how is a person to decide if he or she wants to have a child?
...moreDearest sweet peas: It’s become my tradition that every time I reach a new decade of columns I do a Q&A, in which I whip out shorter answers to several questions instead of the usual longer, single question column.
Dear Sugar,
I’m jealous. I’m jealous of people who succeed at what I do (write literary fiction). I’m jealous of them even if I love them or like them or respect them. Even when I pretend to be happy when my writer friends get good news, the truth is I feel like I swallowed a spoonful of battery acid.
...moreDear Sugar,
For many years, to varying degrees, I stole compulsively. For many of the years I stole, I was on a “cocktail” of psychotropic drugs for depression, anxiety, and insomnia. In retrospect, I think the drugs made me powerless to fight against the compulsion to take things.
...moreDear Sugar,
I’m a 38 year-old guy and engaged to be married this summer. My fiancé is 35. I don’t need romantic advice. I’m writing to you about my fiancé’s mother, who passed away from cancer several years before I met her, when my fiancé was 23.
...moreDear Readers,
It’s March, my anniversary month as Sugar—on March 11th last year The Rumpus published my first column.
...moreDear Sugar,
I’m torn. I feel like I have to decide between the two things I love the most. My wife and I have an 18 month-old daughter. Our marriage has been rocky for years. My wife is a heroin addict who relapsed (post-baby), after seven years of recovery.
...moreDear Sugar,
I read your column religiously. I’m 22. From what I can tell by your writing, you’re in your early 40s. My question is short and sweet: what would you tell your 20-something self if you could talk to her now?
...moreDear Sugar,
I love your advice column. I am a 64 year-old man who has been single for the past five years.
...moreDear Sugar,
I am a young woman in an American city. I’ll be out of a job in a few weeks. Gulp. I’m in the process of entering into an arrangement with a man: we will rendezvous once or twice a week and he will pay me an “allowance” of $1,000 a month.
...moreDear Sugar,
My twenty-year-old daughter returned home from university after suffering a bout of depression in late May.
...moreHello sweet peas! It’s become my tradition that every time I reach a new decade of columns, I do a Q&A, in which I whip out short answers to several brief questions instead of the usual longer, single column. Happy holidays!
Dear Sugar,
A half decade ago, I met a man and fell in love with him and then moved in with him too fast, as people do. Once I moved in with him, I realized our incompatibilities were so vast that I wanted out.
...more
Dear Sugar,
I’m a twenty-one year old guy. I’m in college right now. Though I work full-time to pay for some of my bills, I’m still dependent on my parents for room and board. I also use their car. I have no problem with living with my parents—at least I wouldn’t if I wasn’t gay.
...more
Hello sweet peas! I decided to whip out a few shortish answers this week instead of the usual longer, single column. There are three of them, all on the subject of sex.
Dear Sugar, Sugah, Sage,
I’m a spry 47 year-old feisty broad. For the past three years I’ve been deeply in love with a woman. The timing of our meeting was atrocious.
...more
Dear Sugar,
I’m kind of new in school and I want to make friends. All I ever hear is “just be yourself” and “just be friendly” and it’s not that easy on your second day of 8th grade.
...more
Dear Sugar,
I was raised in the very conservative, Christian “deep south,” where I’ve discovered that my life has been sheltered from the views and lifestyles in other areas of the country.
...more
A lot of people have taken to sending direct messages to Sugar on her Twitter feed. Instead of the regular question and answer column this week, Sugar answers multiple questions she’s received via DM:
Dear Sugar,
I write like a girl. I write about my lady life experiences, and that usually comes out as unfiltered emotion, unrequited love, and eventual discussion of my vagina as metaphor.
And that’s when I can write, which doesn’t happen to be true anymore.
...more
Dear Sugar,
I am the lucky mama of one darling baby and oh, how I treasure every moment! Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on how you look at it—the baby’s daddy does not follow suit on treasuring every moment.
...moreOur ever more famous advice columnist, Sugar, has started a Google Group.
What do you get if you join the group? We don’t know. Probably a notice about that week’s Sugar column. But probably more than that. It’s too soon to say.
...more
Dear Sugar,
I’m an average 26-year-old man, exceptional only in that I’m writing to an Internet advice columnist and that I’m incredibly ugly. I don’t hate myself, and I don’t have body dysmorphia. I was born with a rare blood disorder that has had its way with my body from a young age.
...moreDear Sugar,
Two days ago my boss let me out of my shift early. I tried calling my boyfriend on the phone but he didn’t answer. When I got home and opened the door to our apartment, I found him standing in front of our full-length mirror in my panties.
...more
Dear Sugar,
About eighteen months ago, I got pregnant. In a move that surprised both my boyfriend and me, we decided we wanted to keep the baby. Though the pregnancy was unplanned, we were really excited to become parents and the child was very much loved and wanted.
...more
Dear Sugar,