by Rudy Cheeks

Dear Dr. Lovemonkey,

Cynthia, my girlfriend of four years, and I broke up a couple of months ago. She said that our relationship was "emotionally distant" and "unsatisfying." I am certainly not the most objective judge in the world on this, but it seemed that we had a pretty good relationship and certainly a pretty active sex life right up until the end.

The thing is, that within four or five weeks of our breakup, she started seeing another guy. I already felt pretty bad about things, but this only made me feel worse. What I want to know: is there any way I can seek some amount of revenge without it seeming too mean or vengeful? I realize this is not the most positive thing in the world to do, but I have a sense that I would feel a lot better about myself if I could figure out some way to purge myself of the memory of her.

-- Wanting To Clear the Slate

Dear Wanting,

What exactly is it you would like to do that would make you feel better? Sabotage her current relationship? Lop off a horse's head and leave it in her bed? Leave a burning cow chip on her front porch, ring the front bell and run?

The fact is there's no need for revenge here. She found the relationship dissatisfactory and had probably been feeling that way for some time before letting you in on it. This would explain why she seemingly rebounded so quickly and started up another romance. It's neither here not there whether she's fickle or you, in some way, failed to give her the type of support and comfort she was looking for. It's over and now's the time to move on. Doing something negative to her would only serve to sustain your fixation on the failure of the relationship.

If you feel that purging yourself of your residual bad feelings would be helpful, then do it in the privacy of your home. Construct a little voodoo doll and fill it with pins. Print her name in erasable ink on the floor and ground your foot into it once a day. Paint a little sign with Cynthia's name on it with a slash through it, the international symbol for "NO MORE CYNTHIA." Regaining your self-esteem is your problem and you may go about it any way that you think will work, even though concentrating on the past is probably not to your benefit. Retaliating against Cynthia in any way, however, is unfair and a very bad idea.

Dear Dr. Lovemonkey,

I had a long-distance relationship with a guy for almost a year. We e-mailed back and forth almost daily and, eventually, I moved to be closer to him. Within a month, the whole thing fell apart. After I moved to his area, he soon lost interest. He explained to me that I "wasn't his type."

It seems that "his type" has quite a lot to do with body type, hairstyle, and a certain Playmate ideal that I did not measure up to. Now I've moved back and am wondering if I should lose weight, and have breast enhancement or a nose job. I've started to become very conscious and unhappy about the way I look. This wasn't always the case and I'm just wondering if you think that this is a direct result of this very bad experience.

-- A.H.

Dear A.H.,

Most likely, it is a result of this recent misadventure. Some people put a great deal of emphasis on looks, and this guy sounds like that type. The important question is not how this guy -- who obviously has a very narrow focus on such things -- thinks about the way you look, but how you think about the way you look. People who feel good about the way they look are immediately attractive to many people.

Not everyone is hung up on some sort of super model ideal. You wouldn't want to go out with an oily and shallow monkey (read: Donald Trump) like that anyway. Any sort of failed romantic adventure is bound to bring on a certain loss of self-esteem. As long as you've never had issues with your looks before, it's likely that your current sense of inadequacy is a residue of this great disappointment.

Spend time with your friends and regenerate your positive feelings about yourself. It will take time, but I'll bet that you'll start feeling a lot better after a while. Don't be cowed by the fact that you hooked up with a bad bill of goods. It happens sometimes. There are plenty of folks out there who are not as shallow as this guy you had the misfortune to hook up with.

Think of Barbra Streisand. Not someone who fits the traditional mold, Streisand is a sex symbol for many people. That's because she fairly oozes with self-confidence and a strong sense of self. How about Ellen Barkin, another sex symbol. While neither of these performers might be your cup of tea, they are great examples of the power of positive thinking. Dr. Lovemonkey himself is not exactly the blueprint of a male model, but he has inexplicably found himself married to an incredibly smart, beautiful and wonderful woman who thinks he's swell. That's because she has real depth and appreciation of a true sense of beauty. Don't go getting your hooters blown up. Know that you were barking up the wrong tree and trust that the right person for you is someone with depth and taste.

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