by Rudy Cheeks

Dear Dr. Lovemonkey,

My boyfriend has a strange, macabre sense of humor. It's what you would call black humor, which frequently centers on joking about terrible and violent events. You can be sure that he knows all the O.J. Simpson, Jon-Benet Ramsey, Waco and Oklahoma City jokes. He also has a highly prized set of "Serial Killer" trading cards.

Although I don't share in his excursions into the realm of bad taste, I have never seen any indication that he is violent or even thoughtless or unkind. In fact, he's a very sweet and nice person.

For the past few months, however, he's been making inquiries about trying to obtain a painting by the Chicago area serial killer John Wayne Gacy. It seems that Gacy did a lot of paintings while he was in prison, and my boyfriend is very enthusiastic about trying to get his hands on one of them.

Is this thing going too far? Do you think that he's getting in too deep or getting obsessive about this? I really don't want to break up with him or anything, but I don't quite understand this behavior. Any thoughts?

-- Bewildered

Dear Bewildered,

You didn't mention what kind of work your boyfriend does, but it is not unusual for people who work in newsrooms, law enforcement and (for some strange reason) Wall Street to indulge regularly in the world of dark humor. Certainly, there are disturbed and dangerous people out there, but it sounds to me like your boyfriend isn't one of them.

Disturbed and dangerous people say and do hurtful things, like inflicting pain on animals. If he is thoughtful about others and doesn't inflict his edgy sense of humor on them unless he's certain that they "get it," my guess is that there is nothing to be concerned about here. If his everyday behavior shows no signs of strange pathologies, then his recent interest in the art works of John Wayne Gacy shouldn't change things any.

In fact, this actually could be an improvement, as Gacy's paintings (I understand that, like the late Red Skelton, he did a lot of clown studies) may be of some monetary value. I'm not entirely sure what the market for serial-killer art is, but it could be that your boyfriend is cultivating a more sophisticated approach to his interests. I understand that there are a few Richard Speck canvases out there, and I would suspect that Charles Manson has tapped into this market as well.

Strange as it may seem, Dr. Lovemonkey has found that some of the gentlest, least dangerous people he knows share your boyfriend's interest in serial-killer memorabilia or are huge fans of horror movies, strange fiction or other "out there" phenomena. Nothing you have mentioned leads me to believe that your boyfriend is any different than a whole lot of other fans of the unusual.

Dear Dr. Lovemonkey,

I've been in an exclusive relationship with a woman for almost two years now. She and I are both 24 years old. While I have been thinking more about settling down and considering marriage, she recently informed me that she thinks we should look into other possibilities and date other people. I think that she thinks she's missing out on a lot of opportunities in her single years and would like to experiment. She's not talking about breaking up or anything, just having an "open" relationship.

Needless to say, I'm not too enthusiastic about this turn of events. Do you think that she wants to break things off with me and just doesn't have the strength to push it too far yet? She hasn't been with anyone else so far, but she's talking about it.

My initial inclination was to push our relationship a little and introduce the idea of being engaged, but I decided that this would not be a very good idea. I'm not sure what to do here or what this all means. I'm willing to go along with this, but I don't think that I'd react well to seeing her with somebody else. Is there anything that I can do about this?

-- Jay

Dear Jay,

I would take your girlfriend at her word that she is just interested in seeing what else is out there. Obviously, at this time she doesn't feel as strongly or as certain about your relationship as you do. This is painful, but this is also reality.

You were smart to rethink your first instinct to try and jack up the relationship another notch, because this would have meant more pressure and stress on your girlfriend and probably would have resulted in her moving even further away from you. Basically, you must go along with this and try to distance yourself a bit from your emotional dependency on her.

There are times when these sorts of open relationships within a more primary relationship can work. Eventually, she may realize that she really prefers her exclusive relationship with you. But at this time, she feels that there is something missing or that she's just not ready for the kind of commitment you are interested in. If you plan to continue to see each other, you both should discuss this at length and establish ground rules and boundaries.

Unfortunately, both people need to be sufficiently strong and independent enough to do this, and it sounds like you're not there yet. You will need to confront this, and you just don't know how this will play out. You'll need to let go a bit.

The upside is that, if you do come around to discovering that you indeed are right for each other, your relationship will be stronger. As hard as it is, you need to back off and help create the amount of room she needs to find happiness in her own way.

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