Dear Lil Wenker is Lil Wenker (SY ’23)’s advice column! Send your most pressing questions and pleas for help to lillian.wenker@yale.edu.
Dear Little Wenker,
I’ve been dating a girl for six months now and we’ve hit a snag. Everything was going great at first—breakfast in bed, couples’ trivia night—we’re even thinking about getting a cat! But all of a sudden, she’s started doing this thing where she talks to me like I’m a kid. Well, more like I’m a small animal, actually: a dog. My friends say I’m crazy—that she’s just being affectionate—but she even scratches my head sometimes and calls me a “good boy.” I overlooked it for weeks, but she called me “Champion” the other day during sex. I was pretty into it, ngl, until I saw from a Facebook memory that “Champion” was her greyhound’s name as a kid.
I love her, I really think I do, but honestly it’s sort of emasculating. I don’t want to be treated like an animal anywhere but the bedroom. Help me??
Sincerely,
Man’s Best Friend
Dear Man’s Best Friend,
It takes a lot of courage for a man to ask for help. Thank you for being so brave.
You have two options. Let’s begin with some questions—spoiler, this is the harder option. Who makes breakfast in bed every weekend? By couples’ trivia, do you really mean asking her to guess how many collective situps the bros can do without hurling after speed-eating McRibs and chugging your secret cocktail “gut bust?” And do you really think a cat will keep her from leaving if you continue to forget her mom has celiac before every Sunday night supper and isn’t just a “sourdough snob?” I want you to answer these questions and then be honest: do you need training? Because it seems she is trying her best to house-train you, and you are just peeing wherever you’d like.
If you’re not interested in relationship work, instead embrace your new role. You might be surprised at how much you like being on a leash, and you will definitely learn more uses for your tongue than you ever imagined. Jump on the couch, dig in the yard, steal food off the counter. Maybe you won’t be such a good boy to her anymore … but always make sure to wag that tail so she knows you’re veryyyyyy excited she’s home.
Report back soon—and I’m talking dog years soon.
Little Wenker
