By Judy McGuire
dategirl@nypress.com

I've been dating a married (but separated) man for about 10 months now. When we first started dating, he explained to me that he was separated and going through a divorce, but his wife wouldn't sign the papers.

I never cared about this until about two months ago when I finally realized I was in love with him. He moved into a new house, and thinking they had no contact with each other, I spent countless nights at his home—even though her pictures and sorority stuff were up.

A week ago I called his house and she was on the voicemail. I was so heated that I decided not to travel out of town with him, a trip he'd been planning for a month. He even told me that when his daughter (not hers) comes over, she comes to spend time with his daughter. He told me she still won't sign the papers and that she always calls before she comes, and that she does not have a key. I saw a piece of her mail the other day on the couch. I am so confused. What should I do?

—Kate

Putting aside the fact that your Prince Charming is still married and obviously still very enmeshed with Wifey-Poo (not to mention he's the impregnator of a woman he never bothered to marry), what are you doing with someone who would cohabitate with a sorority sister? Are you nuts?

Not only that—he's not even embarrassed to be married to a Gamma Gamma Ho-Bag. Perhaps even more shocking is the fact that he has chosen to decorate his own new "bachelor" pad not with neon Coors Light signs or calendars featuring scantily clad babes holding power tools—oh, no. He's chosen to bedeck his walls with her sorority schwag. Gross. Even if he's still banging her (which I think we can be fairly sure is the case), that's no excuse for having photos and ribbons and whatever the hell else "sorority stuff" consists of, adorning his home. If that's his idea of art, I can only imagine that he considers oatmeal a daring color choice and fanny packs a viable bag option.

Run!!

You were right to cancel your trip out of town with Freddy Fratboy. You'd be even righter to pop him a quick upper-cut to the scrotum, if only metaphorically. See, one can occasionally find excuses for infidelity and lies, but let me tell you something, sister—there is no excuse for bad taste.

The fact that you have so many "friends" who would resort to rummaging through their loved ones' possessions (especially "Rachel," who feels that this is her "wifely duty") says a lot about you. I, for one, would never associate with such people.

You and your friends are sick people, and you shouldn't be allowed to give advice to anyone.

—Matt

Oh, silly, silly Matt. You crack me right up! You deem my friends "sick" based solely on the fact that a few of them have riffled through drawers or hacked into other people's email? Let me tell you what—that's nothing compared to some of the ill shit these deviants I proudly call friends have gotten up to.

So maybe you're right; associating with these types does say a lot about me. Doing a quick mental inventory of my sins, it occurs to me that you may be on to something. Perhaps I am a bad person, as I have, in no particular order:

• Phoned in an anonymous tip to the cops on an ex whom I knew was innocent of this particular crime, but had committed others just like it. (In my defense, I was a teenager.)

• Tried to convince an ex who had brain-cancer-related aphasia (that's where your words get all jumbled) that his current girlfriend's name was not Kelly, but in fact, "Horrible-Psycho-Cunt-Kelly." He knew I was kidding, but damned if he could remember her real name, and I refused to tell him.

• Fucked an ex's best friend/roommate in order to get back at him for dumping me. Not shockingly, that didn't really work out too well for me.

• Passed around a naked photo of a hairy bloated ex that is so grotesquely unflattering that one of my girlfriends actually retches a little if I so much as even mention it.

• Allowed a financial analyst to make out with me even though I had a cold sore. To make matters worse, I didn't say anything even after I figured out he'd chewed off and swallowed the scab.

• Let a normally squeamish, but very tipsy boyfriend go down on me knowing full well he wouldn't have had he recalled that I had my period. Oops.

• Swore up and down to several men I dated that I'd never write about them, only to turn around and feature them prominently in a column. (But really, a pedantic white boy with hipster damage who repeatedly refers to his drinking buddies as his "niggaz"—how could I resist that?)

I was going to go on (believe me, I could), but frankly, there are far too many other transgressions to list. And besides, I'm feeling quite cleansed. I think it's time for a cocktail and an extensive Google search on my current boyfriend. So thank you, Matt. Thank you for caring enough to castigate. o