Dear Claire,

My brother is going out with a girl, and he really likes her. The only problem is that I’ve been in love with her since elementary school! He doesn’t know this, and I haven’t gotten up the courage to tell him. The longer I wait, the worse it gets, but I don’t know what words to use. Help!

Sincerely,

Lovesick in L.A.

Dear little Lovesick,

I feel your pain, my little spicy chicken biscuit. Love is a dangerous drug, and it sounds as though you have mainlined a fatal dosage to your exhausted veins. To see them happy and in love, kissing and canoodling, probably having improper relations all over your bedroom furniture, must be just dreadful. Picture it vividly – really use your imagination. Just dreadful. Anywho, I thought long and hard about your problem, and I think I have a solution. It will take courage, conviction, and commitment – are you up for it? Of course you are, you brave little biscuit! The first step is to save up a vast amount of money. Should you not already have one, I would suggest getting a job, something really classy and profitable. Once you have amassed this fortune (understanding that this might take several years and many, many promotions), find at least eight guys you trust. Pay them each a portion of your riches, and ask them to tell your brother that this girl cheated on him with them. Ask them to give your brother specific details of the individual sex acts that your dream girl performed, the more reprehensible the better. Once this step is completed, your brother will be disillusioned with the girl and it’s time for step two: gain access to the girl’s job or family, whichever she relies on most for financial support (ideally, infiltrate both!). Use this insider information to frame her for a heinous crime, one no supervisor or immediate family member could ignore. Once this “transgression” is discovered, she will lose her job and/or the love and support of her family, and by now, your brother will have terminated his relationship with her. She will be alone, impoverished, and vulnerable. And that’s when you move into step three – wooing her. It should be relatively easy, considering she has no one to turn to in her life as she knows it. Maybe buy her a few meals, tell her she looks kind of pretty. Don’t go overboard – you don’t want your time, money, and hard work to go down the drain because you seem too available. In time, she will rely on you for sustenance and support, and from that place of need, it’s only a short hop/skip/jump to toleration, understanding, appreciation, fondness, slight resignation, affection, enjoyment, adoration, passion, devotion, and finally love. And there you have it – in three short steps, you can break this Aphrodite down and build her back up… as your own true love.

Invite me to the wedding, you crazy kids!

Cordially, Claire