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"  Dolls, for the great ELLE Body Issue, I will make you thinner, prettier, younger, taller, richer, hotter, thicker-haired, and more popular. Either that, or by the time you finish reading this month&amp;#039;s letters, you won&amp;#039;t care if you&amp;#039;re thinner, hotter, or more popular. But first, a word from a correspondent who&amp;#039;s asking if it&amp;#039;s polite to deprive friends and relatives of the delightful details of a sloppy split-up.  Reality Bites Dear E. Jean : My newly ex-boyfriend, whom I dated for four years, is &amp;quot;looking for his soul mate&amp;quot; on a popular reality show. His episodes are in constant reruns, so my phone rings with friends, coworkers, and family members who &amp;quot;just saw Jim!&amp;quot; (not his real name) and ask why we split up. The true story is a nightmare: His &amp;quot;best friend,&amp;quot; who used to stay with us for months at a time, was actually his male lover, his ex-girlfriend turned out to be a transvestite, and he cruised and picked up men-for-hire when he was &amp;quot;working late.&amp;quot; I had to plead with his mother and brother to give me the facts. I&amp;#039;m absolutely devastated. I tested negative for all STDs, but I still feel betrayed. He used me! Lied to me, my friends, and my family! After my coworker watched him landing a date on the show, she said to me, &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t be jealous. He&amp;#039;s only doing it for the acting experience.&amp;quot; This is horrible! What do I say to people who keep calling? Please give me some ideas. I don&amp;#039;t want to be stuck in this sordid situation forever!\u2014Needing Courage My dear Miss Courage : Say with chirpy elegance, &amp;quot;Oh! You saw the show, darling? I&amp;#039;m so glad! Wasn&amp;#039;t he great? So handsome! So witty! So gay!&amp;quot; Whenever one breaks up, Miss Courage, one should always prepare a press release. Nothing pleases friends and officemates more than a simple, beautiful encapsulation of your entire romance delivered in a seven-second sound bite. Example: &amp;quot;Jim and I were together four years and he has many magnificent qualities, but his nonstop man-shagging prompted me to kick his prevaricating, phony arse out the door.&amp;quot; Don&amp;#039;t fret about reactions. It is customary for people to respond to the even most tangled and messy demise with a &amp;quot;I knew it all along.&amp;quot; Then, they either change the subject to their own frightful story or immediately endeavor to fix you up with their cousin, &amp;quot;a super\u00ADcool guy, if you overlook the flatulence.&amp;quot; The main thing is for you to step back, remember all of the loving things about him, try to understand the pain that would cause him to hide his sexuality, wish him well, and be happy you&amp;#039;re rid of the big fake.  E-mail your questions to e.jean@askejean.com  Sex and the SkinnyDear E. Jean: I&amp;#039;m sooo not fabulous. In my teens and early twenties, I was a serious gymnast: thin, muscular, 5&amp;#039;7&amp;quot;, and 120 pounds. Fast-forward through a marriage and two relationships and I now feel too old, too fat, and not pretty enough to have sex with any man. I&amp;#039;m up to 155 pounds. I can&amp;#039;t exercise like I used to, so I can&amp;#039;t easily get back to my former weight. My weekends consist of staying home, hiding from the world, and drinking alcohol out of boredom. I&amp;#039;m horribly embarrassed by how fat I&amp;#039;ve become. I&amp;#039;m always surprised to see women much fatter than I am having a lot more fun than I&amp;#039;m having. I need a plan! Help!\u2014Stuck in a Tub Stuck, you fusspot : My God! Pull yourself together! No woman is too old or too fat for sex. In the end we&amp;#039;re all going to be \u00ADskeletons, as old Marcus Aurelius says, so why not enjoy those 155 pounds while you got &amp;#039;em, hunny? But your letter&amp;#039;s not really about weight, now is it? You&amp;#039;re asking the not-even-Socrates-can-answer-it&amp;#039;s-so-impossible question: &amp;quot;How do I put down the Riesling, stagger out of the house, and find meaning and purpose?&amp;quot; I.e., how do you once again rejoice in art, intrigues, mystery, hilarity, screaming orgasms, and life? I don&amp;#039;t know, frankly. But you can try the following things which have always motivated the hell out of me (and Auntie Eeee suffers bouts of torpor which make a tree sloth look like Rachael Ray):  1. Realize the power you have over your own mind. Reject boredom, and boredom will disappear. Next, if you change the way you see things, things will change. In other words, if you change the way you see yourself, you will change. (This is all basic Philosophy 101, but very ripe stuff!)  2. Make your &amp;quot;Lax List.&amp;quot; Figure out what you want in life. Decide why you want it. And finally, take a sheet of thick, creamy, expensive paper (the more extravagant the better) and write down your desires and all the clever, wily excuses you will use to stop yourself from getting them (&amp;quot;I can&amp;#039;t exercise like I used to.... I&amp;#039;m not pretty enough....&amp;quot;). Don&amp;#039;t stint. Your list should run 20 or 30 entries at the least. Why so long? You&amp;#039;re an exceptionally cagey women who has figured out all kinds of ways to turn herself into a captive &amp;quot;hiding from the world.&amp;quot; Study this paper: It contains your secret to success.  3. Don&amp;#039;t do anything on that list. I realize this is counterintuitive, but victory always lies in the nonobvious. Your Lax List is your &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t Do List.&amp;quot; At the top of it should be alcohol: Booze is dimming your brain so much you can&amp;#039;t see that drinking is making you unhappy and &amp;quot;embarrassed&amp;quot;\u2014not your weight. By the by, if the List means changing everything in your life, from the time you get up in the morning to what groceries you buy to the authors you read\u2014so be it. Good luck, darling! Your sexy pounds are in the normal BMI range, so don&amp;#039;t waste one moment of your fixed time on Earth telling yourself you&amp;#039;re &amp;quot;fat.&amp;quot; Everything is your opinion. And it&amp;#039;s in your power to change your opinion. If you decide to lose weight, fine; but if you are content with yourself, you will be happy. E-mail your questions to e.jean@askejean.com  Few Good WomenDear E. Jean: I&amp;#039;m a soldier who&amp;#039;s deployed in Iraq. I receive my ELLE every month and enjoy reading it, since there&amp;#039;s not much out here that keeps a girl, well, feeling like a girl. I&amp;#039;m writing for two reasons: First, I&amp;#039;ve been so worried and nervous about when I get home. (This is my second and last deployment.) When I return, I&amp;#039;m separating from the military and will be looking for a job. It&amp;#039;s not just getting a job that scares me\u2014it&amp;#039;s that I won&amp;#039;t be able to find a job. I&amp;#039;m currently working on my associate&amp;#039;s degree in general education here, so it&amp;#039;s slow going. I could give you a laundry list of my &amp;quot;oh my gosh&amp;quot; worries, but I won&amp;#039;t. It is exciting at the same time because I&amp;#039;ll be facing a whole new life.  Stripes Sergeant, my warrior-ess : Thank you for putting things into perspective. I and all ELLE readers esteem your gallant service, and we all want you to stay safe. And that&amp;#039;s why I hate to tell you this: When you come home, it&amp;#039;s not going to be exactly easy. A \u00ADrecent study conducted by the Department of Veteran Affairs and Abt Associates, Inc. reported that 18 percent of recently separated service members are currently unemployed, and 25 percent earn less than $21,840 a year. This is shocking and deplorable; but you, my brave sergeant, are \u00ADalready a leader and possess skills that will make a brilliant world open up for you\u2014a world chock-full of incredible possibilities.  I&amp;#039;ve been on the phone this last half hour with gregarious Captain Daniel Tower, commander of the Bear Mountain Recruitment Company, United States Army, and he says he has served with many &amp;quot;fantastic female soldiers and officers in Iraq,&amp;quot; and points to doors on which you can go a-knockin&amp;#039;: &amp;quot;Hiring companies, such as Century 21, Home Depot, police departments, and businesses that \u00ADspecialize in computers and communications, look very favorably on young women with military experience.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;This young sergeant,&amp;quot; says Captain Tower, talking about you, &amp;quot;will be considered an ace candidate because she&amp;#039;s received the world&amp;#039;s best training in confidence, discipline, and leadership.&amp;quot;  You have marketable management skills, no doubt, but why not add a bachelor&amp;#039;s degree and make yourself \u00ADcompletely irresistible to employers? The GI Bill will pay for part or all\u2014depending on how many years you were enlisted and \u00ADwhether you go to school full- or part-time\u2014of your education. When you separate from the Army, you&amp;#039;ll go through special ETS (Expiration of Term Service) counseling, which includes resume; writing, financial planning, and college and employment advice. Then, after you decide what career you want and where you want to live, let&amp;#039;s not muck around: Call me. I&amp;#039;ll get you a job. E-mail your questions to e.jean@askejean.com  UnfaithfulDear E. Jean: I love my husband, but he&amp;#039;s so focused on making money, and is so depressed, anti\u00ADsocial, and controlling. We haven&amp;#039;t had sex in five years. I am happy-go-lucky and artistic, enjoy people, and have embarked on a self-improvement plan. I&amp;#039;ve hired a personal trainer and started working out. The trainer is much closer to me than my husband is\u2014we have lunch, talk deeply, laugh, and act silly together. The upshot is I&amp;#039;m falling in love with him. My husband won&amp;#039;t see a counselor and I&amp;#039;m afraid of divorce, but I&amp;#039;m tired of no sex, no touching, no holding, and no confiding. Can I have an affair?\u2014Hot to Trot My Trainer Trot, my trollymog : Yes. You are permitted to have an affair. But first you must tell your husband: &amp;quot;Yo Sweetheart, my perpetual appeals for you to `touch&amp;#039; me are tuckering me out. Therefore, I&amp;#039;m going to enjoy a little nook-nook with my trainer.&amp;quot; You may then proceed with the fling...or your husband might decide to see a physician, find out what is physically/mentally wrong with him, return home with a sack of Viagra, and embark on the exquisite hanging and banging of an intimate marriage. Either way, life&amp;#039;s too short to go without bliss!  E-mail your questions to e.jean@askejean.com "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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