QUESTION: "Dear Ian:

I read your last column and I have a question for you: what’s wrong with dating a guy in the meantime? Isn’t that better than waking up alone?"

ANSWER: When you’re living in the meantime, you’re sacrificing the present for an unforeseen future. But the problem with that sort of thinking is that the future becomes indefinitely delayed and the present doesn't count. Imagine going through years of your life with the gut feeling that none of it really matters yet. Then again, you probably know it all too well. Everything will ultimately fall into place once you [fill in the blank, e.g., publish that book, lose ten pounds, meet a great guy, get that promotion, get your own column, buy that apartment, show 'em all, etc.]. Who wouldn't wind up numbed to real hope and possibility after exerting so much energy for stuff that really doesn't matter? And who wouldn't want to convince themselves that at least some of the effort was worthwhile, that all of the energy you expended on that asshole you sometimes call your boyfriend (when you're not calling him worse), actually did matter?

This is not to say you need only live in the moment. That's impossible, at least according to Milan Kundera, who called this the ‘unbearable lightness of being.’ We can’t live every moment like it’s our last, because doing so would make every moment too serious. So we do the opposite. We live lightly and frivolously, squandering our moments. This is best illustrated in dating scenarios, which translates into hooking up and settling, and allowing life to pass us by.

But if we’re not supposed to live in the moment, what should we do? The best course, while not easy, is to find a happy medium between the two – essentially living comfortably in the now while not forsaking the moment by treating it as the “meantime.” Confusing, huh? I call it the Bearable Lightness of Dating (BLD) and I suppose it’s a way of thinking more than a true course of action. But you’re the one who’s called upon and you’re the one who must be aware of your actions and your intentions.

When it comes to BLD, you have to determine whether the guy you’re dating has, at a bare minimum, the potential to be a true in-the-moment guy. If he's solely a meantime man, the burden is on you to cut the cord, right now. You can’t put it off. Life is too precious to get stuck in an endless cycle of mean-timers who will never, ever wind up with you in the here and now.