Dear Dr Tinman: Why do you want me to go to the airport?

This week’s question plunges us into the murky world of relationships - a place where rationality, laughter and common sense go to tear each other apart like a group of Toddlers and Tiaras’ mothers left in a room with a voucher for a year’s worth of free dance tuition and a single sharpened pencil.

Before we continue, I wish to thank you in advance for the many legal threats and letters promising retribution and death that you are undoubtedly preparing in-between reading these sentences. They have been a joy to read over the past few weeks, especially this letter from an “Alec of Sydney”, who wrote: “The flames - they leap and consume as the weak whimper and endlessly chatter. Your time is short, Doctor (P.S. I’m going to find out where you live and burn your house down - in case the flames thing didn’t make that immediately apparent).”

An interesting sentiment and always a pleasure to receive correspondence from a fan.

Now, to this week’s bumbling attempt at a competent existence:

Dear Dr Tinman,

Sincerely,
Miss Popular

Dear Miss Popular,

Congratulations! You find yourself in a very enviable place - one which only a handful of people are lucky enough to enjoy. Like the Caesars of old, you shall decide who thrives and who perishes, condemning one man to a life of drunk-texting and audible crying in the toilet at work, while allowing the other to feel the sense of elation that accompanies being chosen over another human being. In the coming days, you may begin to feel drunk with power, intoxicated by your God-like ability to serve out happiness and heart-ache.

I know, because I was once in a similar position. My roving band of unemployed telemarketers were stationed in a remote and desolate part of Africa. Thirsty and unable to find reliable wi-fi, we stumbled into a rundown hotel on the edge of a slightly larger hotel. It was here that they first fell for me - the mysterious woman with an eye-patch and the lady in red… leg-warmers. Over the next three days, their love for me became more and more obvious.

It came to a point where I was forced to choose. I relished building the suspense as they awaited my decision. Then, after a week of awkward silences and obnoxious coin-flipping, I stood up to announce my decision - only to find one had already run off with a man who bred rare caterpillars for a living, while the other became married to The Sea (a professional wrestler from San Francisco who squirted opponents in the face with salt water during bouts).

You should note, however, that the above anecdote will only be of use if one of your suitors has an eye-patch and the other is wearing leg-warmers (or, at the very least, Crocs over white socks). Otherwise, my advice is very simple: go to the airport.

If there is one thing I have learnt from popular culture, it is that if one sits at an airport and looks slightly sad, the person who is most attracted to them must, by law, run to the airport, ignoring important security checks and making a breathless speech.

Your third option, obviously, is to just choose one. Given it is unlikely that they know each other, you can safely date one and switch to the other if it doesn’t work out. Worst case scenario is that they find out and enter into a duel to the death after engaging in a globe-trotting game of cat-and-mouse. On the plus side, that should make it easier to choose.

I hope that helped.

Kindest of warm regards,

Dr Tinman