20th Century Fox Film Corp/Courtesy: Everett CollectionAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowDear E. Jean : Since my best friend and I graduated from college, I've noticed that she's becoming more and more negative and officious-from her delusional ideas about being the most fashionable (she simply apes celebrities), to being the best writer in the world, to hating most people around her. It gets worse. She now loathes the city in which we live, has become a workaholic, complains constantly about her coworkers, starves herself, and is continuously talking about being fat and finding "wrinkles." (She's 24!!) I don't know what to do, E. Jean! I feel her attitude and behavior rubbing off on me. I don't want to see her (or me) like this!
—Best Friend
More From ELLEBest, my young beezle : The girl is a stinker. Shall I be blunt? Get rid of her. However, if you still see traces of your old friend in there somewhere, next time her bile starts bubbling, rev up your larynx and say: "Darling, you're wonderfully mad. And you know I love you because you're so mad for fashion, mad for art, mad to be the best writer since Plutarch; but you're making yourself mental. You've put yourself under just waaaay too much pressure. And where does that pressure come from? Please don't interrupt. No. That is not a wrinkle. The pressure comes from the stress you create with your ridiculously insane expectations. Because-listen to me-because gorgeous as you are, if you expect never to see a wrinkle again, you're going to be a complete mess for the rest of your life." She won't hear you. She'll be scrawned-out, bloated from lack of sleep, and trolling Patrickmcmullan .com for her picture, but keep talking. Tell her again about forming "reasonable expectations" when you drag her to an origami class (the girl must learn to purge her head and calm fricking down for 45 minutes) and to a holistic nutritionist who'll explain that hyperactive snarky young ladies can run all kinds of good food through their systems at the rate of 2,000 to 2,400 calories a day without gaining an ounce and how baked Brie with pecans will make her smarter, prettier, happier, mad as ever, but not batty. Good luck. In my opinion, you'd have an easier time getting a chicken to molt.
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