My partner and I have been together for more than ...

My partner and I have been together for more than four years. For the first year, we had a really good love life (at least in my view).

Then, suddenly, she was no longer interested. Sex became a chore for us, and she hasn't shown any interest in more than three years. I can count on one hand every time we've made love since then. Each time she has let me know?through speech or action?that she's not interested and is only doing it to "shut me up." As of today, we have not made love for more than a year. I know it was terrible, but I marked the date on the calendar the last time because I wanted to know for sure.

As of right now, I feel very depressed and worthless. Someone who says she loves me finds me so disgusting that she'd rather clean a toilet or replace an oil filter than touch me.

Any advice?

?So Ugly I Can't Ignore Death Any Longer

You have to stop. Being with this person is like repeatedly jamming a fork into your eye, swallowing glass shards, taking a gasoline enema, slipping into a pair of steak tartar pants and then hopping onstage with Montecore the magician-eating tiger. In short: This person you love is very, very bad for you. Relationships are never easy?you have to put up with another human being's weird smells and atrocious tv-viewing habits, and oftentimes you have to talk when you'd much rather be staring off into space. The pay-off to all the annoying crap is having someone to get off with at the end of the day. Sure, there's also companionship, support, blah, blah, blah?but without sex, wouldn't a close friend do just as well? A close friend who lives in their own house across town? There are enough people running around out there whose sole purpose is to try and make you feel bad. Like the mean teenage girls who chased me down N. 5th howling, "Your pussy stank! Your pussy stank!" (FYI, I assure you it did not!) Or the awful child who threw a clump of dirt at my friend Julie's head. Or the snotty stick-figure salesbitch at the Enelra Lingerie store (on E. 7th St.) who sneeringly informed me they didn't carry anything larger than a medium?when I hadn't even asked. See what I mean? Some days I don't even want to leave the house! The person who allegedly loves you should make you feel prettier/more handsome, smarter, funnier, skinnier and less stanky than you actually are.

I briefly had a boyfriend who wouldn't fuck me, so I know how humiliating that is. Like you, I also went through the whole "I'm ugly and worthless" bullshit that you're going through until I came to my senses and realized it was his problem (closet case!), not mine. Believe me, there are plenty of people out there willing to bump uglies with you. But you're not going to meet them until you get your ass out of this situation.

Last week I met a girl at a bar when I was extremely drunk and, I assume, she was too. We hit it off, apparently, because the next day I woke up with her phone numbers programmed into my cell. I didn't remember much about her except that she was cute, and I was psyched to go out with her. After calling and leaving her a message, however, she left a message for me saying that, though she'd had fun the other night, she didn't think we should go out.

This shook me up, and in fact is a situation I've encountered before. Girls take to me when we're drunk and I'm charming, but when they sober up they change their minds. What should I do? Please don't tell me to stop going to bars, because I have a hard time working up the confidence to meet girls when I'm sober.

?Ben

Do you honestly think someone named McGuire is going to advise you to stop frequenting bars? Not bloody likely. What you should do is learn to pace yourself. Take it from one who knows?really stupid people happen to you when you're really stupid drunk.

After a long run of drunky-pants jackasses, I decided to conduct an experiment and limit my dating pool to men enrolled in various 12-step programs. I figured they'd gotten all their excesses out of the way and I wouldn't have to worry about them "borrowing" money off me or "forgetting" to come home. (And sure, research quickly proved that ex-addicts come with their own unique set of problems, but that's another story.) Going on a few nerve-wracking first dates without even one glass of wine to calm my frazzled ass was a good, soul-strengthening (albeit bowel-clenching) experience. Be brave. Give it a try.

The women you meet when you're both severely intoxicated don't want to date you because they are either embarrassed about the way they behaved, they don't remember what the hell you look like, or, without realizing it, you took the transformation drink that moved you out of the territory of charming drunk guy and well into the land of moronic, leg-humping lout. Not a pretty place to be.

Having a couple civilized cocktails to lubricate the social skills is one thing; downing a fifth of Jameson is quite another. Discern the difference.