We are delighted to say that Shon Faye, author of The Transgender Issue and the forthcoming Love in Exile, will now be writing a fortnightly advice column on life & love for American Vogue.

If you would like queries answered or a chance at enligthenment, write to Shon for future columns at DearShonVogue@gmail.com – letters from people of all genders and sexualities are welcomed.

“Dear Can Call All You Want But There’s No One Home,

You ask for advice on how to handle contact with your ex after a breakup. Your letter mentions “cutting off all contact” as an option you’re reluctant to consider. From this, I assume you have already googled some advice, perhaps in tears at 1 a.m., alongside other searches such as “how long to get over breakup,” “friendship with ex,” “does ex miss me,” or, as I once typed, “breakup pain will I die”? You will have found that the stock advice is to ‘go no contact’ with your ex and sever all lines of communication in this immediate post-separation period.

The problem with stock advice is that many of us, even in the disorientation of heartbreak, secretly regard ourselves as emotional sophisticates, capable of greater finesse and poise than the public at large. Our particular relationship with our particular ex was different, more complicated, and you just wouldn’t understand. As a phrase, “no contact” doesn’t help; with its vague echoes of night mode or “do not disturb,” it seems to apply the register of tech-driven semiautomated professional interactions to your grief. And make no mistake, it is grief. Our culture grossly minimizes the devastation of lost love, despite so many of us knowing its pain.”

Read the rest of the article here.