My best friend won't stop moaning, everything becomes a 'misery contest'. Should I walk away? This letter writer's more sad than they admit, replies BEL MOONEY... here's why
I'm hoping you can help me with something I feel both sad and guilty about.
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The Sun
5 days ago
- The Sun
I cheated on lovely boyfriend with handsome guy on holiday after drunken game of spin the bottle… should I be honest?
DEAR DEIDRE: A DRUNKEN game of spin the bottle got out of hand and now I'm eaten up with guilt for cheating on my lovely boyfriend. Worse still, all my family know what I got up to. I'm a 21-year-old woman and went on holiday to Cyprus with my cousin and her family. While we were there I met her best male friend, who was also on holiday. He is 24 and I fancied him when I'd met him before — and he was just as gorgeous as ever. Thoughts of my boyfriend quickly melted into the background. After a beach day, we all had a night out drinking cocktails, then headed back to our villa. Soon after the parents had gone to bed, we all started playing drinking games. As a dare I ended up sharing a kiss with him, but nothing more. The next day he came over for dinner. When he arrived, he winked and smiled at me, and I just smiled back, although my heart was racing. We had another fun night but this time we played spin the bottle and the forfeits became more sexual. When the bottle spun round to me and then him, he led me by the hand to my bedroom where we had the most amazing sex. Dear Deidre: Cheating and can you get over it The next morning I felt terrible. We left that day and when we landed back in the UK, I felt terrible. All I could think about was my boyfriend, who is 23. He trusts me even though he has been hurt in previous relationships. If I tell my boyfriend what happened I know I risk him ending our relationship. My cousin's best friend has definitely got feelings for me. I keep wondering whether it would work if we got into a relationship. DEIDRE SAYS: You may want to clear your conscience by confessing to everything, but you would hurt him enormously and possibly cause the break-up of your relationship. Be honest with yourself, would you realistically share more than great sex with your cousin's friend? He may just have been enjoying a fun holiday fling. You have to make up your mind. If you have doubts about your boyfriend then do the honest thing and explain that your heart isn't in the relationship any longer. Then leave a month or so for the dust to settle before even thinking about getting together with the new guy. My support pack, Torn Between Two Men, will help you to think this through. SO NERVOUS SINCE SON'S BIRTH DEAR DEIDRE: MY son's birth eight months ago has turned me into a nervous wreck. I love him dearly and I am so proud of him, but I worry all the time. I'm 27 and my partner's 25. We've been together for four years. Ever since my partner found out she was pregnant I started to worry. I became very protective of her and worried when she went out by herself in case something happened to her such as tripping over or someone accidentally bumping into her. My partner breezed through her pregnancy and had a relatively easy birth but ever since our son came along I can't help but think about the worst case scenario. The worst is if he cries for no reason. Thankfully my partner is coping much better than me and doesn't worry like I do. I'm a big bag of nerves most of the time. DEIDRE SAYS: Becoming a dad for the first time can produce a whole range of emotions but it is important to be kind to yourself. It is understandable that you are anxious but being a parent doesn't come easily to anyone. Remember that babies cry because it is the only way they can communicate. Once your son learns to talk, he can tell you why he is unhappy. Talking to other dads who have been through similar worries may help you. Visit the website My support pack Help For Stress has lots of advice. I CAN ONLY HAVE SEX ONCE DEAR DEIDRE: AFTER having sex, I can't get another erection for a good few hours. Is there something wrong? I am 28 and my wife is 25. We only married four months ago and we're in our honeymoon period, but I have to wait a long time to get aroused again. We have a very active sex life now but for cultural and religious reasons we didn't have sex before marriage. I love my wife dearly and want to please her sexually every time. Everything is fine the first time round, and even though I still feel turned on, my erection just doesn't show. It is embarrassing. I can't help wondering if my wife is becoming disappointed when I can't perform for a second time, even though she hasn't mentioned anything so far. This is not what I thought or imagined our sex life would be like once we were married. What is wrong with me? DEIDRE SAYS: Please don't worry about only being able to have sex once with your wife. There is always a space of time after a man climaxes before he's able to get another erection. It's called the refractory period, and it differs for everyone. You may even notice that your individual refractory period varies from session to session. If you are worried about how long it takes you to reach or recover from orgasm, talk to your doctor who will be able to reassure you. EMOTIONAL AFFAIR WILL DISTRESS WIFE DEAR DEIDRE: IF it wasn't for the fact that we have a big family holiday coming up soon, I would have told my wife I have met someone else. Instead, I have to wait until the end of the summer. I am 37 and my wife is 35. We have been married for nine years and have a four-year-old son. I don't feel the same about my wife any more. She suffers from depression, which hasn't helped our relationship. She can't help being unwell so there is no blame. She is receiving help through her doctor for her mental health. I have never cheated on my wife, but I have met another woman through work. It's an emotional affair as I'd never cheat while married, so all we do is talk. But I enjoy her company and see a future with her, and she says she feels the same way about me. I am going to give my son the holiday he deserves and then I will tell my wife our marriage is over. I know it will be distressing for her, but I can't go on living a lie. She deserves better than that. Is it wrong to want to be happy even though in the process I will upset the two people who mean the most to me? I don't feel I have a choice if I want a shot at happiness. DEIDRE SAYS: Depression is a mental health disorder that can have lasting effects on any relationship. Before you end your marriage, make sure it will be the right thing for both of you – and stick to your resolve. Your wife will understandably be devastated so you must tread carefully, ending it as kindly as you can with minimum damage to your son. Ask her to come for counselling with you because while it may not be possible to save your relationship it can reduce the pain. Contact Tavistock Relationships ( 020 7380 1975). My support pack Ending A Relationship will help too.
Daily Mail
19-07-2025
- Daily Mail
My best friend won't stop moaning, everything becomes a 'misery contest'. Should I walk away? This letter writer's more sad than they admit, replies BEL MOONEY... here's why
Dear Bel, I'm hoping you can help me with something I feel both sad and guilty about.
New Statesman
16-07-2025
- New Statesman
Magic and divination in the age of AI
Illustration by Ben Jennings In a bookshop off London's Strand, fitted out in expensive utilitarian style – exposed ducting, unpainted plaster, birch plywood – a room of mostly young, artsy people are gathering for a talk about the future. There are cocktails and a DJ who is wearing a T-shirt that says 'Brutalism'. Facing the crowd is a sofa, above which is a projector screen displaying an AI-generated video of white, wafting things that look like fungal growths or jellyfish. Within their strands and webs are the faces of young women, their mouths moving without forming anything recognisable as words. The video was made, we are told, by someone who is a 'digital shaman'. The talk has been convened by a group of people – a 'platform' – who are interested, in a fairly literal sense, in 'technology with spirit'. They are here to talk about the links between artificial intelligence and 'spiritual intelligence', forecasting and divination, the old gods and the new. On the stage are an artist called Beccy, a tarot reader called Bel, and Sasha, a computer scientist who works for Google DeepMind but is also a meditator and practitioner of the Vajrayana Buddhist tradition. Beccy introduces herself as a 'climate storyteller' who creates 'imaginative acts of resistance'. This has involved, she tells us, training an AI model 'with love and respect… to welcome migrants and refugees', and also to 'generate a sense of inter-species solidarity'. People in the crowd nod enthusiastically. Bel, the tarot reader, is not restricted to cartomancy. She also helps people – including corporate clients – to 'create oracles… systems for divination', she tells us. 'Many of them work.' Bel also works at the College of Psychic Studies, where other courses include alchemy, remote viewing and connecting with angelic beings. Sasha, the computer scientist, works on reinforcement learning in multi-agent systems for Google DeepMind, which is owned by Alphabet, which has a market capitalisation of £1.64trn (at time of writing). But he sees a link between the old cultural practices of divination – scrying for answers in playing cards, tea leaves and the movements of birds – and the modern practice of asking ChatGPT or Gemini for the truth about something. Both types of system, he says, are 'cultural tools for generating behaviour'. Joining the talk via the screen, in a brief and welcome break from the digital shaman's undulating forms, is Kevin, who runs an AI research group at Coventry University and a practice called Philosophy Machines. Kevin's work in AI is informed, he tells us, by his metaphysics, his willingness to ask questions about the underlying nature of reality: 'Is reality somehow constructed in a model that lives in our heads, or lives in a computer somewhere? Do we believe in things that we can't see… Do we believe that objects – rocks, clouds – have a soul, a spirit? Do we believe in angels, deities?' Companies and governments, he notes, 'exist only on paper, they only exist to the extent that everyone else believes in them'. Perhaps this is one to try in bankruptcy proceedings: does a business stop owing money if we stop believing in it? (No.) Give any first-year philosophy student a bag of weed and you'll have to listen to similar questions being pondered for as long as you can stand it. But these seem like sensible people, who work for major companies and institutions. And they are not the only people having such conversations; beneath the AI boom is a philosophical debate, and a struggle for power. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe For 45 years, people have debated a thought experiment created by the American philosopher John Searle. The experiment goes like this: there is a room into which messages are posted. The messages are written in Chinese. Inside the room is a person who doesn't speak Chinese, but who has a book containing very detailed instructions on how to arrange Chinese text into convincing responses. So, the person matches symbols they don't understand to instructions, assembles new strings of characters – which are, to them, still meaningless – and posts them out again. To the people outside the room, it appears as if the occupant can speak Chinese. But they can't. This thought experiment, published in 1980, has become much more relevant today, as it is fundamental to the debate over whether 'AI' is, in fact, artificial intelligence. A large language model (LLM) is 'trained' by breaking up text and images into chunks (not words, but strings of characters that appear together as parts of words) and then calculating the sequence of pixels and characters most likely to be accepted as a response. The companies that sell the LLMs say this amounts to reasoning; scientists and philosophers of language disagree. One response to this is to argue, as Sam Altman (CEO of ChatGPT creator OpenAI) does, that in this case you aren't really thinking or feeling anything either. Like his computer, you are just regurgitating input to create responses. Or, like Elon Musk, you can argue that reality is probably just a simulation anyway. In both cases, the convenient conclusion is that you can do what you like to the world and other people, because they're only as sentient as your computer – if they exist at all. And as for magic, the amount of money being thrown around in the AI boom is so vast that anything short of the supernatural would be a disappointment to investors. A week before the talk in the bookshop, Nvidia – the chip manufacturer that is selling the shovels in this particular gold rush – achieved the highest market value in history, at $4trn. Fundamental to this valuation is the idea that machines can see the future. In the middle of the 16th century, John Dee, the court astronomer and magician to Elizabeth I, carried in his pocket a case made from shark skin. Within the case was a circular mirror made from obsidian – black volcanic glass – that had originally been created for an Aztec priest. To a modern eye it shows nothing but a dull reflection, but to Dr Dee it was said to show angelic communications and predictions. This gave Dee a significant political power. Most of us carry a similar artefact today, of course. We seek answers and communication from our black rectangles. We choose the news we want to read and the people we want to hear from. We see what we want to see in the black mirror, but Kevin reminded us: 'Whoever controls what is seen in the mirror, in some way, controls the future.' The mirror of ChatGPT is darker and more obscure than obsidian. Its priorities are hidden in code that is not public, and which only a handful of people could understand. What a tarot reader really does, Bel explains, is to deal out a random sequence of cards and give them the meaning the client is looking for. The cartomancer, the haruspex and the seer are not only predicting the future, they are answering the question of how a person should meet that future. 'The underlying question,' said Bel, 'is always: tell me how to live.' As anyone from the Pope to Mark Zuckerberg will attest, this can be a very profitable question to answer. Throughout history, people have found that the trust they put in priests and oracles was misplaced. Today, the most popular use for AI chatbots, according to a recent survey, is for therapy; millions of people are entrusting this technology with access to their most personal feelings, allowing it to intervene in their thinking, their ethics and their sense of self. They are imbuing it with what esoterics call egregore – a form of being invoked when lots of people put their faith in something. A new power, no more accountable and no less dangerous than the clerics of the past. I think I'd rather put my faith in a pack of cards. [See also: No 10 is scrambling for a Silicon Valley payday] Related
