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I have a serious crush on my teacher – should I tell her?
Q: I’m a 16-year-old student harbouring ardent feelings for a teacher. She’s an absolutely wonderful (in my view, angelic) human being, who seems utterly devoted to what she does and is terribly cordial to us students. It is out of awe for her personality, and gratitude for how she’s made a mark in my life, that I feel so attached to her. She’s in her late 20s, I suppose, but I feel she could be 18. My feelings are not sexual, but my social circles make barely any room for this possibility. I can find little solace in my friends for fear that they’d mock me because she’s not considered a looker. I feel an urge to tell her how amazing and adored she is, but fear she’ll be threatened or affronted, or that she’ll feel pained for me and not know how to respond.

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My father is a womaniser. I’m terrified I’ll become one, too.
Q: I’m 22, single and very romantic, yet I can’t relate to women. I grew up with a womanising father and ever since I can remember he has made comments about women and sex. No man in my family has ever achieved true love and they have all had multiple sex partners and lovers, betraying the confidence of wives and long-term girlfriends. My great grandfather, my grandfather, my uncle and my father share this and some of me thinks that I can’t fight it, that I will become the same. But I struggle. I just can’t talk to women; I can’t play charming around them even when I have a good relationship with them in spaces such as work or college. I have “female friends”, but I can’t break the confidence they have in me by playing the love card. So I’m often the friend of the women I like. My entire romantic concept has been built by culture, by movies like Gone with the Wind or Doctor Zhivago, books like A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bells Tolls and long sessions of the Smiths or the Cure.

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My daughter is dating a man more than twice her age.
Q: I have a 23-year-old daughter. Her mother and I split up when she was seven due to her mother’s infidelity. I still see my daughter regularly and she is close to my wife and the two other children we have. My daughter didn’t have a “proper” boyfriend until she was in her late teens. Last week I was informed that her new boyfriend is a little older than her. It transpires he’s 48! He also has a wife and two children who he is preparing to leave to be with my daughter. I am, in equal measures, furious, horrified, embarrassed, ashamed and desperate. This new boyfriend is older than my wife, who is 46. I am 55. My daughter wants me to meet this man, but I am too shocked and angry that a man of his age and with his responsibilities could behave in this manner. How should I handle this? I am too embarrassed to talk to my friends about it.

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My family is great, but I feel as though I have no real friends.
Q: I am 38, happily married with two children and have a job I enjoy. However I have found myself plagued by anxiety about friendships and feelings of loneliness. Since having children I seem to have been on a roller-coaster of friendships. As our lives have evolved, people have drifted away. I now feel I am left with acquaintances (mainly school mums) rather than actual friends. I find WhatsApp groups stressful and can’t go on Facebook, as I feel jealous when I see events where I haven’t been included. Some of my pre-children friends remain, but busy lives and distance mean I only see them a couple of times a year. I’ve given up on phone calls, as people only seem to want to text! I just don’t know how I can get out of this spiralling anxious mindset. Will it improve when my children are older, or without play dates will my social life dry up altogether?

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I left my home for freedom in Europe but I’m terribly lonely.
Q: I am a 30-year-old guy and I am really lonely. I was born in Iran and was raised in a conservative family and society. I went to university there and graduated with a master’s degree in English language studies. I am now at university in Germany, but I am not able to make friends with girls. I have no proper job, no future and not even a friend. I tried online dating sites; they don’t work. What is wrong with me? I even think of ending my life. I do not have any future going back to a country which does not accept me when I do not believe in Islam.