I’m 30 and met a guy, 36, from another country who was working in my office building on a special project.

We dated for several months, became intimate and both expressed feelings for each other.

When he’d asked me to join him on a week’s vacation to the sun, I agreed, wondering if he was planning to discuss our future together while we’d be away.

We were only in the hotel four days when news on the new virus started to get intense. He kept calling his parents as well as his sister, back in their city.

He couldn’t focus on anything else. Our plane trip back here was filled with silences, as he only wanted to read the newspaper.

He didn’t call the next day and when I texted him, he said he was trying to figure out a lot of things. The next day he texted that he had a plane ticket to return “home” and was quitting the work project here.

I said I needed to see him in person, and talk this out. He said he was sorry, but he knew where his responsibilities were.

I was crushed.

It’s been over two weeks, and he’s only responded to three of my emails, with abrupt excuses: “I’m sorry.” “I had no choice.”

“It wasn’t about you, it’s what I had to do.”

Is he using the virus as an excuse because we got too close too soon? What do you think?

Dumped and Devastated

These are extraordinary times, with extraordinary things happening.

Your boyfriend of only a few months saw the signs of potential disaster affecting his own parents.

He was worried and afraid for them in case, as elderly people, they’d be vulnerable to the virus.

That sense of “responsibility” shows his basic good character, as a son.

Your relationship was just too short for him to stay away from “home” and whatever way he might be needed.

Don’t keep emailing and asking for explanations. Tell him you hope his family is okay and that, while you feel sad about not seeing him, you wish him well.

When things settle enough for him to think about your time together, your message of understanding may elicit a decent response and possibly a chance to re-connect, at least online.

My husband and I are mid-70s. We’re active, fit, social. Many of us are still working or involved in demanding volunteer positions.

Yet our adult children are treating us as if we have no idea how to take care of ourselves.

Initially, it was charming when a daughter said I should stay home while she gets our groceries.

But we weren’t sick. We hadn’t been in any coronavirus hot spots.

Then my son said we shouldn’t come for Sunday dinner as we’d done in the past. Even my granddaughters started asking repeatedly on Face Time, “Are you okay?”

We soon realized that they fear for our lives!

How should families deal with these generational fears? We’re still here, and we don’t want to be excluded!

Everything’s Different Too Soon

Be grateful for your close relatives’ concern about you.

They’ve taken seriously the experts’ plan, in the face of mounting deaths and lack of health-care facilities in some hard-hit areas, to keep older people free of contagion whenever possible.

It’s called “flattening the curve,” to slow the spread of infection, and save lives.

Their preventing their own contacts from working/shopping, from passing the virus to you. Trust them. It’s necessary caution.

Do you have some ideas for teenagers at home during this time of self-containment to avoid contact with the virus?

Mother of Restless Teen

Since I always read the questions I receive from a “relationship” point of view, I detect the voice of a mother whose teenager is understandably restless, being confined to the house instead of out with friends or joining in the camaraderie at school.

Still, he/she must be helped to understand this isn’t a punishment but a necessary measure taken for everyone’s sake in your community.

Try to spark a desire to contribute - e.g. gathering friends online and writing a song together about this dramatic time in their lives and how it affects each one personally.

Give a little more rope than usual in terms of what they can read, what they can watch. We want teens to understand very adult concepts about a pandemic, so treat them as being mature enough to handle it.