Dear Loveandkisseszaphod,

OK, you are dating a B-list artist/celebrity. For every 10K followers there are 100 obsessed girls like you he got with. I hope you used protection because who knows what STDs he’s carrying around oh so casually. Seriously.

What he did is done in sales all the time. “RUG SALE! GOING OUT OF BUSINESS! IN THIS CITY FOR 2 DAYS ONLY!! WILL NOT BE BACK UNTIL SUMMER 2022!!!” Time is limited, future uncertain, why won’t you get with me? is the idea he’s trying to convey.

His line, “How do you know if you don’t like one night stands or not until you try”??? Please!

Girl, you have got to be VERY clear about what YOU want! This B-Lister has sailed. Stop contacting him. Maybe after his fifteen minutes is up he will contact you again, but you’ll say, “You had your chance.” And mean it.

Best,

Inky

P.S. It’s amazing to me how many people are ghosting. Ironically during a pandemic.

Dear loveandkisseszaphod:

You and the guy texted for two weeks, he then invited you to his art exhibition, and you were “sooo excited to meet him”. The moment you arrived to the exhibition, he “was touchy and huggy”, then asked you to hang out with him at his atelier which looked like a warehouse. Next, “he locked the door and started kissing and touching me in the dark”.

For two hours you “talked, and made out and looked at some of his art”. You told him that you didn’t want a one-night stand with him, that you wanted to see him again. He told you that “he didn’t see it as a one-night stand, but it was technically impossible for us to be a couple because he lives in anther city.. and soon he will move back to another country”.

“What is strange for me is I found that experience so sexy. I was initially scared of him, then confused with the directness but was very turned on by the experience… Why was I so confused?”

–The answer may be in what you shared in your previous thread, that your mother is uptight and puritan. You wrote regarding an unconventional experience with a former boyfriend that she would have been “shocked and horrified if she knew the story”. Maybe the recent unconventional experience of being in that warehouse with a sex hungry man, an experience that would have shocked your puritan mother, turned you on.  Because part of you is puritan like your mother and another part of you want to you to  be very different from that puritan image.

You wrote in your previous thread that your mother has been telling you that you are “cold, stern, emotionally unavailable like the nordic tv show”- makes me think that you are indeed more like your mother than you would like to be, and that it is an appealing thought (and a turn on) to be the opposite of that cold/stern/ nordic image.

You wrote there regarding your mother: “generally I am angry at her for being so uptight causing me to have less joy in life, and shying away from attention. I don’t feel at ease in my own skin.. not fully comfortable with the way I look no matter what.. wasting away my young ages feeling uncomfortable with men and with sex“- – in that warehouse, you wanted to make up for that wasting away of your young ages, awakening into a sexual experience unlike any in the past.

In your previous thread you wrote: “I feel like I am faking things.. I can’t say I’m depressed.  I feel ok for most of the time, but .. deep down, my ‘normal’ is being alone, left  out.. once I connect with someone, then he has a strong power on me”- faking things, okay, but not truly engaged, not really awakened to life.

Back to the guy this thread is about: he told you from the very beginning that a relationship with him is impossible, so he was honest in that regard. He clearly wanted to have sex with you from the very beginning and that was his motivation in regard to you: sex, not a relationship.

There is more in your story but I will stop here. You  are welcome to respond to any part of what I wrote that you would like to look into further and let me know what it may be.

anita

Dear loveandkisseszaphod:

You are very welcome. If you are like your mother in any way you don’t want to be- it’s not anything you chose, it’s a reaction to her. A lot of what a daughter become is an automatic reaction to who her mother is.

I can’t take things lightly. Maybe I am not the type for casual things”- I guess you are not the type for casual things. Neither am I.

“Most of this drama is because of the lockdown mindset”- when you wrote in your previous thread “once I connect with someone, then he has a strong power on me”- that was before the pandemic and the lockdown, and you did mention being obsessed and stalking your former’s boyfriend’s social media, and that was before the pandemic and the lockdown. So I wouldn’t say that most of the drama in regard to this man is because of the lockdown.

“How do  people deal with the ambiguity with hookups and sex?”- if what you want is love that includes sex, not sex for the sake of sex, then better not put yourself in a hookup situation hoping that maybe the guy will “catch” feelings, fall in love with you, maybe if you were nice enough or passionate enough or sexual enough- that’s a recipe for misery!

Instead, be selective and get involved with a guy who honestly tells you ahead of time that he wants what you want, a committed love relationship.

You mentioned building up expectations: if a guy tells you that he wants a monogamous love relationship, then you expect that of him and get to know him based on that knowledge, instead of building up expectations from a man who didn’t express any interest other than hooking up.

I hope you aren’t hard with yourself and that you do “take a lesson and move on”- and the lesson may very well be what I suggested above. What do you think?

anita

Dear loveandkisseszaphod:

Regarding “asking for advice to everyone I can speak with”- it is unwise to ask for advice from anyone and everyone, and even more unwise- to accept advice without knowing anything about the person giving the advice.

In the context of your thread here, if you want to learn who is the person giving you advice, click on the person’s screen name. If you click on mine you will get many thousands of relies to many hundreds of members over the course of five years. If you read some threads on issues that you are not struggling with, issues that are clear to you, and then read my replies, you can determine if you agree with my replies. If you do, you can give more weight to my replies to you on issues you are struggling with. On the other hand, if you click a member’s screen name and read his or her replies to other members (if such exist) and you notice that his replies indicate not paying attention to the member’s story, and otherwise you disagree with his replies on issues that are clear to you, then give that person’s replies to you less weight.

“he (your psychologist) advises against consulting everyone providing all the details”- I agree. Be selective as to whom you are asking advice from and provide the details only to people who you learned may give you attentive and valuable advice.

“.. then always encourages me to be honest with what I feel to the guy and to express my feelings openly”- be honest and express your feelings openly with guys you didn’t yet have sex with, before sex, before you are hooked on them, or obsessed with them. Any one guy or a number of guys may not care about your honestly or feelings, once you notice that, do not pursue a relationship with them. There is no benefit to being honest, expressing your feelings openly with a guy who doesn’t care for these things, a guy who wants to use your body and has no interest in your mind and heart. And worse, being honest and honest with a guy who will use your honesty against you.

“In this case when I took his advice, I think it failed and pushed the guy away from me”- the guy you shared about, I don’t think he cared about your mind and heart. He told you right from the start that a relationship with you will be impossible for him and right from the start he pursued you sexually. I don’t think you pushed him away- he had no intents to be close with you, other than sexually at that time when your paths crossed.

“with this guy, whenever I wrote him that I missed him.. that I needed a little attention from him that day, I felt I was being needy and weak.. asking for some attention made me feel funny”- you shared your tender feelings and need with the wrong guy. He wasn’t interested. Key is to share your tender feelings and vulnerability with a decent guy who is interested in your mind and heart. You will still feel needy and weak and funny, but at least you will have a good chance of the guy comforting and helping you.

“I thought he was rolling his eyes. Is this because of his approach and who he is? Or is this because people sense a desperation or obsession about me.. what’s your take?”- in the case of this guy, he wasn’t interested in your mind and heart, his interest was sexual and limited to that time and place when you met, and a bit after. He told you himself, first time you met, that he wasn’t interested in a relationship.

You being desperate and obsessed, that blinds you, or deafens you to parts of reality (for example, it is as if you didn’t hear him say that a relationship with you is impossible), and it causes you to not be selective as to men you are involved with or people you ask advice from.

anita

Dear loveandkisseszaphod:

“at that time I hoped that we’d be hooking up for some time more and I’d be happy with him being around and the intimacy, and then we’d see how it went”- reads like you were okay then, with a strictly sexual relationship/ hooking up with him, for a period of time, at the least.

On the other hand, you wrote: “I  knew his persistence the first night was a red flag”, referring to his persistence to have sex with you.

I would  like to understand you better, therefore I ask: if you were okay with hooking up with him, why was his sexual persistence a red flag?

(I am thinking that you may be conflicted regarding what it is that you want in a relationship, or is it that you didn’t know what you wanted that first night but later on you figured it out?)

anita

Dear loveandkisses…

I can relate almost completely. I too have had few experiences with guys and the one guy I became intimate with turned out to be uninterested in a longer term relationship with me. It took me a very long time to realize this and I was guilty of obsession as well! For me, it was stalking his Spotify, heh.

The funny thing was, until he rejected me romantically, I wasn’t too interested in stalking his online profiles.

He was an “artist” too. Cute, funny, pretty socially awkward. Has a band, likes to read.
And as I later found out, had been making the sexual rounds at school and had hurt a couple other women before me.

I was honest with him from the beginning about having little experience, he being my first time, etc. I’m 28F and he is 29.

Anyway, here is my two cents worth…

He is very likely not worth your present mental anguish. In fact, I guarantee he is not.
As you say, your relationship “percolated” for a while via text. In this period you may have built up a dream image of him and over-valued his interest in you/your interest in him. Something similar happened to me, and it helped to turn some of those red flags pinkish… if you get my meaning.

The “teenagery” approach to intimacy with you is a good sign that he is a bit of a fuckboi. In my experience, it’s not just cute shyness on the part of the guy who treats you this way, it’s a sign that he views you less as a person and more as a sexual conquest. This is not to say that he is inherently “bad” (it’s probably largely biological). But what is bad for you (as was bad for me) is that you want more than a casual, sexual relationship with him.

And in terms of being confused, turned on, and also let down by the sex. That’s normal. You were turned on because you did like him. But being confused and let down probably also means something inside your body was saying “I don’t like this.” I can remember being with my fuckboi and thinking, “Wow, he’s a bit aggressive. I think I like this?” and then the next morning, waking up and just feeling gross. Yeah, not great. Oftentimes our heads seem to try and override what our bodies are telling us about how we feel. This may explain your confusion.

I fear that for many people casual, hookup culture is damaging since it suggests those of us who are more serious and want proper communication, respect, etc., from our partners come across as crazy, clingy, and desperate when things inevitably go awry. This isn’t to say hookup culture is all bad (for some people, it’s great fun!). But for those of us who aren’t about the casual sex thing, it can be really hurtful to get caught up in this cycle. This is why good communication and honesty are incredibly important.

Your artsy-fuckboi is likely challenged communications-wise. Even if he seems sensitive and emotional (as my person did), I’m willing to be he is also pretty self-absorbed.

It sounds like you did your very best to be up front with him from the beginning. You did nothing wrong.
He is probably not thinking about you as much as you are thinking about him.
Try to stop the damage from continuing (you could call it a poisonous influence) by stopping obsessing over him. I know this is hard in these quarantine/social distancing times but, do your very best.

Don’t let yourself continue to be a victim.

Love, LW

Hello,

After my break with the artsy fuckboi I continued to see him around school quite a bit. When we parted ways he suggested we would stay friends because we “still care about eachother.” Yet when I reached out to talk (I thought I wanted a second chance at him—in reality, he should be lucky to get a second chance with me!) he brushed me off and kept me waiting for three months! In the meantime of course I would see him flirting with other women, pretty much right in front of my face (the graduate students share an office space).

Anyway, after a long painful process I came to realize that he just didn’t value me as much as I hoped he could. I had to take the difficult step to stop using that office (sounds easy enough but it was my workspace for several years, and a place to chat and decompress with fellow students) and move on.

I was like you, however, thinking “Ok, maybe if I see him and talk to him I will finally understand what part of me is yelling at the other half to believe… he is not worth it!” But, there is something about this guy that made that very hard for me to get. I think it is likely because there was a lot of sexual tension between us, at least on my part, so it made it hard to look at the situation logically.

All I can say is yes, you aren’t alone or even crazy for getting so messed up over this guy. It happens to the best of us. Oftentimes, I think it’s those of us who are deep thinkers and loving, nurturing people that get screwed over by these emotional vampire types. My fuckboi also suggested I was “too demanding” which really hurt and messed up my dating self-esteem for a long time. When I think back, the reason I may have come across as demanding was because I was suddenly experiencing an extremely insecure attachment. Over text, he had seemed romantic and sweet and also really really into me. When I realized this actually just meant he was crazy horny, I got nervous and doubled-down on my idea of dating this guy to keep things more in control for me emotionally. I really needed that emotional connection and trust to feel good and comfortable as I had in the beginning.

I remember, he told me that sometimes he’d have to stop texting me for a bit because he was jerking off thinking about me… like this was flattering!! Gross!

In the end it comes down to a basic incompatibility. I think we are sold on the idea of really intense and quickly escalating romances as being so so good when in the end, they fizzle out as quickly as they start. When I think back to the ways my closest, most intimate and long-lasting friendships got started, they always grew to that level over time. Intimacy right away (in this case, sexual) doesn’t necessarily mean a relationship will last. I think the sexually immature fuckbois work with this agenda in mind…

LW