Dear Lexie:

I am clearer now, thank you. I think it is a terrible thing to get into a physically intimate relationship with a man and it being a long interview process. It is like you are telling the guy: here is my body; here are my emotions, here is my all, now- will you be my boyfriend? And then it is up to him. Not a good strategy and I am… an expert in ineffective strategies. This is one of those.

I agree with the friendship concept, getting to know each other without physical intimacy, only do this first. If the guy is not interested to get to know you, and is interested only in a casual relationship involving physical intimacy, then he will withdraw from you- but that will be before you invest your body in it and more emotions that go with investing the body in it.

If you need a proof that this is a bad strategy, simply observe the dynamic and results: you met an uninterested (in a deeper relationship) kind of guy, with you, at this time in his life, whatever. So you invested body+ emotions and he was still not interested. Then you went to “friends only” and he withdrew; then back to physical intimacy and repeat of first phase: casual relationship with physical intimacy, no more.

Re-arrange order of events: friends only, no physical intimacy FIRST. If he withdraws- fine, gone. Next guy, same process- and if the next guy, or the guy after the next becomes a closer friend without physical intimacy and expresses to you an interest in the Real Thing- the whole thing- then you go to friendship+ physical intimacy, a girlfriend/ boyfriend official relationship.

No more submitting all of you for a guy in hopes of being approved of or accepted for the position of a girlfriend. Learn who he is, what he wants first.

anita