
Iâm trying to date again after back-to-back negative relationship experiences. Experiences that have made me question my own judgment and ability to set good boundaries. My friends and therapist all pointed out the red flags, but I was apparently blind to them. I love what youâve said about how there is no âThe Oneâ out there for us, only .72s and .83s, and that we have to âround someone up to The One.â But it seems like Iâve been ârounding upâ some numbers that were too low. As things stand now, Iâve never felt so mistrustful of people, and Iâve never doubted by own choices so strongly. Basically, my walls have gone up. But I love being in a relationship and I want to be in one again. What things should I be mindful of as I venture back...
Understandably Nervous Since Upsetting Relationships Expired
First, letâs put things in perspective: you had two shitty relationships in a row. While that was no doubt unpleasant, UNSURE, and while itâs understandable you might hesitate to put yourself back out there, two shitties in row isnât evidence your judgment is flawed. Very few of us can say we havenât had two shitty relationships in a row, if not more. A shitty person is often the common denominator in a string of shitty relationships, but sometimes shitty relationships happen to good peopleâand sometimes they happen with good people, i.e., a shitty relationship can happen without a shitty person being involved.
Still, thereâs shitty, and then thereâs spectacularly shitty. There are also shitty patterns. If you keep picking the same basic kind of shitty person and/or making the same basic kinds of shitty mistakesâsuch as ignoring red flags, committing too soon, or âworking on itâ too longâthen you need to make changes.
And the single most important change you can makeâthe thing you can do differently as you head back into the dating worldâseems obvious to me, my readers, your friends, and your therapist: listen to your friends and your therapist! They saw the red flags, UNSURE, and pointed them out. The problem wasnât that you couldnât see those red flagsâyouâre not blindâbut that you looked away and/or attempted to explain them away. (Iâm not blind to the fact that using âblindâ to mean âcanât understand or comprehendâ is ableist, and I promise not to use it like this again.)
Anyway, UNSURE, the lesson to learn from these two shitty relationships isnât, âNo more relationships for me! I canât trust my own judgment!â, but instead, âThe next time everyone in my life tells me that the person Iâm with is shitty or that weâre shitty for each other, Iâll end it.â To be clear: Iâm not telling you to substitute the judgment of your friends and therapist for your own, UNSURE, but to supplement your judgment with theirsâunless you wanna empower your friends and your therapist to make an arranged marriage for you, in which case you can substitute their judgment for your own.
I donât have a super high sex drive, so I generally have sex once or twice a week and mostly for my husband. He prefers sex at night, but I am generally exhausted and disinterested by that point. However, in the mornings I am often horny. Problem is my husband has a medical condition that makes morning sex uncomfortable for him. I occasionally masturbate in the mornings, but Iâd rather be screwing him. Do you have any suggestions for how I can teach myself to be horny at the end of the day?
Sexual Time Zones
Disco napâget some sleep early in the evening, STZ, fuck your husband when he comes to bed, watch some television until youâre ready for bed, then enjoy a bonus wank in the AM after he gets up and leaves.
Over the years I have participated in a few threesomes with a friend. We're not really attracted to each other, so we have mostly focused on our guest stars. We have kissed and groped each other during these sex sessions, though, but otherwise weâve been pretty hands-off with each other. Here's the dispute: I say we've had sex and I am justified in adding him to my Body Count, he says just being naked in the same room doesn't count. What do you think?
Mansplain Arithmetic To Homos
Wonât mansplain, will dansplain: Letâs say you were naked at a warehouse sex party and your friend was naked at that same warehouse sex party, MATH, and you were fucking one guy at one end of that warehouse and your friend was fucking some other guy at the other end of that same warehouse. That wouldnât count, MATH, since even if you were naked in the same room, you werenât having sex with each other. But if you were fucking some dudeâs ass while your friend fucked that same dudeâs throatâin a warehouse or a bedroom or an RV at Burning Manâthen it would count. Threesomes are sex, MATH, and if you and your friend have had threesomes together, then you and your friend have had sex with each other. (While I donât like to police the language people use when they talk about sexâI support abolishing the language policeâIâve never liked the expression âBody Count.â While using âMy Numberâ to mean your total number of sex partners is boringly literal, reading about literal body counts in the news every day makes me want to keep âBody Countsâ out of my sex column.)
Iâm a gay man in his late 20s living with my boyfriend. We are monogamous but I have a hard time being faithful. Iâm in love with my boyfriend, he is caring and sweet, and the sex is good. But sometimes I feel this hunger inside of me. I desire other men. I look around at work or at the gym or when Iâm out shopping, and all these other men turn me on. I cheated on my boyfriend once when we were on holiday together. I did it in a clumsy, selfish, and inconsiderate way, and my boyfriend saw me. I felt bad about it and apologized. I want our relationship to work because I love him, and we are such a good team. Please give me some advice on how to control myself, because right now I feel it is almost inevitable that I am going to cheat again and wind up losing the man I love over nothing.
Is Needing Love Over Variety Endurable?
If your boyfriend can forgive you and you can learn to lust after other men without touching them, INLOVE, you can make this monogamy thing work. But donât kid yourself: however much you love your boyfriend, youâre always gonna wanna fuck other men. And unless your boyfriend is a toaster with a dildo duct taped to it, heâs always gonna wanna fuck other men too. So, maybe instead of having to pretend you donât find other men attractiveâinstead of having to lie to each otherâyou can give each other a little space, i.e., a little erotic autonomy. Be monogamous, yes, but go ahead and flirt with other guys, check hot guys out together, watch and share porn that turns you both on, and then plow all that sexual energy back into your relationship and into each other.
But if you wind up cheating againâŠ
There are two ways to look at the cheating youâve already done and the cheating you might do in the future: youâre a terrible person who canât honor a monogamous commitment, INLOVE, or youâre a good person who shouldnât be making monogamous commitments. It took me a while to realize that I wasnât failing at monogamy, INLOVE, but rather monogamy was failing me. When I stopped making monogamous commitments I couldnât keep, my committed relationship(s) began to thrive. If being in a closed relationship leaves you feeling frustrated and generates conflictâinternal and relationalâand your boyfriend doesnât want to be in an open relationship, then you two might not be right for each other. Two people who arenât on the same page where monogamy is concerned and canât negotiate their way onto the same page, INLOVE, wonât and shouldnât be together for long. You can still love each other, but as exes and friends, not boyfriends.
Can you recommend a good lube, Dan? You see, this Joe Biden guy has been fucking us all in the ass for the last 16 months and itâs starting to hurt. Thank you in advance.
Fuck Joe Biden
Just for you, FJB, Iâm gonna share my homebrew MAGA lube recipe: two parts ground glass, two parts BenGay, two parts pumicite, two parts IcyHot, and all the âgo fuck yourselfâ you have in the house. Enjoy.
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