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Ooh! She's back!

Dear Breakup Girl,

Well, just to update you, Prince Charming and I finally "united" in a physical sense. It hurt, as I was expecting, but he went slow and held me close. Phew! Once it was over, I got that warm afterglow feeling for my lovey. He held me in his arms and just generally comforted me, as he knew what kind of step this was for me. With a new found "toy" of sorts (the best term I can come up with for our delicious new appetite for sex), all seemed well. Almost.

Scott is the type that hates the idea of emotions; he thinks they are a waste of energy and that people should be more logical than emotional. He can be distant at times, even cold almost. Not towards me so much, but towards life in general. He feels so much pressure to succeed and isn't about to "fall victim to 'love' at such an early age" as he once put it. I think he's terrified of letting himself fall in love with me, for fear that he won't care about his goals anymore (even though I told him that people in love only help each other strive to be their best, rather than "get in the way").

I know for a fact that he enjoys being around me without being physical; we can just be the friends half the time, so I know this isn't purely sexual. He has told me that we "have something special" before and isn't one to feed me lines in the least. The thing I have the biggest problem with is his lack of expressing his feelings for me. I know he cares for me, but I don't know how much and am sometimes irritated that perhaps he does feel love for me but tries to suppress it, thinking he doesn't "need" it right now.

He knows that he means the world to me. (Please don't think I'm some naive high school student, incapable of loving someone. I am intelligent and quite logical myself and have never fallen easily for someone. Ever. Scott and I are meant to be.) There is just something about him that draws me to him. He thinks just like I do on all things important, yet is different enough to keep it interesting. I don't know if he has ever considered a future with me. And again, I don't mean for this to sound like some little teenybopper fantasy of Romeo sweeping me off my feet. I mean, I could see us doing married people things. I'm not obsessed either, which is the conclusion some might draw from a 16-year-old dreaming of the day when she'll have this guy as her hubby.

I guess, BG, I just want to know what's up with guys. Why oh why can't they thoroughly and sincerely express their feelings for the one they can so easily "get with" physically? I want to know how I can convey to him just how deeply I feel. I love this guy with all my heart. I just want to know how to get -- not really how to "get," as that sounds like I'm forcing or coercing -- rather, how to make him want to tell me how he feels. If you could shed some light on my world, it would certainly make me one happy girl.

-- Princess Emotional

Dear Princess Emotional,

Wowee! You kids move way too fast for this old lady. Glad you wrote back; especially glad that your update contained the words "warm afterglow."

But yes, I do have several things to say about the S-man's chill factor. Now, it's not that his coolness was caused, Angel-curse-style, by the fact that you had sex. But hey, you didn't mention it as a concern in your first letter. I think you think that now that you've had sex -- and because you'd have sex only with someone you were terribly close to -- that new intimacy "should" translate/osmose into spoken language and expression. And I think that getting closer physically actually further exposed this verbal / emotional distance. This is not at all to say that you goofed; it's just an observation for everyone. Sex is (hopefully) an act of intimacy and commitment, but nota bene: it does not necessarily/magically ramp up those things across the board. "10% more closeness!" is not automatically installed when you add sex to your relationship. When you add it, other stuff gets stirred up. You may have a brand new toy, but you are still the same people.

And by the way, of course it's possible -- though not applicable in this case, I don't think -- for sex and love to be unrelated. I mean, technically, you do the former with only your bottom half. Heart and head need not apply. Just like when the magician saws the woman in two and moves the boxes around separately, the halves can act independently. Or at least they can try.

So. I could say (actually, John Gray would say) that your concerns are of the classic Men This, Women That variety. And to some degree, they are. Sure, I get plenty of letters from girls wishing their guys were more expressive; I'm guessing, go figure, that lots of that stuff is wired in on both sides. Hee hee, even to this point:

BOY: "I love you."
GIRL: "['Yesssssss!'] Me too. <pause> How much?"

And that love "vs." goals thing is sort of archetypically classic too. We've all read those epic tales of brave goal-oriented heros who get distracted from their larger-than-life missions by the baser love of a woman/siren. (Right, so they work it out, conquer something, and then get the girl.)

But hey, there are enough exceptions to each of those phenomena to render them not even the rule. Married guys achieve their goal of becoming president (though their goals may, admittedly, distrract them from their wives). And also: for every guy who won't pipe up, there's another guy who shares a little too hard. Just some thoughts.

On to the what-to-do practical, with a quick stop for reassurance. This guy is, like you, a "doer" (and not just of you). Maybe, yes, to the exclusion of being a "feeler," or a "sayer." But BG's Doer Profile shows that Doers do not waste time. He may (he says) not want to "feel" stuff that drains his time, but he will not do something that does. I believe that he would not be with (or get with) you in the first place if he thought his time were better spent in Debate Club. Really.

What else? Consider what Breakup Mom has to say about how she feels about/deals with her Doer. There are things you want to hear in your language, but consider that there may be lots of things he's saying in his. I'm not saying that you should suffer in unacknowledged silence; I'm just saying that you might try listening in different places. Does he think you are the bomb -- and act accordingly? Is he as sturdy and reliable and devoted andthere as they come? Does he hold you in his arms lots and lots? Don't settle for not enough, but know that this may be his mostest. Above all, keep -- as you have been -- trusting your gut, and that glow.

Though still, don't be afraid to pipe brightly up and ask now and then. "Penny/Pokemon for your thoughts?" "I dare you to tell me how you feel about me!" Specific, but in the spirit of fun. You -- both -- can do it. I mean heck, you talked about sex.

Love,
Breakup Girl

 
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