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Shoutouts

To Nihilist from Too Sensitive:

I've been DreamMan. Twice, now. How'd it happen? It's kind of a long story, and I'm not sure how deeply I want to go into it, but I'll try to touch on the salient points, and maybe it'll help.

It starts with the usual sad tale of a nerd growing up in a non-nerd-friendly world, having no social life, yadda yadda yadda. I had a bout with feeling suicidal when I was 18 years old but made it through with a little help from my friends. When I was 20, I met a way cute babe from California (who liked me because I was a mysterious stranger who wasn't going to be around long) and got to actually explore her feminine form, which was a lovely first for me. She taught me a lot about heavy smooching, but things went wrong in other ways, and I didn't learn much about what happens after smooching from her. Sigh.

My next encounter with the fairer sex was at the tender age of 25. She was a virgin, like me, and although we were together for six months, I was never able to do the manly deed with her, due to technical difficulties seemingly beyond my control, although we nonetheless had some truly inspirational makeout sessions.

I actually lost my virginity to a woman I met when I was 28. We lived together for five years. Unfortunately, her sexual needs did not match up with mine: I'm pretty cerebral, and she's completely physical. At first, we tried to truck on through anyway, and had a really nice, cuddly relationship just like the one Nihilist describes. Unfortunately, I do have a strong sex drive, and it wasn't being satisfied. As time went on, this created more and more stress on the relationship for both of us. She actually said at one point that she'd seriously thought about whether or not she could continue to have a relationship with me even if we didn't have sex anymore. I'd thought the same thing.

However, external events finally forced things to a head, and we did break up about a year and a half ago. She was devastated, because for her the breakup came out of left field. For me, it wasn't so left field, because I'd been having breakup thoughts for far too long before that but kept putting them off because it seemed unkind somehow to upset all the plans we'd made. It also felt wrong to me to be rejecting a woman I loved and had promised to spend my life with over something as mundane as sex.

A year and a half later, though, I've been through another relationship that didn't work out. She's also been through another relationship that didn't work out but is now dating somebody with lots of romantic possibilities. We had lunch recently, and I can tell you that she looks a lot happier than she did when she was with me.

The bottom line for me is that from a sexual perspective, I'm pretty high maintenance. I can't be happy with just anybody, sexually. And yet I'm not inclined to let my sex drive control whom I choose as a lover; I really want to wind up with somebody who has similar needs in bed and is also compatible with me out of bed. I tend, perhaps foolishly, to let this latter goal drive my choices in partners, rather than trying to find someone with whom there is intense chemistry first and then seeing if we're compatible in other ways. So I wind up hooking up with women that seem "okay" or "maybe" or "we can work on it" on a physical level, because they fit me on an emotional level. But it never seems to work out on a physical level when I do this, and this plants the seed for the eventual destruction of the relationship.

As you can see, I have my own set of problems and could probably use some advice myself. My advice to Nihilist, though, is to look for someone who is genuinely warm for her form and not to settle for someone who genuinely loves her but doesn't desire her. He may not even have reasoned this through. He may genuinely believe that he's doing the right thing by staying in the relationship. And maybe he is -- that's for him and Nihilist to judge. I hope, though, that hearing my story will help Nihilist and DreamMan do some serious thinking about why they're in a loving, nonsexual relationship.

To MaryAnne from Concerned and Been There:

Perhaps others have pointed this out to you, but your boy is tweaking you on purpose. I don't mean to imply that it is out of malicious intent, but it is for a reason. He raises you up to the highest highs and drags you down to the lowest lows to exert his power over you. MaryAnne, I'm speaking from profound and wrenching experience here. In general, he's probably a good person (emotionally generous enough to garner the love and attention of a caring, intelligent person such as yourself...). You obviously sincerely love and care for him, but I must tell you -- I cannot be more adamant about this -- you are both stuck in this crazed drama of a relationship. He dictates the direction, and you react accordingly ... over and over and over again. I needn't tell you this is NOT a HEALTHY cycle! To be blunt, you are getting the emotional run-around from this guy. He is doing this to get your reaction, and he KNOWS you will react!

Take it from me: there are people who will love you and NOT put you through this kind of BS. Just because it hurts so good does not mean it's some kind of unique, burning love. It means that your boy is an emotional eight-year-old. Instead of working to build a stable, loving, fun and well-rounded relationship (of which marriage proposals and rosebushes are merely TOKENS ... or props considering his penchant for drama), he's keeping you dangling. You do not deserve this sort of treatment. And goodness knows that it hurts to extricate yourself from a long-term relationship ... and you have to detox from all this drama which is so intoxicating and strangely addictive. I don't want to go too overboard here, but the whole "I love you more than life itself. Oh wait, I meant to say let's break up" cycle is mental abuse -- a very subtle, powerful, and insidious form of mental abuse. MaryAnne, there is someone out there who deserves your love, and you deserve someone who wants to be happy with you -- happy and stable. They're out there; trust me. And promise me that you will recognize that "I love you" also means "I won't jerk you around repeatedly." Best wishes!

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