I've been low-grade cruising this beautiful/smart/interesting woman for about 3 years. We cross paths professionally and every once in a while will have a meal or a drink together. There has sometimes been the hint of something more happening but it hasn't. UNTIL, a couple of weeks ago I was surprised to hear from her late one Friday night suggesting we meet for a drink. We did, and eventually ended up at my place fooling around. Super fun. Three years of thinking about this moment and it finally arrived. BUT (there has to be a but or else why would I be writing this?) I couldn't get hard. We did all the fool-around stuff that doesn't involve a penis and I was really happy to get to explore her body without the distraction of my cock. She was involved and willing to stimulate me as well. Nevertheless, it would have been nice to at least have the option to involve my penis/orgasm in the proceedings at some point. Whatever. Next time, maybe. If there is a next time.

There are a few reasons I may not have gotten hard. The most obvious being that I had jerked off a couple of hours before hearing from her. I'm in my early 40s so maybe that's starting to be an issue. Also I hadn't really slept the night before, maybe an hour or two. I had a couple of drinks with her but not anywhere near enough to preclude a boner. Also, I was pretty nervous being with her, as you can imagine. The really long build-up had created all sorts of expectations and had me putting lots of pressure on myself. But actually, I don't really care too much why I didn't get hard. It has happened to me before but isn't usually an issue and I am confident that it won't be a recurring problem.

My question is: should I say anything about not having gotten hard? Should I offer her the possible explanations that I just outlined for you? On one hand, I don't want her to feel that she has to assuage me in any way. On the other hand, I don't want her to think it was a question of not being into her or not being stimulated by her. I'm fine with not addressing the elephant in the room, but is that the best course of action? I have tried to think of a light-hearted way of explaining of suggesting that that won't happen again, and there are many possible things I could say, but SHOULD I say any of them, or just leave it to her maturity and experience to assume something plausible?

Feeling Low And Can't Completely Inflate Dong

Full disclosure: I'm running your letter because that's a pretty epic sign-off you created there, FLACCID, and I wanted to honor the effort that must've gone into it.

Give it a few weeks. If you don't hear from her, write her and ask for another go. If she seems hesitant... bring up your performance non-problem and Occam's razor that shit: "I jacked off pretty much right before you called that night. I didn't want to assume anything—I didn't know why you wanted to grab a drink—so I said yes to drinks. If I had known earlier that we would be getting together, I wouldn't jacked it. But, hey, I really enjoyed everything we did and way too much of what passes for straight sex revolves around the dude's dick. I had fun focusing on you and I hope you had fun being the center of attention."

Don't mention the lack of sleep, the booze, or your nervousness, FLACCID. Because whether you're talking about boners, infidelities, late rent, or the Democratic primary: a single plausible excuse will sound like a credible explanation while a basket full of excuses—even a basket stuffed with equally legitimate, plausible/probable excuses—will sound like a desperate/unbelievable lie.

If you hear from her sooner—if she booty calls you back—then she obviously didn't regard your flaccid cock as an insult, a referendum, or a deal-breaker. Hell, she may have enjoyed having your undickstracted focus on her that night. If she comments on your hard cock being hard this time around, FLACCID, offer up the same explanation: jacked it earlier that evening, not a mistake you'll make again—so long as you have notice.