I am a 23-year-old straight female. A year ago, I moved across the country after college to live with my boyfriend of four years. He is in graduate school and is the only person I really know here, so I have been hanging out with him and his friends. I’ve developed a huge crush on one of his friends, and I don’t know what to do.
I feel really guilty, even though I haven’t acted on it and doubt anything would happen since I see this friend only when we hang out together in groups. I’m not sure if I should tell my boyfriend or the friend about this because it would make my social interactions totally uncomfortable and I am basically friendless outside of my boyfriend’s social circle. It’s hard to get over a crush you see all the time and haven’t been directly rejected by. Any advice?
Uncomfortably Ogling Friend
Once in a great while, I donate the right to answer a Savage Love letter to charity. Grant Thornley was the winning bidder in the Strangercrombie auction in December (strangercrombie.com), and the money he spent for the dubious honor of giving advice in this space went to organizations that support neglected children and the homeless. Grant is a Seattle-based career-management consultant, and what follows is Grant’s advice for UOF:
“It’d be one thing if you’d said, ‘I’ve fallen head over heels in love with a friend of my boyfriend’s; he’s my soul mate, and I’ll die if I am not with him.’ But you didn’t say ‘love,’ you said ‘crush,’ which to me is something that is both surmountable and surely not worth fucking up more than one relationship.
“It’s intriguing, UOF, that you don’t give any indication of how things are between you and your boyfriend right now. Obviously, you’re pretty committed—been together for four years, moved across the country to be with the guy. Yet, despite this pretty serious level of commitment, the primary negative outcome you see of admitting to your boyfriend and/or crush that you have these feelings is that it would make your social interactions ‘uncomfortable’? You don’t mention your boyfriend possibly being hurt, or perhaps screwing up his relationship with your crush, or causing a rift between you and your boyfriend. You’re worried about uncomfortableness. It seems like you almost don’t care. I think there’s something else going on.
“You moved far from home—do you feel isolated? Do you feel bored and/or lonely? If your boyfriend is busy in grad school, it could be that you’re also feeling neglected. I think it might be that you’re just not feeling great about life in general right now, and this crush is a symptom of that. But acting on an impulse that could make things worse for everyone isn’t the way to fix things.
“If you’re friendless outside your boyfriend’s circle of friends, get some friends of your own, forfucksake. If you’ve lived in that new locale for a whole year and have not met anyone you could be friendly with, you’re not trying. Look for people who have similar interests, whether it’s fine art, tea making, needlepoint, video games, rugby, animal husbandry, or whatever floats your boat.
“There’s a saying where I come from: ‘Don’t shit where you eat.’ Do not crap in the only social circle you have right now, UOF. Walk the fuck away from this friend of your boyfriend’s and find some friends of your own. Oh, and if you’re so VERY susceptible to crushing on a friend of your boyfriend’s, it sounds like you and the boyfriend need to have a talk ASAP, because you, my friend, are just not happy right now. Good luck.”
Thank you, Grant, for your generous donation and your well-written response… and now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to jump down your throat:
Whenever a married/partnered/girlfriended/boyfriended person wants to fuck someone who isn’t her spouse/partner/girlfriend/boyfriend—when a technically unavailable person finds herself crushing out on someone else—people insist that the crush has to be a symptom of something. UOF wouldn’t be having this crush, Grant writes, if she weren’t feeling neglected, unhappy, and isolated. By implication, people who are content at home—people who aren’t feeling neglected, unhappy, and isolated—don’t have crushes.
I don’t mean to jump down Grant’s throat… or not just Grant’s throat. This is a point you hear people—columnists, counselors, Drs. Laura and Phil—making all the time: Married/partnered people who are happy at home don’t experience crushes on others. The eyes of happily partnered people—to say nothing of their genitalia—never wander. So if you’re having a crush on someone you’re not supposed to, well, that must mean something is very seriously wrong with your relationship. It’s a symptom. Of something dire.
This, of course, is complete and total bullshit. Happily married/partnered/boyfriended/girlfriended people have crushes on other people all the time. Not because we’re unhappy or because there’s something wrong with us or because our relationships are somehow diseased. It happens because—I hope everyone is sitting down for this—however attracted we are to our spouses/partners/boyfriends/girlfriends, other people are also attractive.
So it’s entirely possible that you have a crush on this guy, UOF, because he’s hot and you want to fuck him, independent of your feelings for your boyfriend and/or his graduate program. Crushes are normal, and our relationships—closed or open—would be less stressful if we weren’t expected to pretend that we never find anyone else attractive. And our relationships would be more likely to survive the inevitable, normal, natural crushes-on-others if we weren’t led to believe that attraction is a zero-sum game, i.e., that finding someone else attractive means you must find your partner less attractive.
All that said, UOF, while your crush doesn’t have to mean something, it still could. The indifference you display toward your boyfriend’s feelings, which Grant rightly highlights, could mean that your crush is the person you really want to be with. Sometimes, people meet the people they wind up with under awkward, embarrassing, and painful circumstances. This could be one of those times.
Help! I’m a 21-year-old female with a 20-year-old boyfriend. Eight months ago, he was in a horrible accident, which left him without a left hand. We didn’t have sex until after he was hurt. The sex is great, but he doesn’t do foreplay! Nothing! But he expects blowjobs and handjobs every time! When I bring it up, he tells me he doesn’t know what to do!
Please Help Me
I’m not sure what his missing left hand has to do with anything… but here goes: Your one-handed boyfriend says he doesn’t know what to do. So tell him: You want a hand here, a tongue there, this squeezed, that rubbed. If he can’t do as he’s told, no more sex, no more blowjobs, no more handjobs, no more girlfriend.
Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.
My boyfriend has a habit of developing crushes on other girls. Most times it has happened, it has resulted in problems between us. He gets upset, uncomfortable about his feelings, grows distant from me, and we end up fighting. Twice we have broken up for a period of time over it.
It doesn’t always cause problems though, the times that it works out perfectly fine, are the times when he told me. “I think I might have a crush on our friend _________.” When that happens I tell him that it’s okay, and then we make an effort to spend some quality time together so that he can feel reconnected with me. He feels better and less guilty, I feel confident in the honesty of our relationship and everything moves on.
Most boring column ever.
For UOF:
For the most part, I agree with the advice of Dan and Grant, but if you really want to get down with that guy, you may have to be sneaky. I would tell your boyfriend that you want to spice things up and have a threesome. When he calms down, tell him you want to have a MMF threesome first, then a FFM threesome next. Then casually steer him towards inviting the guy you like, and then lay back and try out the friend with your boyfriend. This scenario will, of course, require you to find a nice girl to share your boyfriend with for an evening, but you are GGG right?
For PHM:
Dan is absolutely right, explain to your boyfriend how important foreplay is, and then explain to him exactly how to do it. Make sure you keep telling him what to do and keep encouraging him the whole time.
Nice post Dan but you don’t have to jump down Thornley’s response. Next time just let the guy respond to a different question.
For UOF: 1) your signoff would have been so much better “Uncomfortable Friend Ogler.”
2) I lean more towards Grant’s opinion than Dan’s. If you don’t usually also develop crushes when you’re happy in your relationship, it’s a symptom. I usually only develop crushes on other people when my relationship is strained. It’s so easy – there’s no uncomfortable (there’s that word again) conversations and arguments hanging over you when you’re with someone new. Figure out your current relationship before you tell the new guy anything.
For PHM – It sounds like you’re feeling guilty about being unhappy in a relationship with a “damaged” person. After all, aren’t women supposed to be caring and nurturing and blah blah blee? Get over it. Unless imagining what a good person everyone must think you are for being with that unfortunate man is worth the lack of orgasms, sexual selfishness is a dumping offense.
I’ve been in a happy, committed relationship for several years, and I get crushes on other girls all the time. I accept it as a package deal that comes with my dick, and either ignore the crush or channel that feeling into hot, hot sex with my girlfriend.
Honestly, I don’t understand why so many adults seem to believe that they have to follow every single feeling that happens to trot through their heads. This “magical emotion” bullshit sounds like an excuse for immaturity to me. Children lack the self-control to analyze and act in spite of their emotions; adults should fucking know better.
Crushes develop not just because other people are attractive, but because the unknown is so much better in our minds than the known. The fantasy revolving around the crush beats our boring real relationship every time.
Maturity and pain resulting from pursuit of fantasy teach us that a good (or even modest) reality beats a fantasy every time. But each person must re-invent that wheel.
To PHM: The lack of the hand has nothing to do with the lack of foreplay. Tell him to shape up and give him constructive suggestions to get you hot.
Teach time that foreplay can include toys. If you use toys to get yourself off he can and should use them to get you off. If he won’t try he clearly needs to be dumped and then grow up a bit to see that sex has got to be reciprocal or it won’t keep happening.
Regarding UOF, I hope she can figure out how to talk about crushes and attractions with her partner. My partner is terrible about this and it is a huge problem since we are human and hence at times attracted to others. I think Dan’s advice is really good. Pretending you NEVER even want to look is a real hard thing to pretend for ever. Good luck.
Not the Most boring column ever…but in the running.
I am married and have crushes on other men all he time, because other people are attractive, but it doesn’t make my husband any less so. And when I really think about these crushes, they often have qualities that I love about my husband. I am confident in my relationship to know that I can’t control my hormones, only my actions 🙂
And, please, UOF, take Grant’s advice and develop friends of your own. Volunteer, adult education, join a cult/religion, or just go to the gym. You’ll still be crushing on hot bf’s friend, but at least you won’t feel so isolated.
The acceptability of the idea of falling for other people during the course of a committed relationship isn’t new at all. It’s just roundly rejected or misunderstood, as Dan points out.
Years ago a friend who was getting married was instructed to read C. S. Lewis’s essay on the myth of romantic love, which is published in the book _Mere_Christianity_. His views on the roles of the married couple are a bit awkward today, but I agree with his realistic honesty that married people (in the context of his writing) will become attracted to and even fall in love with other people during the course of a marriage.
How you deal with those crushes, as the LW is experiencing, is the salient issue to address, rather than what’s wrong with you for having them in the first place.
I figure that PHM went out of her way to mention the lack of a hand probably because if she criticizes him he immediately jumps to “It’s because I only have one hand, isn’t it!” as a defense and then she forgot to come back to that later in the email.
Echoing #11 here. I don’t think the crush is really the issue, people develop crushes all the dang time. But she does need to get out and make her own damn friends to hang out with and then the puppy-love for her guy’s buddy won’t seem so overwhelming.
@3, @5, and @8: We’re not here to read your advice, we’re here to read Dan’s. I thought the comment section was for people to leave umm… comments! Not write the amateur version of what we all just read. Does anyone read the column and then go, “Okay, well, Dan’s advice was alright, but what does Dal Tiger think?! I can’t consider my question answered until I know if Dal Tiger concurs!! ..WHERE IS JA?!?!?!”
I really liked the letter from UOF, and the response from Dan. It reminds me of a story my mom (who is still happily married to my dad) has told me a few times about the first year of her marriage. She had a debilitating crush on a friend of my dad’s. She couldn’t talk to him without blushing and wondered if there was something wrong with her. She and my dad even joked about it. I mean, even if you’re super in love I think sometimes you can just get a little infatuated with the possibility presented by someone else. I know I do, but thanks to this funny family story I don’t really take it too seriously.
PHM: Was your boyfriend left-handed?
I realize you did not have sex until after he lost his hand, but it’s possible that his libido has taken a serious hit as a result of his injury. While I (thankfully) still have both of my hands, I did temporarily lose the use of my dominant hand several years ago. I had to learn how to write, eat, shave, brush my teeth, and put on my clothes using only my weaker hand, and having to relearn basic motor skills made me feel completely incompetent. This killed my sex drive– being unable to tie your own fucking shoes doesn’t exactly make you feel sexy.
Which isn’t to say that your boyfriend shouldn’t be attentive to your needs, or that he gets a pass on ignoring foreplay. I’m just pointing out that he may be nowhere near 100% right now.
I like Dan’s comment that sometimes people don’t “meet cute”, they meet “under awkward, embarrassing, and painful circumstances.” She’s so young; if she is more attracted to the friend than to her boyfriend, and if she senses the attraction is mutual, then maybe she should break up with the boyfriend and see how things go with the crush.
“Don’t shit where you eat” doesn’t necessarily apply; friends of friends is a fine way to meet people. It’s not like the suburban housewife fucking her neighbor from last week’s thread. In this case, she can stop seeing both guys, as well as their whole circle of friends, assuming her relationship with the crush is no more permanent than the one with her current boyfriend.
Please Help Me: Just break up and move on, let someone else teach him how to be a good partner.
Love is not the prize. Love is the game, and the prize is wisdom. Do something foolish (but not necessarily destructive), then let yourself learn.
@18 I would be inclined to agree with you more if it wasn’t clear from PHM’s letter that her boyfriend is regularly sexually active with her in ways that get him off; he just neglects to take her needs into account.
Did Dan even read Grant’s offering, or did he skim it, read the word crush, later on read the phrase, something is wrong with the relationship, and then decide that Grant was saying she wouldn’t have had a crush if the relationship wasn’t fucked up?
Basically Grant and Dan agreed, but for some reason Dan decided to rail against those anti-crush forces in the media. Which wasn’t even relevant, her problem as both Dan and Grant noted is that she cares more about her social standing with her boyfriend’s friends than about her boyfriend himself, let alone her relationship with him.
Yes there’s something more going on there. I just hope the boyfriend sees this and gets the fuck out.
PHM – while I doubt your boyfriend in is the 0.001% of men that have never watched foreplay containing porn, he may feel like a klutz and is unsure of how to do it himself. In addition to the ‘put your tongue here’ advice, you could get one of those instructional porn videos, let him watch one technique and try it out on you, and advance one at a time. It could be a fun game and puts you in less of a foreplay school marm role.
Actually I thought there were elements of both Grant’s and Dan’s advice that were worth considering. Grant has, I think, a good point about whether or not she’s isolated where she is — moved out to where her bf is, limited to his circle of friends, just isn’t a good thing no matter what else is going on. OTOH, I think Dan is right in that developign a crush on someone doesn’t necessarily say anything about the state of your current relationship (and I rather think she would have mentioned it if it were strained at present).
So there you go. As far as missing lefty goes, I too was like, what does that have to do with anything? (Tho some commenters have raised potential good/interesting points on that.)
What? No controversy?! No endless fights over the column??? BORING! 🙂 It’s ALL about the squabbles in the comments section, doncha know??
@16 I come here for Dan’s advice, but it’s interesting to see the take of other people as well. It’s precisely what the comments are for.
I had a crush on another woman that started working in my office a while back. It went away when I got to know her. Now I just find her annoying.
I’m all-too capable of jealousy, but when a guy I’m with develops a crush on one of my friends, I find it hard to get all jacked up about it. Mostly I find it flattering, since they’re partly attracted to my friends because of the qualities that attracted them to me in the first place. My one ex openly admitted he had a crush on my best friend. Maybe I’m weird, but I didn’t mind – in fact, it kind of seemed … sweet? It’s happened in other relationships. I just find it hard to be threatened by it, since nobody would have acted on anything without discussing it with me first. Now if a boyfriend admitted a crush on someone I HATED, that might cause some problems for me.
@ 6: Right on. Well said!
@16 I don’t come heer to read your comments about other people’s comments. I don’t come here to read how you don’t want to read other people’s advice. I don’t come here to read…oh wait, maybe I do.
And since you’re dying to know, here’s what I think… Great Guest advice, Grant! And Dan, yeah, happy people are attracted outside their relationship too, but the whole isolation thing rings true here. A year with no new friends? Join a book club or a writing group. Take a class. Come to think of it, how attractive can she be right now if she’s always around him and his friends. Developing separate interests keeps you interesting and interested. You’re probably both sick of each other.
I had a crush for many years and I really think it helped keep my marriage together. It was exciting when he was in the room, we would touch whenever we could, but didn’t have sex until my marriage was over. Once we did, we spent a year or so in an affair, and now I’m totally over him. I miss that crush, it was a great bedtime fantasy.
26 is right… You may not like other people’s advice, but it’s often been a part of the comments. Dan encourages it by tossing up a SLLOTD and asking readers to advise or by later reposting additional advice from the comments.
I kind of agree with both Grant and Dan: people can develop crushes outside the relationship without it signifying any particular problem in the relationship. On the other hand, if there is a problem, that can make your thinking and feelings about the crush a lot more difficult to cope with.
So the crush is certainly an opportunity to examine your relationship with your boyfriend. If you come to the conclusion that you are solid with him, go ahead and crush away madly, and channel the energy it brings up for you towards your boyfriend. (I’m not saying act on it. Just stop beating yourself up inside the confines of your own skull. If those feelings can also heat things up back home, well, win/win.) If things are on the rocks, however, then you have some serious stuff to deal with, regardless of whether there’s this other guy potentially out there or not.
Whenever I have a crush on someone, I assume it’s because I am still drawing breath on the planet Earth. I also assume I get crushes because I practice absolute monogamy, and my brain needs a steam valve.
If the crush starts getting bad, I turn it into an elaborate sexual fantasy – which I then write down and sell. Nothing takes the heat out of a fantasy like the process of professional editing and publication.
Awesome advice Grant! Very nicely done! I see Dan’s point, but honestly there is a HUGE difference between ‘that guy sure is hot and I would like to think about banging him’ and a CRUSH, which is more like ‘I think about him all the time and I wish that i could leave my life and run away with him’.
Maybe some people call the former a crush, but I disagree. A crush is a serious red flag, finding someone hot or interesting is just human nature and should be embraced. This writer seems to be describing the relationship red flag kind of crush.
There are, in my mind, three reasons (sometimes combined) for the eye/heart/twat to start wandering.
One, you’re going through normal ups and downs in a relationship and you’re looking for a little prop-me-up. Crushes provide that little jolt of excitement and can raise your self-esteem. It’s also easy to fantasize about who might want you, since your partner doesn’t (or so it seems at the time).
Two, your relationship is going through serious problems possibly ending in a breakup, and you’re looking for the easy landing/easy out of just starting over with someone new. You’ll never fight with John/Sue, ever! Until you do.
Three, you’re perfectly happy and content, but you have eyes/heart/twat and you are experiencing a normal reaction to someone you think might be compatible with your eyes/heart/twat.
Crushes pass in time, especially with more proximity. I thought my partner’s friend was hot and then he moved in with us. Now I have to pick up after him, am witness to his alcoholism, and those thoughts are gone like a puff of smoke. Poof!
But the girl seriously needs to make her own friends. Not having your own outside interests will bore you and him! Go volunteer, take a cooking class, learn Spanish, take up yoga. Have a life outside your man!
@34 – LOL! Having tried to write assorted sex scenes, I know *exactly* what you mean!
“This, of course, is complete and total bullshit. Happily married/partnered/boyfriended/girlfriended people have crushes on other people all the time.”
Thanks, Dan. As a happily married woman who’s been with her husband for eight years, I assert this is true. I have crushes every once in awhile; they don’t seem to correlate in any significant way with the health of my marriage.
I just moved across the country to follow my fiance. The isolation and loneliness (plus feeling like I’d abandoned my own life) eventually led to depression. Two months of therapy later and I finally found the courage to audit a couple of classes and make a couple of friends, which has made all the difference. But it took my fiance basically forcing me into therapy and other positive activities to get me to the point where I could help myself. It isn’t over yet but things are improving.
Moral of my story: Following someone, even for love, can be way way crappier than you ever anticipate, and it is hard to get out of that funk on your own. UOF, believe me that this will get better once you start getting some help (and schedule therapy/exercise/yoga in the morning when it can be so hard to drag your ass out of bed because “it doesn’t matter if I get up anyway” syndrome). GOOD LUCK!
I just love it when people bitch about free entertainment (i.e. #16).
You know, 15 years ago, you actually had to get out of the house, travel to the nearest hipster-doofus coffee shop to find Savage Love in the local hipster rag. And if you happened to live in Bumfuck, you had no access to Savage Love. If you missed an issue, there were no archives and you had to figure out how to find the clit on your own without Dan’s help.
I think #16 needs to see Louis C.K.’s “Everything’s amazing, nobody’s happy” bit. “My phone is slow… uh maybe you should give it a second to get back from SPACE.”
I must say the relief I felt when my husband and I started being really honest with each other about outside attractions/crushes was palpable. We laughed with each other about how silly it is that a lot of couples seem to be all about pretending to each other that they never look at someone else. Window shopping is a harmless dalliance in a relationship with a strong base of communication and openness. As other comments note, and for me, that spark can be very productively transferred into hot sex with my husband, in a stable, safe, loving environment. If we didn’t talk about it, we’d both feel guilty and distant from each other during these inevitable incidents of running into some random attractive person. We did that before and can vouch for it not being as fun.
UOF did mention repeatedly that she doesn’t have any friends where she’s at. Although her crush probably isn’t a symptom of that, if she did have some pals who she could go out with and get off her chest how hot this guy is, it might help her get over or otherwise deal with the crush much more easily. So, symptomatic or not, finding some friends of her own to hang out with is probably her best move right now.
PHM might want to take some time out to fantasize what he could do with that wrist stump and then suggest they make that part of their sex life. In case her boyfriend is feeling self-conscious about it, that might help a lot. If he’s just clueless, then telling him what to do should work either way. If he’s just selfish, then DTMA.
You know, *I* don’t always use both hands when I’m giving my wife foreplay. Unless he’s had a horrible accident with his *tongue* or he’s lost his jaw or something, there’s no reason he can’t eat fur pie.
Unless he’s just an asshole.
@27: Lol! I have an open relationship with my wife, and I’ve found that the more I date other people, the more I love my wife. 😉
Sometimes it’s fine to have a fuck-buddy relationship with someone who you would never actually, you know, date on a serious basis.
I used to develop crushes on people all the time in my early 20s. While in a LTR. I just wanted attention, and I loved that these guys would hang on every word, the tension building. I wasn’t interested in cheating.
I realized, afterward, that in fact, people are interesting and sometimes interested but that’s all it is or should be. I meet attractive, fascinating men a lot. However, I have learned that the pretense of “getting to know” someone only gets me into trouble.
But, it took being in a relationship that I really didn’t want to jeopardize to realize that. My LTR that led me to crushes was lacking, this is true, but I believe I only allowed myself the crushes because of this, not that it was a catalyst. Now, I don’t get to know men better. If you want intimacy and bonding, go back to your boyfriend, UOF. The grass is greener because you haven’t gotten close enough to see that he hasn’t mowed it in 6months.
Hey guys,
What Savage failed to mention is this weekend the 22nd celebrates the 38th Anniversary of Roe V. Wade. Check out what’s happening in your city – SF is hosting a fab parade!
Date: Jan. 22, 2011
Where: Harry Bridges Plaza, the median strip across from the Ferry Building Embarcadero @ Market
Time: 11 am
Why: To Celebrate Choice! Put on by BACORR, Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights
FAB speakers will be there –
*Pioneer in women’s health and contributing author to Our Bodies, Our Selves, Carol Downer
*Local OB/GYNs that perform abortion services and directly see the impact access to safe abortion has on women’s lives
*Radical Women, World Can’t Wait & Gay Shame
*Sister of Perpetual Indulgence – drag queen Do-Gooding Nuns!
Bring your signs, your friends and yourself.
http://www.bacorr.org
Bad advice to that first girl. She should ABOLUTELY tell her boyfriend of four years that she has an ENORMOUS crush on this guy. Be sure to write us and tell how well that worked out.
Christ, sorry bout the triple post – Stranger, please delete the first 2!
Number 6 is the man.
So you tell your boy friend you are seriously crushing on his best friend? Then the ‘crushee’ has to deal with a jealous boyfriend? That’s just plain immature. Not to mention you’re dragging an innocent person into your relationship probably against their knowledge and consent. That’s inconsiderate and mean.
Many aren’t wanting to be dragged into a relationship because the ‘fire’ has died out in someone elsr’s relationship and they feel to ‘awkward’ to break it off.
I agree with Grant’s advice; take up a hobby!
@6 absolutely. Fantasy beats reality, in your head. Reality beats fantasy, in,um…. reality. The ability to tell the difference is the mark of someone mature enough to be in an LTR.
@UOF Crushes happen,sometimes because you’re bored with what’s going on in real life, or scared, or unsure of your current relationship, or because that’s what humans do. We live in our heads. So. I think you probably are most of those, plus maybe a tad resentful about your sacrificial cross-country move. The question you need to ask yourself is this: If I blow this LTR all to hell over this crush, how happy will I be to hear that my current boyfriend is married and soon-to-be expecting with someone else? If the answer is “very happy’, then move on. Otherwise, figure it out.