Very well put, Dan. I focus specifically on the online dating part of things, but I often wind up nudging people to get back out there and date even though I'm theoretically just an online dating coach. I enjoy having a pithy resource to point them to! Totally blog-linking this.
But what about people who want to get to know someone before taking their clothes off? What advice is there for them? Just get over it and have sex with someone whose name you won't remember in two years?
Which is not to say that it has to be true love (or reasonable facsimile every time). I have a rule of thumb: If the person could get hit by a truck and die and you wouldn't go to the funeral, then don't have sex with that person. Not going to the funeral because you didn't find out they were dead counts as not going to the funeral.
6 weeks depends entirely on the who. In 75% of cases, maybe. It's taken me 3 years, or a few days, depending on if it's an ex husband of 10 years, or a 4 week casual summer hookup.
I'm still contemplating the fact that I like being single a little too much, and society is aimed at people who don't.
I agree with DRF - confused about the getting it on part. As a straight girl I hear over and over that hooking up with someone and silently hoping he'll then want to date you, is not the way to get into a relationship with a man.
@3 &5, Dan doesn't insist you have sex, but he suggests you get close enough to tell if you like each other's smell. Keep it to kissing if you like, but don't keep it online.
Also, I've had fun sex with guys whose name I didn't know. Not everythin has to lead to relationship.
I don't see anything about consent here. I am more in the forty-something crowd than college age, but apparently some of my associates still think it is right for them to be "assertive" when a woman says no. More reminders are helpful.
"as soon as you're sure the person you're dating isn't someone you could spend the next four or five decades of your life rimming"
I'm not confortable with this, because that long-term-relationship goal was something that seriouly fucked my dating in college. I would only leave if I felt that long-term was not going to happen, so for the most part, instead of focusing on my short-term and present annoyance, or total lack of sexual pleasure, with the guy, I would try to look into the future and stay until "we could still make it, he could change or I could change and get used to this" was making me so miserable and depressed I had no other choice than to leave.
I feel that short term relationships should be a goal in themselves for college-age youngsters - with the option of going long term if everything stays fine as a remote aside.
"Leave if getting married is a bad prospect" can be easily misconstrued as "Stay until there's no chance of the relationship leading to marriage, happy or unhappy as it may be". Marriage prospects should come as a distant second to "leave if you're not getting equal pleasure, and if you don't feel respected", something a youngster can have a clearer idea of than marriage.
As for being afraid of rimming for decades as a valid criterion for dumping a guy : it's not for conservatively-raised females, who will see only having to do rimjobs as an easy ride and a pretty amazing bargain, compared to having to submit to being vaginally penetrated without pleasure for decades - something they've been taught is their fair share, because they've been born with a vulva between their legs, so it's either that or be childless - and something they've already embraced as a necesary evil before even becoming sexually active.
Re: Step 4 & 5
Too bad about HERPES, the STD (sexually transmitted disease) that lives FOREVER.
My super-hot straight buddy) from Santa Clara U. got herpes on his FIRST kiss of his FIRST date in Jr. High in Palo Alto, CA.
It should go WITH saying: Youthful risk is risky business, but don't kiss some knucklehead just because he/she is hot or it's New Year's Eve, or some stupid drinking game. (Stay away from kissing/drinking games in general.)
Think about the possibility of a "casual" disease that lasts a long, long time after college, and god help you, beyond postgraduate.
Heaven bless you, Dan Savage! I wish I could have met your mother, Judy, in person to thank her, too! Wonderful suggestions, overall. I also wish there had been such a thing as a Relationship 101 class offered when I went to college. Interestingly, I never studied Chemistry (possibly afraid that yet another relationship would blow up in my face?).
I guess I'm a bit of a social dinosaur. Although I am on Facebook and have a small website, I still feel a little weird about going online to pursue something so intimate as dating. It's not that my ex during our divorce proceedings (oh, please!!) used going online to meet someone new before our divorce was even finalized. I prefer to meet someone new face to face and in person initially.
Nonetheless, thanks again, for more helpfully informative and humorous sexually related advice.
I'm not bi, tri, nor quad! Whatever the terms that are used today. I'm straight, healthy 44 year old man. Is this the NEW NORM? Who sticks a finger in a mans ass? WTF is going on? Am I so disconnected from the real world and what women want and like? Can someone answer ME please?
OKC/POF/etc are not necessarily as good if you're a straight guy as they may be for others. There's just too damn many of us.
Add in being almost 40, and, well yeah.
Which is not to say that it has to be true love (or reasonable facsimile every time). I have a rule of thumb: If the person could get hit by a truck and die and you wouldn't go to the funeral, then don't have sex with that person. Not going to the funeral because you didn't find out they were dead counts as not going to the funeral.
I'm still contemplating the fact that I like being single a little too much, and society is aimed at people who don't.
Also, I've had fun sex with guys whose name I didn't know. Not everythin has to lead to relationship.
I'm not confortable with this, because that long-term-relationship goal was something that seriouly fucked my dating in college. I would only leave if I felt that long-term was not going to happen, so for the most part, instead of focusing on my short-term and present annoyance, or total lack of sexual pleasure, with the guy, I would try to look into the future and stay until "we could still make it, he could change or I could change and get used to this" was making me so miserable and depressed I had no other choice than to leave.
I feel that short term relationships should be a goal in themselves for college-age youngsters - with the option of going long term if everything stays fine as a remote aside.
"Leave if getting married is a bad prospect" can be easily misconstrued as "Stay until there's no chance of the relationship leading to marriage, happy or unhappy as it may be". Marriage prospects should come as a distant second to "leave if you're not getting equal pleasure, and if you don't feel respected", something a youngster can have a clearer idea of than marriage.
As for being afraid of rimming for decades as a valid criterion for dumping a guy : it's not for conservatively-raised females, who will see only having to do rimjobs as an easy ride and a pretty amazing bargain, compared to having to submit to being vaginally penetrated without pleasure for decades - something they've been taught is their fair share, because they've been born with a vulva between their legs, so it's either that or be childless - and something they've already embraced as a necesary evil before even becoming sexually active.
Too bad about HERPES, the STD (sexually transmitted disease) that lives FOREVER.
My super-hot straight buddy) from Santa Clara U. got herpes on his FIRST kiss of his FIRST date in Jr. High in Palo Alto, CA.
It should go WITH saying: Youthful risk is risky business, but don't kiss some knucklehead just because he/she is hot or it's New Year's Eve, or some stupid drinking game. (Stay away from kissing/drinking games in general.)
Think about the possibility of a "casual" disease that lasts a long, long time after college, and god help you, beyond postgraduate.
I guess I'm a bit of a social dinosaur. Although I am on Facebook and have a small website, I still feel a little weird about going online to pursue something so intimate as dating. It's not that my ex during our divorce proceedings (oh, please!!) used going online to meet someone new before our divorce was even finalized. I prefer to meet someone new face to face and in person initially.
Nonetheless, thanks again, for more helpfully informative and humorous sexually related advice.