Savage Love Feb 2, 2021 at 3:03 pm

Quickies

JOE NEWTON

Comments

1

GRIZ!!!

2

WAH: You have a lot on your plate, and it sucks. Dan's advice is spot-on.

Good luck with it all to you, and to everyone else who feels the same way.

INTIMATE: "What can I expect from a man who is emotionally and physically unavailable?"

More of the same.

It's hard to understand how someone can have multiple conversations about how sexually, physically, and emotionally unsatisfied their partner is, yet put in little effort AND continue with the relationship. The most charitable explanation is that he wants out, but lacks the cojones.

3

WAH: Hang in there. Life, especially now, can get totally overwhelming. Take it one day at a time. I hope everything gets better for you and your BF soon.
Sending cyber hugs, positrons, and VW beeps.

INTIMATE: Agreed and seconded with Dan the Man: DTMFA.
Even after you and your BF moved into your own space he STILL won't touch you, and you're stuck being the one to initiate sex? DTMFA.

FIANCE: Your fiance's family is warmly accepting of his gay uncle and partner, but insists that you play "roommate / friend"? If he so stubbornly refuses to come out, then DTMFA.

4

thirpt

5

@1: WA-HOOOOOOOOOOO on Griz scoring FIRDT! In all fairness, I will step aside this week to allow all other commenters have a chance at the Lucky @69 honors and beyond.

6

Fubar @ 2 "It's hard to understand how someone can have multiple conversations about how sexually, physically, and emotionally unsatisfied their partner is, yet put in little effort AND continue with the relationship. The most charitable explanation is that he wants out, but lacks the cojones."

Not disagreeing with you (all options are possible), but I have found through (unfortunately) repeated personal experience that some people think their partner will simply get used to the situation as it is and eventually stop hassling them about it. I used to think that my selfish partners wanted out and didn't have the guts to put an end to the relationship, so I did it myself, only to realize that I'd left them heartbroken. That was the relationship they wanted, period: me giving, them receiving.

They don't personally feel anything's wrong - hey, they've hit the jackpot with a giving partner! - and they fail to understand that said partner might view things differently. If everything is fine and dandy to them AND they lack empathy, the possibility that their partner is not satisfied with what makes them happy is not something that'll ever cross their mind, no matter how often their partner repeats it. And those who do understand that their partner has different needs often justify their own indifference by deeming those needs frivolous, exagerated, or just plain wrong.

7

Ugh, INTIMATE did you really write "now it feels like we've been married for decades"? What you describe is not a characteristic of being married for decades. I have been married for decades and things are still fun.

You have a selfish partner. Just get rid of them now.

Also, having sex at your parent's place when you have to be quick and quiet should be SUPERHOT, not "not particularly sexy". It doesn't matter what age you are, it's always hot. Maybe that's something wrong with me though!

8

@1 Griz congrats! Frist by 24 min., a country mile!

9

busy_quilting @ 7
That sentence stood out for me as well. While no longer married ex and I enjoyed an improved sex life in the late stage of our marriage, some 20 years in, before other things ended it all. And the time my parents came to visit 17 years prior was memorable despite all four of us crammed in a small apartment and the two of us sleeping on the living room floor.

In other news: as some may have already noticed my avatar has been changed, at least temporarily. I have some saved images and since this one was titled “say it with tenderness” I thought it would make a fine choice after last week’s exchanges.

Good week to all.

10

WAH: I'm an heterosexual woman who use to have "that boyfriend", the guy was always running from intimacy, never wanted to have sex unless I really really pushed it and then it would last 5 minutes and leave me completely unsatisfied. I thought I was ugly, too old and undesirable. My self esteem suffered. Then one day I found his grindr app on his phone, and all this conversations with gay guys he had been hooking up for no strings sex. I was shocked. Funny thing is that the guy was the biggest homophobic. Yes, I had been used as a beard. I'm not saying it's the posters case but it resembled mine and she might want to check his phone too.

11

Griz, congrats on the FIRDT!

WAH is worried her boyfriend will run out of patience. It's good that she sees this isn't fair to him. I would suggest that she up her efforts to be giving to him, not sexually, but in other areas of the relationship. Give him back massages. Cook/order his favourite foods. Show him she recognises and appreciates his patience, not by blowing up the relationship before he can do so out of guilt, but by showering him with gratitude. She could also offer to participate while he masturbates. This IS a problem with a cause, and also a problem with a solution -- the end to this awful pandemic that has ravaged most of our mental health in so many ways. Like your boyfriend, we're all having to tap into wells of patience we never knew we had. Good luck to you both.

Busy @7, I agree. Somehow INTIMATE has got the idea that this is what sex/affection are supposed to be like in a long term marriage. With such a defeatist view no wonder she's accepting such poor treatment. DTMFA indeed. As for why Mr INTIMATE is being a cold fish, it's possible he's just a cold fish. Like Ricardo @6 says, this is his normal and he doesn't see anything to fix. Maybe he was sexually abused as a child. Maybe he was deprived of affection by his own parents. Who knows. The important thing is that INTIMATE has raised this concern repeatedly and he doesn't want to address it. This counts as a fundamental, unsolvable incompatibility. There is nothing left to do but leave before you make the marriage-and-kids mistake.

12

Reframing INTIMATE's question (and all the others like it)-- It isn't what can you expect from a man who is emotionally and physically unavailable (though I like fubar's more of the same response.) The question is: What are my chances of finding someone I get along with as well but who also gives me what I need in terms of intimacy and sex? What are the chances that this is as good as it gets? If I dump this guy, am I looking at no intimacy, no sex, and also no fun, no love, no marriage, no kids?

The corollary question is: Am I better off with this guy than being totally alone?

Naturally no one can answer these questions for you, but I do have a bit of advice. Work on the totally alone part of the equation. Make your alone life a fabulous one. Get involved. Pour yourself into meaningful work. Cultivate friendships. Have fun on your own. Volunteer. Hobbies. Be the life of the party. Be the person others are drawn to because your conversation is witty and your insights deep. Get a dog. This will do 2 things. It will make you attractive if you do decide to seek companionship elsewhere, and it will make taking the plunge to dump the current guy (should you decide to it) (an I'm rooting for you to do it) that much easier.

14

I don't get letters like the first one. Everything is good except physical and emotional intimacy. Which mean . . . he doesn't beat you? What else is there of those two are messed up? Agreeing on politics and having kids isn't hard, most people can do that. It feels like she awarded him gold stars for not being a complete shithead while ignoring that he's still pretty shitty.

DTMF. It's not a hard call. Maybe get yourself into some therapy to figure out why you put up with this for three years. That's the real issue here.

15

Second letter rather. Remembering is hard.

16

@10: You should've left him before you looked at his phone... but that's a really good example of when snooping is justified: retroactively, when you find something you had an absolute right to know. I hope your self-esteem recovered and after you left that asshole you found yourself some nice, hot straight or bi guys who were 100% into you.

17

Seeing "otherwise" in a description of a relationship is typically a red flag.

18

I agree with larrystone; it always amuses me when a LR describes their partner's horribly cold, selfish behavior and then says "Otherwise, our relationship is great." Seriously?

19

INTIMATE asks "What can I expect from a man who is emotionally and physically unavailable?"

Dan's answer is "a lifetime of frustration;" fubar's answer is "more of the same."

I agree with these and want to add: You will feel your self-esteem drain away to nothingness as you try again and again to get him to care about you. You'll be resentful. If you have children (please don't stay in this relationship), I guarantee you will do almost all of the work partly because almost all mothers do, no matter what, and partly because this man is selfish to the core .

That's what he's displaying: incredible selfishness. You have to ask him to do anything more than HOLD YOUR DANG HAND and he does it with little grace and seemingly with little enjoyment.

But it's when you said you've initiated "multiple conversations about how sexually, physically, and emotionally unsatisfied I am," and after those "he has put in little effort" that I wanted to scream at my computer GET OUT!

He's not going to change. He's sending a very, very clear message that your happiness doesn't matter to him; your satisfaction doesn't matter to him. Once again, and louder for those at the back of the room: YOUR HAPPINESS DOESN'T MATTER TO HIM; YOUR SATISFACTION DOESN'T MATTER TO HIM. If it never has--and it sounds as if even at the beginning of the relationship this problem existed ("When we first started dating, things were great, however, the sex wasn't mind-blowing. Foreplay was limited and he always jumped out of bed afterward")--IT NEVER WILL.

Read your letter again: you are unhappy; he knows you are unhappy; it is within his power to do what it would take to make you happy; he refuses to do it. And it doesn't sound as though what you want from him should be that hard to expect from the person you love who is supposed to love you and with whom you are thinking about spending the rest of your life: affection (you have to ask to be cuddled and he grudgingly responds), emotional honesty, intimacy (of all kinds), and sex. What do the two of you have beyond an excellent friendship?

Here's a harsh-sounding assessment of your situation: he's just not that into you. You may never know why. Hopefully, seeing a bunch of strangers tell you that there is no hope, that he isn't interested or invested in your happiness, you'll be able to see this relationship as a friendship that has been forced into a romantic relationship; it's very square-peg/round-hole-sounding and rather than cast a lot of blame on him, this seems like something you can both chalk up to "we are just two very different people," or "we grew apart," or just straight-up incompatibility. I think you might be able to pivot to friendship, probably after both of you take some time to lick your respective wounds.

But I hope you write back a year from now telling Dan and all of us how much happier you are without him.

20

Since this was a “quickies” column, I’ll comment quickie-ly.

a) I’m struck by the differences between the low-libido OP in letter one and the low-libido boyfriend of the OP in letter 2. The first has had their desire chilled by the stress of a singular worldwide catastrophe, and thus has cause for hope once the situation changes. The second seems to have a default desire setting at around room-temperature, and thus probably is without a chance to change, at least with this partner.

b) “Some couples work on this shit for decades and get nowhere.” Dan’s statement is one of the most depressing things I’ve read recently. Not saying it is untrue, just sad.

21

Ricardo @6: I totally agree that your explanation is more likely the case. Mine was the least-worst I could come up with. Patricav's @10 is quite likely the most-worst case. Whatever the case, I think we all agree that INTIMATE should cut her losses.

22

Ens @20a), don't forget OP1 realises this is a problem, that it is making her partner unhappy, and is working on it. Mr OP2 seems to feel, well, nothing about the fact that her partner is unhappy with the status quo. That's why Relationship #1 has hope for survival and Relationship #2 should end as soon as practicable.

23

@20: It is sad. But I think people need to hear it, especially before marriage and kids and jointly-owned property.

I think our culture is so imbued with that "can do" spirit, that we forget or don't like to admit that some things just aren't fixable. In my experience there's no amount of helping with housework or getaway weekends or rose petals scattered on the floor that will bring back desire for someone once it's totally gone. There's only so much that couples counseling can do. And there's nothing anyone can say or do to make someone else love them.

Far better, it seems to me, to accept that some things just are not working--or never worked--and figure out what that means the two people in the couple want to/can do about it in a moving-forward kind of way:

1) Open the relationship--never my idea as a last-ditch effort, I think open relationships only really work when the primary relationship is already healthy and strong.

2) Break up (this is much harder the longer a couple has been together, and/or if they have children).

3) Acknowledge that affection and sex aren't going to be a part of the relationship and mutually decide to prioritize other aspects of the relationship like shared goals and values, a love of the same leisure activities, parenting, being parts of each others family. I would only recommend this to couples who have been together a long time, who may have other responsibilities that would be adversely affected if they broke up. But this couple, both in their 30s, and only living together for 9 months, should be able to find better partners for each of them.

4) Stay together for decades, getting more and more resentful and bitter.

24

Ens @20a and BDF @22: The no-libido party in L1 being a woman and in L2 being a man may has some affect, at least upon the readership.

25

Nocute @ 19 - "You will feel your self-esteem drain away to nothingness as you try again and again to get him to care about you"

Yes. And that's really hard to come back from, so one should leave the relationship ASAP.

Fubar @ 21 - Yes, we all agree on that (hopefully - although it's early in the thread and some troll might still pop up).

26

Wayne@18~ Would “LR” be a Lettur Riter?

27

I’ve been HIV+ for 33 years, partnered for 25. He’s positive, too. We’re in our 60’s and settled down, with little contact with the kids in the gay community. So this is an interesting conversation, getting some insight into how the younger gays perceive those of us with HIV. I only found out a few years ago what PrEP was. Kids are spoiled these days (says the old married guy) 😁

28

WAH should be aim to be as kind to herself as she would try to be to a suffering friend. She feels she's in survival mode right now--so why not just do all she can to survive? We all have times like that, times we just have to get through; and they're nothing to be embarrassed about. One just has to be ordinarily decent to one's partner when in that state, as she is, and to check in regularly on how he's doing. Bunker down and try to make it through to better times.

To turn it round entirely, though, and speaking personally, I would not stay with anyone whose ability to fuck is tuned out by purely ambient stresses. By ambient here, I mean not particular and elevated (preferably quantifiable) risks to you on the basis of your underlying health; not specific situations e.g. getting fired; not sensitivity to what those close to you face or are going through e.g. a parent being in hospital and your being unable to see them in person. If someone's just bummed out by the news, I'm bummed out by their lack of robustness. WAH says nothing in the letter about other people's distressful situations or about any underlying condition that might render her esp. vulnerable to COVID. Assuming, then (an assumption that might be wrong), that she's a healthy 30yo woman, in any normal 15-week period, her risk of dying would be 0.01% (10-15 women in 100,000 would typically die). In the worst 16-week period for deaths in England for the first wave of the pandemic (from 7 March to 16 June), the deaths from COVID for those of her sex and age category were under 5 per 100,000. The number of additional deaths from those actually catching COVID were below 40 in 100,000. To put this in perspective, this is lower than the risk of dying of a stroke in a southern state of the United States every year; and the 16-weekly risk of death from COVID compared favorably to the yearly risk of death in the US (for 30yo women) from suicide, which is around 7-9 in 100,000. There is every reason to follow every COVID-related precaution; but for a healthy 30yo woman this is overwhelmingly to do with not passing the disease with worse odds of surviving it than you.

I'd advise anyone over-sensitive to broadly current media narratives to turn off the news, or (maybe) to try to have your responses driven by facts, by science papers less filtered by human interest-stories or sensationalism. Read books, watch old films, take up a hobby. Enjoy your time with your partner and anyone else in your bubble. The ethos of 'bear with me while I feel for the world' is one, quite probably, I'm unsympathetic to, even suspicious of. How about feeling for the people eaten away at by relative disadvantage, by a thoroughly corrosive sense of being looked down on--the liberals' least favorite people, the Southern whites, the crazed Trumpists and QAnon conspiracists? Their rates per 100,000 a year of stroke death are over 40; their rates of death for heart disease over 200 (as a comparison, Massachusetts is around 130 and Minnesota 110).

Re INTIMATE's partner, I don't disagree with his being labeled (however jarringly for the lw) a 'motherfucker', a selfish guy she should leave. But I would note that some people are just unable to talk about sex. It is too private for them; or it isn't amenable to rationality, to being dragged out into the open, and to people's being able to change their attitudes towards it. Often these people have the view there's something improper about a relationship standing on the basis of sexual compatibility. They can talk about what job either partner should take, or about whether to have curtains or blinds--but not sexual positions, not frequency or routines of the possibility of side-relationships or new configurations. These people are gay and straight, male and female. I'd guess we as commenters may underestimate how many people are like this because we're relatively unembarrassed apropos sex. I don't think they change; and that a very early test of comptaibility in a relationship for a self-loving, sex-positive person (more, much more than when the NRE-fueled sex is good) is whether you as a couple can talk about it, as you can about pets and careers and decor.

29

Very little disagreement this week beyond this being considered a week of Quickies with only four letters.

To LW4, all I'll say is that practically anything can spoil the mood. One can certainly call it irrational, but there it is.

I'd rather like to know when and how F3 was planning ever to accomplish the marriage. It sounds as if F3 has just been drifting along quite happily being the one dictating play, attached enough to the relationship as is to endanger the new shape it will take if the long-overdue ultimatum should work. But L3 at least provides a good negative example for not agreeing to closet oneself for an indefinite period.

30

Re: INTIMATE, I too am baffled by letters to the tune of "besides the total lack of intimacy and emotional connection, everything's great." It seems like a contradiction of terms. If there isn't (emotional) intimacy, what do you have? How can you even consider it a romantic relationship (or even a decent friendship) at that point? Her BF's inability/unwillingness to put forth any kind of effort to make his girlfriend feel loved the way she needs is the ultimate issue here.

Venn @29, I was wondering the same thing - how do they plan to proceed with taking their relationship to the level of marriage when the LW's BF can't let their current relationship see the light of day?

31

Also, as a long-time lurker and first-time commenter, I'm excited to see some new folks, some returning regulars, and a more peaceful thread than has been happening lately (knocks on wood)

32

@30: "Re: INTIMATE, I too am baffled by letters to the tune of "besides the total lack of intimacy and emotional connection, everything's great." It seems like a contradiction of terms."

You and others are probably right. However, it's not guaranteed.

It's entirely possible that the bf is legitimately great in other ways. Maybe he is an excellent hiking/jogging/bicycling partner. Maybe he always takes out the garbage without prompting, always washes the dishes and vacuums the apartment, and does the laundry for the both of them. Maybe he takes her mother to doctor's appointments, and rebuilt the back porch of her parents' home when her father was incapacitated. Maybe he is polite to waitstaff at restaurants and tips well. Maybe when she was hit by a car, he dropped everything he was doing, got to the hospital before her ambulance did, and stayed by her side throughout her whole recovery.

That is to say, it's possible that he's a great guy, except for physical and emotional intimacy. It may be that he shows his love for her in other ways.

If so, then she has to weigh the pros and cons. Maybe he'd be willing to go to couples counseling with her? Maybe they're just incompatible in the intimacy regard?

And maybe the bf is in WAM's shoes, but doesn't know how to talk about it, or doesn't feel comfortable doing so.

Or not.

Re WAM: make sure to keep communicating with your bf. Also, here's a thought. People have sex, and even start families, in war zones, concentration camps, when one partner is dying, and other extreme conditions. This is in no way meant to diminish how you feel or what you are experiencing. However, I do want to suggest that you hang in there, keep working on yourself, and keep yourself open to reestablishing intimate relations with your bf even under your stressful condition.

Re FIANCE: I don't really have anything to add to Dan's advice--set boundaries, and compel him to make a decision--but I'm also having some difficulty understanding why the bf is behaving that way in the first place, considering that he lives in a gay-positive or at least gay-tolerant family. Could it be that he just isn't that into you? I hate to suggest this, but could he be embarrassed to be seen in public with you? Maybe it's due to his internalized homophobia. Maybe it's not homophobia, but the gay equivalent of not wanting to be seen in public with a particular girl or woman?

As for UPFRONTAL, I agree with @13: many people still emotionally associate HIV with AIDS and a death sentence, even when we know people who are poz and living happy and healthy lives.

33

@8 delta 35 and @11 BiDanFan: Many thanks! Good luck to you and everyone playing in the Lucky Numbers game--Lucky @69 is next up for delicious grabs. :)

@10 patriciav: I'm really sorry that happened to you. You were right to leave him. Nobody should ever have to go through that.
I once had a similar experience. A closeted gay guy I thought I knew from my early community college years tried to use me as a beard once he turned 40 (after twenty-one years' acquaintance). He went so far as to make private long distance calls to my father behind my back to try to green light a forced arranged marriage with children all to appease his mother, sister, brothers and clergymen, all out of sheer desperation, pretending it was my "destiny" and his "dream come true". Fortunately my parents saw right through it. That little stunt ended what I had perceived as a long time friendship. I had confided in him just to get used.
Sending cyber hugs, positrons, and VW beeps for full recovery of your self esteem.

@16 Dan the Man: Thank you for joining us. Agreed and seconded on your spot on response to @10 patriciav.

34

Endless @13, good point, but nobody was being told to "get over" an HIV diagnosis so I'm not quite sure where it came from.

NoCute @23: "I think our culture is so imbued with that "can do" spirit, that we forget or don't like to admit that some things just aren't fixable." That plus the fairy-tale tropes of "love conquers all," "love will find a way," etc. From where we all sit the DTMFAs seem obvious but it is rarely that clear when you are the person who is in love with someone who is fundamentally incompatible in some significant way. We WANT to believe that if you love someone -- particularly if they love you back -- all problems are surmountable. Sad indeed, but that's just not realistic -- and sadder still, sometimes it does take decades to come to this conclusion.

Fubar @24, in what way?

Harriet @28, wow! I hope you're speaking in general terms. WAH didn't say she is stressed because she fears dying of Covid, or because she's watching too much news; I don't know why you would have interpreted her letter that way. WAH told us why she, in particular, is stressed: she lost her career; she is working four different jobs to try to make up the money, the scheduling alone must be a job in itself; she is dealing with buried feelings around having been sexually abused, possibly as a child. We don't know whether any of her four jobs requires her to be in contact with the public and therefore at increased risk of Covid, but if so, that would be more stress. And the fact that everyone else is stressed due to The Situation does nothing to reduce one's own stress. I'm glad WAH has a more sympathetic partner.

Fantastic @30, welcome! I'll do my best to behave. I'll third/fourth your observation. If there is nothing in the physical department -- and this guy doesn't even cuddle, it's not just sex, which puts a question mark on the gay theory -- then surely they are no more than friends and/or business partners. Even the asexuals I've known love to cuddle. I think people like Mr INTIMATE should dedicate themselves to a life of singleness. Like Music @32 says, he may have many qualities that make him the ideal friend. If he has no interest in physical love, he should cultivate a few close friendships instead. A good friend can last a lifetime.

35

@24: fubar, there is a world of difference between the two letter writers and also between their two partners that has nothing to do with gender. If both of these letters were written by men in opposite-sex relationships, nothing would be any different, except that the second letter would conform more to the stereotype of the cold and frigid woman, while letter #1--a man who has lost his libido--would be seen as an unusual situation.

And I don't see the issue as being purely one of libido in letter #2, either.

In letter #1, WAH, the letter writer, is the person with the low libido, but first of all, she seems to have lost her libido (hopefully temporarily, not permanently) due to a convergence of a lot of traumatic experiences and conditions. It's clear that this is not her normal setting. She also seems unhappy that her partner is doing without sex--her concern is for him and for the future of the relationship. She is aware of the fact that her partner must be unhappy with the turn of events. Importantly, it's the partner who has lost her libido writing in: she is unhappy about it.

Whereas in letter #2, the letter writer (INTIMATE) is the person whose partner is making unhappy. I don't think this is merely a case of mis-matched libidos: in a typical mis-alignment of libidos, say one person wants sex 4 times a week, while the other wants sex 1 time every two weeks, maybe once a week. That's a mis-match; this is something else. I don't see Mr. INTIMATE's problem being one of having a low libido, necessarily, although he very well might have a natural libido set point much lower than hers. I see it as being a case of him not being attracted to her. Not only does Mr. INTIMATE not want to have sex--ever--he doesn't want to cuddle. He also doesn't want to talk about the problem, nor to take any responsibility, both of which are the opposite of WAH's reaction. He doesn't seem to care that she's unsatisfied, both emotionally, sexually, and physically, and it's not as if he doesn't realize it, as she says she's had "multiple" conversations in which she tells him this. INTIMATE calls her boyfriend "emotionally and physically unavailable," whereas WAH is aware that she is physically unavailable--NOW--but appears to still be very emotionally invested and tuned in.

Lastly, while WAH makes it pretty clear that this loss of libido on her part is recent and not her ordinary state of being, and she can supply a very plausible explanation for it, the total and utter mismatch of INTIMATE's and Mr. INTIMATE's desire for each other seems to have been there from the start. He never seems to have wanted her or been attracted to her very much. And he's not the one bothered by that.

36

BiDanFan @34, nocute @35: I agree completely with Dan's and your take on both letters. I was wondering @24 how much influence gender might have on the reader, as we're accustomed to reading about women with low(er) libido. But nocute is right: if these letters had been written by men, they could be seen as equally stereotype-confirming and unusual.

37

Fubar @36, if your wish list is still going, a "like" button would be amazing. :)

38

I'm sure there are readers who would say, "See? WAH is getting sympathy and Mr INTIMATE is not because she's a woman and he's a man!" It seems clear that that view would best be responded to with a massive eye roll.

40

Endless @39: I don't know, why did it occur to you to feel defensive about my comment? I don't doubt you've been told to "get over it" by others. I said your comment was a good point. I was just noting that you seemed to be making it in response to something that wasn't actually in the column. Chill pills all round.

41

Bi@40, I think Endless wasn't responding to your comment per se, more that he was responding to Dan's sentiments in his column re: Prep and undetectable viral loads, that he is urging people to stop seeing HIV/AIDS as the death sentence it was in the late 80s and 90s. Obviously, there is still a tremendous amount of trauma in the gay community on this subject, and I think Endless was just expressing that status disclosure is still fraught for gay men. (Not trying to put words in anyone's mouth or speak on behalf of a community to which I don't belong, just my perspective from reading the comments and from what I've heard on the subject from gay men in my life.)

42

l-dub 1... you've got big problems! you are starting to work on them. good on you. stay strong, stay steady, get healthy.

l-dub 2... you have a roommate. you want a boyfriend. i don't know what his problem is. i don't care. you aren't getting what you need out of this relationship, and there is no reason to think that you ever will.

l-dub 3... seems to me that marrying someone who is still in the closet would be a major bummer. i wouldn't necessarily leave, but i wouldn't get married until he came out.

43

Nocute's comments have all been spot-on. WAH is experiencing a (hopefully temporary) lull in her libido. She recognizes it, she's unhappy about it, and she's concerned for her BF's needs while she's going through this rough time. She has self-awareness and is communicating with her BF. All LTRs are going to experience sexual lulls for all kinds of reasons - communication and finding other ways to show our partners we love and care about them are how couples shine through. They have hope. Agreed with Bi @11, that she can offer other forms of physical affection to help bridge a temporary libido gap, assuming those things aren't distressing to her as well.

INTIMATE's situation is another kettle of fish entirely. She thought that the quick, unsatisfying sex with zero cuddling or other forms of physical affection were temporary due to their living with parents at the time. Now that they've lived together 3/4 of a year and nothing's changed, she's realizing this is his status quo. And that wouldn't necessarily be a problem either, if he could 1, be upfront about his low libido (the LW says she's "doing all the work" which makes me wonder about the existence of a libido at all) and 2, engage in communication with his GF around this and 3, either put in the effort to give his GF what she needs, or come to the conclusion that he just can't and cut her loose. If indeed they have had multiple conversations, and assuming the LW is being direct in her communication (not speaking in vague terms and hoping her partner will read her mind), and he simply can't/won't put in some effort, then this guy simply sounds like he's not in good working order to be in an LTR with anyone right now. Inability to communicate, to have hard conversations, to meet a partner halfway - that's someone who will tank any relationship he's in because he lacks the requisite maturity to make things work with another person.

An overarching theme this week (and indeed in many SL letters) is, "what are you willing to put up with/settle for?" LW3 is particularly baffling to me. I cannot imagine being in a relationship for 6 years with someone who can't publicly acknowledge the relationship. I can't imagine how deeply hurtful that must feel, like it's some sordid love affair that can't be expressed in the light of day. I think LW3 should ask his partner if he's still supposed to play the friend/roommate card after they exchange vows.

44

@30. fantastic mrs_fox. I think INTIMATE's relationship may be based on a shared sympathetic acknowledgment of life being hard and often throwing a lot of setbacks in your face. She got together with the sex-averse, or sex-negative, guy she's with when both of them had gone back to their hometown and were living with their parents. It's very possible that hitching up with him was part of her seeing beyond a graduate culture of success or achievement she'd internalised--get the job; have sex with lots of people, or get together glamorously with someone similarly successful; have fun endlessly. And, very often, as people are entering their 30s, they understand that life won't yield to them as it's been pitched to high-achievers who got into elite colleges and started white-collar careers.

As she starts getting back on her feet now, I think she can recalibrate her expectations again. Of course any ltr involves compromise and can't hide from the banality of the daily grind. But does it have to be sexless, or sexually unrewarding? Can't she raise her sights again, to having some small measure of success, maybe this time on her own terms? It sounded to me as if she was settling because her hopes had taken a knock with whatever it was that forced her back to her hometown.

@34. Bi. Yes, of course I'm speaking in more general terms. I think that there are times when many of us in life have 'storms' in the head, period of inability and incapacitation, and that we have to hide under the duvet, metaphorically speaking, until these blow over. Whatever the trigger for these is, it deserves being treated tenderly and with respect. WAH does not need to offer always-on or even sometimes-on sex to keep her partner. No one is under any obligation to serve up sex in which they cannot take pleasure. She should try, if she can, not to compound her problems by finding it difficult to take his 'yes' or 'yes, OK, I understand' as an answer.

Generally I tend to see sympathy as sympathy for an in-group, and would think those who profess sympathy usually quite sharply limited in whom they're sympathetic to.

@36. Fubar. What would be in the spirit of Dan's column and life-work, to my mind, would be an add-on that blocked the avatar and identity of the poster. The column's original idea (when it was no longer a pisstake) was that someone from a sexual minority (gay men are <4-5% of adult males) had something to tell all of us (and any of us). Partly this was on the basis of informed understanding and sympathy, but partly, too, on an outsider's x-ray-eye perspective. The sense I have now is that readers and commenters group themselves more into siloes, with e.g. cishet women resonating with the comments and life-experience of other cishet women; the practitioners of particular kinks tuning in for other kinksters, etc. This is the antithesis to me of what the discussion should be. It would be positively a good thing, that is, for someone to engage with a post written by someone they think they have nothing in common with, or think they dislike, and find that they're in accordance over basic principles.

If there were upvotes/downvotes, I don't think these should be anonymised. The positive value of seeing who has upvoted you, as in the 'Disqus' system, is that this person can become an interlocutor with whom you develop a relationship. There is an evident downside to being beasted (heavily downvoted) or even ignored. Group dynamics of inclusion and excluding can play themselves out especially viciously (people have recently complained of the comments page feeling incestuous). Further, I would think--and my own experience is--that anyone who is of a minority e.g. a sexual or gender-identity minority whose comments don't get play, or feedback, or a degree of interlocution can sometimes draw the worst possible conclusion and think, 'it's because I'm X; people are not listening to me because I'm e.g. a straight man (a minority on here), non-binary, on the spectrum, kinky in such-and-such a way, etc...'. In fact, I think the way we conduct the conversation in the comments should work to mitigate people's tendencies to doubt and label themselves by inviting, or being consciously hospitable to, everyone's perspective on everyone and everything.

45

Fantastic @41, sure, and I get that, and in the spirit of let's not bicker this week, I'll just leave it there.

On the point of, "well, some people just find it hard to talk about sex," sure, most of us do. But as I've often said, this is an advice column, and advice is about what people should do, not what they do do. What do people do? Find it awkward to talk about sex, so they avoid talk about sex. And where does that get them? To a relationship like the INTIMATEs'. And is that good? No, otherwise no letter to Dan would be necessary. Yes, some things are hard. But if we (general we) want our lives to improve, sometimes we have to do the hard thing. We have to bring up the awkward topic. The more often we do, the less awkward it becomes. Advice cannot be, "Well, some people just find it too awkward to talk about." It must be, "Have a conversation, and if that person refuses to have the conversation and you can't accept the status quo, walk away."

46

I’m seeing some commonalities between Nocute @23 and Harriet @28. Both posit the obduracy of certain sexual dysfunctions -- for Nocute the loss of desire for a partner and for Harriet the inability to talk about sex. My strong suspicion is that they are right. Things so elemental and deep rooted just don’t change.

And yet, the two specific problems they mention are also different. @28, Harriet is describing a characteristic of personality – an almost innate resistance to open communication about sex, whether rooted in shame, upbringing, trauma, etc. That does in fact seem elemental and irreducible.

While @23, Nocute is describing a process, the loss of desire, which past a certain point is irreversible. If this is a process, then I guess at some point along that line “rose petals and therapy” can work, but not after a certain point? And how do we gauge that point? Do we always know when that point has been reached?

47

M?? Harriet - Your assimilationist fantasy for the section almost makes 1984 look downright Randian by comparison. I couldn't see it working. It would likely swing even greater emphasis onto those with recognizable styles (much the way Grand Slam events favour the superstars). Also, before you were among the assembled company, I was briefly Impersonated. It was almost flattering at first, but then people began getting careless and taking the impostor's posts as my genuine ones.
xxx
Mrs Fox - Don't underestimate the power of inertia. It's easy enough to start doing - any of us who have dated or befriended someone more out who let us catch up at our own pace may likely almost reflexively accommodate someone less out, at least on the first incident, and sometimes that's very small. It can snowball almost imperceptibly. And eventually one becomes LW3 if one isn't careful.

48

@33: Okay. I know I went off a bit on my response to patriciav @10. But from my own personal experience, I can relate to what she went through. I strongly feel that ANY closeted gay man or closeted lesbian deliberately baiting a member of the opposite sex into a marital relationship just to pose as a "good little heterosexual with a spouse and family" is beyond inexcusably cruel.
Enough said.

49

venn @ 47
Was I already here when the venn wannabe showed up? And did you ever find who's the cheap imitation?

51

Griz @48: I knew two men during my university days, in the mid-west US, late 1970s, clearly gay - by virtue of them regularly visiting the local gay bar cum fortress - who had married women and had children with them. One was my advisor, the other taught my art 101 course (a so-called "bird elective" but inspiring).

I remember thinking how fucked up it was that that was their fate, and imagined that they'd gotten there by desperately trying not to get murdered.

Of course, that was the mid-west in the 1970s. It's apparently changed only a smidge there, since then (they elected Mike Pence as governor not so long ago), but the rest of the world has advanced somewhat, regressed recently, and is now set to advance some more (fingers crossed, please Jebus, please).

--
N.B. There's the word cum again, used properly.

52

@52 fubar: WOW. I have obviously dodged a major bullet by comparison to the married women you describe! How sad that they ended up getting trapped into loveless marriages and bore children with those men.
The guy I knew in college came from a large extended family and a very conservative Catholic upbringing. For two decades he kept fantasizing futilely on what he had to know clearly WASN'T going to happen (our getting married, having oodles of unvaccinated children, attending Mass loyally, my cutting my hair short into a nice, neat, practical Dorothy Hamill wedge, getting rid of my beloved Volkswagen and musical instruments, teaching Sunday School and singing with the Sweet Adelines, possibly moving in with his doting mother in the Cascade foothills when money got too tight, fighting "like cats and dogs" over every dime, etc., etc.--and supposedly all because his Father Fritz, the 13th Century Fransiscan monks, and his fellow choir members all said so ).
He and I had very little in common other than a shared interest in music. He was a vocalist; I am more of wind / keyboard musician, although I can sing fairly well in pitch. He was deeply into poetry and liturgical music----while I enjoy some Boroque, and classical genres, I also like pop, classic rock and more. I had dreams and aspirations for composing and performing, seeking a higher education (I have a BA in Music). He was shielded from his family the last 15 years of his life in Seattle singing in a men's chorus. After my divorce, he became convinced that see----SEE???--i had "wanted [him] all along"!
He and I never slept together, never shared living space, and he never even proposed to me. I never had any physical attraction to him, only friendship, and that was strictly platonic. I can count on one hand the number of times I ever kissed him, and that was politely on the cheek whenever he asked. How he ever reached the the bizarre conclusion that I was obligated to marrying him just to live a lie continues to boggle my mind to this day.
I only found out about my male college acquaintance's desperate motives once he'd reached age 40, and died suddenly a few months later of heart failure--largely from alcohol abuse, obesity, and a poor diet. It was not until seven years later just before my father had joined my mother in Heaven that I had learned from my Dad just what my college acquaintance had been up to.
Some crazy span of twenty years, along with my one enlistment in the U.S. military and an abusive marriage thrown into the mix to boot, huh?

53

@52: And shit like that is why I am happily asexual, remain single by choice, my primary passions are music, Volkswagens, and cats----and why I keep a good supply of red, red wine.

55

@54 Dadddy: To each one's own. Cheers! :)

57

Venn @47, also don't forget the power of wishful (dickful?) thinking. And projection. And love finding a way. FIANCE may have presumed in the beginning that his partner was not out "yet," but that perhaps he had previously lacked the impetus, such as a serious relationship. Surely he'd come out when "this is my boyfriend" became an imperative phrase at family gatherings. And by the time this wasn't happening, FIANCE was invested. And certain that with patience, his fiancé would start behaving in the way he wanted him to. FIANCE and INTIMATE are not so different. They both overlooked early red flags in the belief that their partners would change (for the better). One thing I've learned is that this rarely happens, that you have to accept someone as they are, but it took me until my 30s to see this.

Griz @48, I had a good friend this happened to as well, in the 90s. She fell hard for this guy, who had a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship with her in all areas but the sex. A few years in, and I don't quite know how it came out (so to speak), she discovered his best friend was actually his boyfriend and that she'd been a beard to give him respectability in the Republican circles they ran in. This story had a happy ending, though -- a few years later, I attended her wedding, and the "ex" and his partner were also there as, finally, an openly gay couple. Mazel tov all round.

Fubar @51, I'm sure you're right about these two men, but I also wanted to note that in some of these cases the people involved may be bi, first hiding in one closet and then the other. Either is easier, particularly for men, than being openly bisexual.

Griz @52, yikes! What a fantasist. Thinking he would be doing you both a favour by proposing essentially a business partnership. Indeed, you're better off single.

58

Correction to my story @57, it may have been less than a year that my friend was played by a closet case. Regardless, she had fallen in love and it was a really shitty situation for her.

59

@47 venn
"I was briefly Impersonated. It was almost flattering..."

'...the sincerest form of flattery.'

61

Endless @60, with respect, your reaction -- being "terrified" of HIV when all you need to do is wear a condom, I doubt many women would object, and the ones who do, run -- coupled with your characterisation of Dan, who's also a GenXer, as "seething through his teeth" and your defensiveness, suggest that you may benefit from talking with a pro about this?

63

looks in mirror Nothing odd there. Just someone who is also a GenXer, received those same messages about AIDS being a death sentence, responded by adopting a policy to always use condoms until a committed relationship and an STI test, and loses no sleep whatsoever over the possibility of HIV. I suppose if you haven't listened to the concern of people you know, you certainly won't listen to an impartial stranger on the internet. I wish you well and hope you do somehow come to terms with this, for your sake.

64

Also, you are perfectly within your rights to not have sex with someone who has HIV, condom or not. Just putting that out there.

65

Skr Curious - I say "almost" because the execution was shoddy, though I don't think it became clear whether that was inadvertent or because the imposture was intended as farcical.
xxx
Mx Wanna - I don't think you were here yet either. The impostor created an account with basically the same name reversing whether the M or the N was doubled.
xxx
Ms Fan - That's part of it as well; I was mainly looking at the closet-specific aspects and telling Mrs Fox that it rarely starts out as something big, along with the generally accepted principle of letting someone come out at his own pace. Something with which it might begin would be perhaps running into a co-worker, and A quickly tells B, "I'm not out at the office yet," before an introduction.

Comparing Ls 2 and 3, there are probably a good many more people like BF2 who consider a sexual situation that's unsatisfactory for one's partner to be a price of admission that partner will get used to paying than there are closeted people who genuinely want to remain closeted on a permanent basis. If this had been the podcast, one would want to hear Mr Savage's getting LW3 on the line to clarify such things as how F3 expected to time marrying and coming out, and how F3 even wanted to get engaged. In couples I've known in which one of the two stayed firmly or just significantly deeper in the closet, my earlier image of who was dictating play held fairly accurately in that how out or not out they were was basically A's milieu and B grew to defer to A's schedule. LW3 may get F3 to come out only to find that one or both of them can't cope with the big change in dynamic between them.

67

@61 BDF
"you may benefit from talking with a pro about this"
@62 Ork
" It's trauma in the literal sense and no amount of science will undo those years of terror."

I admit I really haven't been following the context, but it sounds like BDF's suggestion of therapy was an appropriate one. Good luck and take care Ork; trauma is a very difficult thing to address.

@65 venn
"Skr Curious"

I am touched by the thoughtful kindness of providing a welcome prefix due to my history of whining.

"I say "almost" because the execution was shoddy, though I don't think it became clear whether that was inadvertent or because the imposture was intended as farcical. "

I would love to have seen someone try to pull of the phenomenon of being vennominon. Some things cannot be faked, and one must accept no substitute to the real thing.

68

@60 Endless, Sincere apologies for my ridiculous assumption. Of course no one is immune from HIV and I shouldn't have assumed your orientation. I will be more mindful going forward.

As an elderly millennial (old enough to remember landlines and pagers, getting frightfully excited to have an answering machine, remembering a pre-internet world when cell phones were the size of a shoebox and only for rich businessmen, but still probably a whippersnapper compared to most commenters here), I remember the HIV=death sentence days. As well as the whole host of ridiculous lack of understanding around the virus and how it's transmitted (don't swim in a pool with a person whose poz, you'll get the AIDS). I wonder about the perspective of folks a decade younger than myself and if we've moved forward at all in regards to lessening the stigma around it.

@Griz, how you manage to be such a positive and buoyant personality given all your awful experiences is awe-inspiring. I'm glad you escaped your abusive marriage and avoided getting sucked into another miserable one. Your posts, SL numbers game, and undaunting optimism always give me a smile.

69

Oh, look. #69!

70

@69: Enjoy!

72

I've been thinking about FIANCE's problem. If his boyfriend never, ever discusses his personal life---ANY aspect of it--at work, I guess the lw could continue the charade of pretending to be the "friend" or "roommate," but the closeted dude could never mention his getting married. If he goes away on vacation, sharing stories when he returns will be difficult. Explaining why he can't come in to work when his "roommate" is in the hospital will be difficult. Is his work environment rabidly homophobic? Would he lose his job if his gayness was known?

And even if the fiancé wants to remain closeted to the rest of his family, excluding mom, I don't see how that will work once they marry. It means no one but mom could be invited to a wedding or hear about the fact of it. It means that the lw won't be able to attend any and all important family events--the kinds to which friends or roommates aren't typically invited, like weddings, funerals, anniversary parties, birthday parties, holiday celebrations, etc.

And it's utterly mysterious why the fiancé won't come out to the rest of his family since his mother already knows and it seems his family isn't so homophobic as to exclude the out gay uncle*.

FIANCE says that the fiancé "won't budge," but has the bf ever said why? Something weird is going on. But my concerns are less about why the fiancé insists on remaining closeted and more about the psychological wellbeing of the lw.

He says that being forced to play the role of "friend" or "roommate" "kills" him, and he makes it clear that his bf knows this. This has been going on for 6 years, and I cannot imagine living like this in 2021, when the family seems accepting.

So if this is a "price of admission" thing, it's a pretty steep price. It means being closeted to some people and not others. If I were the closeted guy, that would put me in a constant state of anxiety. It also means that they have to live a fairly truncated life. What if they're out at a fancy restaurant celebrating an anniversary, when they run into one of Mr. FIANCE's co-workers or his sister? Maybe the bf's family lives far enough away where running into them isn't likely, but once Covid is over, there is always the possibility of running into a co-worker.

I think it's time to have a "come to Jesus" talk.

*It's my guess that if mom knows and the family includes the gay uncle and his partner, many of them may have already guessed the true nature of the relationship. People tend not to bring their roommates to a cousin's baby's first birthday.

73

Griz @ 52-53 - What a story! Glad you dodged that bullet, and yes, it's a good reason why one should wish to remain single - as I also do. Weed, dark chocolate and alternative rock from the 60s onwards are what keeps me going (remember, when the Beatles came out, they were the alternative to the by then extremely lame Elvis and his even lamer British counterpart, Cliff Richard).

BDF @ 57 - "This story had a happy ending, though"

If they still run in Republican circles, allow me to doubt that the ending was really that happy.

Endless @ 62 - You do you, of course, but here are my 2 cents: the best relationship I ever had (honestly, the only good one I ever had) was with an HIV+ man, in the 90s, when it was still a death sentence. The only thing I regret about it is that he died about a year before effective medication came out.

Condoms work. Don't let trauma of whatever kind make you miss out on what could be the best experience of your life.

74

@58 BiDanFan: And all so he could get his mother, siblings, and clergymen off his back because he wasn't married with children and expecting grandchildren at age 40. Just imagine someone---ANYONE---like that, so desperate to keep his gayness a secret from his family and religious leaders he'd be willing to selfishly make a woman's life miserable.
I wonder---if I were to write a screenplay about what I endured and composed an accompanying orchestral score---what do you think?

@68 fantastic mrs. fox: Many thanks! I am a Gulf War veteran on VA disability with service-connected PTSD and anxiety disorder, and have an irregular heart rate. My beloved VW, music, cats, dark chocolate, movies, red wine, and all the good people in my life like Dan, you, and everyone commenting here in SL all help serve as my best sources of therapy. And the Lucky Numbers game adds fun and spice, I think, to the SL comment threads. Dan the Man himself has jumped in and won a couple of times.Thank you, Dan, everyone, and bless you all. :)

@69 WA-HOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Congratulations, fubar, on scoring this week's luscious Lucky @69 honors! Savor the highly envied glory and bask in its golden aura. :)

@73 Ricardo: That ugly episode back in 2003 truly was among my most bizarre of traumatic experiences--right up there with my toxic marriage. After my closeted gay acquaintance's memorial service shortly after he died from natural causes, my Dad privately informed me of what had been plotted behind my back. I had nightmares for weeks that my closeted acquaintance was still alive, giggling wildly (cue Norman Bates), fantasizing (?!!?!) and with the aid of his four brothers came for me in the middle of the night in a rusty old pickup truck, complete with a gun rack, four cocked and loaded 12 gauge rifles, rope, zip ties, cloth for gagging, and a growling hound dog to ensure that I couldn't escape.

Agreed about dark chocolate, music, cats, along with the automotive company of my beloved Love Beetle--and indeed, the Beatles! I also love Pink Floyd. :)

75

@57 & @58 BiDanFan: Wow--can I relate to your friend's situation. I am inclined to agree with Ricardo @73: all three of my bad relationships: 1) a one-night stand in my early 20s, set up by a male high school classmate, 2) the toxic marriage I had been trapped into during my U.S. Navy enlistment and nine following years too long, by a fellow service member at my command trying to pawn him off on me, and 3) my closeted gay college acquaintance who harbored Hector Berlioz-like fixations (re Irish actress,Harriet Smithson back in the 1830s) were with Republican men from highly conservative religious backgrounds. None of which had happy endings, though. I'm glad it worked out for your friend. :)

76

@75: I stand corrected. I am no longer in any of those bad relationships. So I actually DID have three happy endings. :)

77

Nocute @68, seconding your shout out to Griz for her boundless optimism and ongoing contribution to keeping the SL comments section a fun and positive place. Thank you, Griz!

And congrats on the lucky number, Fubar!

Nocute @72, good point that this is probably not as much of a secret as Mr FIANCE thinks it is. Indeed, there's no justification for being closeted with his family. FIANCE has a line to draw in the sand.

Ricardo @73, I have to admit I didn't keep in touch with him, and I haven't spoken to her since the 2016 primary season. Being a (pro choice, pro gay rights) Republican in the 90s was one thing; being a Republican nowadays is significantly different. I will third your endorsement of weed, dark chocolate and 60s rock, among other life affirming music genres.

79

Endless_Ork are you Sportlandia?

80

Jumping off from Harriet's @28 noting that some people are really bad at communicating about sex: a lot of people are sometimes bad at communicating in general, especially when the stakes are high. I will take INTIMATE's assessment at face value and say the most likely scenario by far is that the BF can't/won't work on the problem. That said, given the number of times I've seen this happen in loaded conversations, I'm going to raise an alternative possibility that might give her one last shot at fixing the problem and salvaging the relationship.

INTIMATE, are you absolutely sure that your boyfriend actually understands what a big deal this is for you, that it's a deal-breaker? In my experience, people have a tendency to avoid clearly and directly stating their needs, desires, and conflicts in situations where the stakes are high, instead talking around the problems in order to secure agreement and concillation in that particular conversation rather than risking a blowup/breakup. The end result is that both people come away thinking they're on the same page and that the problem has been discussed and is onits way to being resolved when in fact they have very different understandings of the situation and were only hearing/projecting what they wanted to hear. If the problem is so severe that it might cause a breakup, one needs to be able to have a conversation to address it that might also result in a breakup, and it's possible that INTIMATE has been having these conversations in ways that refuse to call the question exactly because she's afraid of that response. In fact, people being bad at these kinds of conversations is why couples' counseling exists - the primary role of the counselor is to facilitate communication by making sure each party is saying what ze means and hearing what the other is saying - and it may be a good option for these conversations.

So, IF AND ONLY IF you have not already done this - I'm not doubting you, specifically, INTIMATE, rather I'm noting a common pattern among humans - you need to have a direct, explicit, specific conversation about the problem and its solutions. Make sure you explicitly say that if he doesn't show some sustained progress in addressing your needs, the relationship is over; this is an ultimatum, and it should sound like one. Make sure you are specific about what those needs are: you always initiating sex and doing all the work, him not working to get you off (in ways other than PIV, either before or after he comes, since it sounds like PIV in the manner/duration of which he's capable don't do it for you), and his refusal to cuddle are good notes that can inform behavioral change; "emotionally unavailable" isn't, as I have no idea from this letter what that means in any actionable sense, especially because you say you have fun together (joy is an emotion, and it sounds like he shares that, so there are some contexts in which he shares emotions) and have discussed big life plans (which presumably involves talking about how you feel about those big plans). One useful technique to make sure communication is clear is for the other person to repeat back what ze heard the other person say.

If this sounds like the conversations you've already had, then I'm sorry - the problem does seem to be that your boyfriend can't/won't change (or even try), and you should split up. But given that he DOESN'T sound like an uncaring jerk from your description of the working parts of the relationship, if you have perhaps been avoiding having a conversation that's clear enough that he might disagree or pick the undesireable option of your ultimatum, you should try to have the scary, direct conversation you need to have in order to possibly fix the problem and save the relationship (or determine that it can't be saved and split up). Best wishes, whatever the outcome.

81

@80, hear hear. All too often Dan gets letters that essentially boil down to "how do I issue an ultimatum to my partner without it sounding like an ultimatum?" You don't - you have to unequivocally, unambiguously issue that ultimatum if the situation has indeed reached deal-breaker territory. Most humans don't want to hurt other people's feelings (especially when we love and care about that person), sometimes to the point of making themselves miserable. But a well-issued ultimatum is sometimes the only way to really get the other person to Hear us. I think both INTIMATE and FIANCE are very much at a point of stating clearly, bluntly that the situation needs to change or they can't continue with the relationship. Especially since both these LWs are standing at the precipice of considering marriage. These deal-breaker conversations are only going to get harder, the stakes higher, after vows are exchanged.

82

Endless_Ork @78: Just a quick PSA about the myth you mentioned. People contract STIs by absorbing bacteria through mucous membranes during intercourse (or whatever-course). Peeing after sex cannot reverse that.

83

I shan't go full Mr Horstman, but I'm glad someone other than Mr Savage comes down on that side of the L2 assessment. I could go either way, but thinking worse of BF2 would only result in a proportional lowering of my opinion of LW2.
xxx
Skr Curious - The distinct among us are easy enough to imitate; it's being able to do it well that's the sticking point. Maybe some slow week we should have a contest.
xxx
Ms Lava - As the tennis begins, a huge salute to British qualifier Francesca Jones, who apparently has a total of eight fingers and seven toes.

84

@12 that seems a very pessimistic take. Perhaps some pour soul with a metric fuck-ton of shit might need to make peace with this shadow-life but not her.

Oh and do not get a dog to get over heartbreak or seem more attractive. Get a dog because you want a dog.

86

@77: Thanks for the compliment, BiDanFan, but it was actually a new commenter, fantastic_mrs_fox @68 who was so positive.

Speaking of (and to) fantastic_mrs_fox: welcome! I really like your thoughtful perspective.

And bravo to Jonn Hortsman @80, who's absolutely correct about how hard many people feel it is to communicate well, especially about sex, and how INTIMATE and FIANCE should really make sure that their partners know just how unhappy with the status quo they are and why.

87

Fubar @82, that misconception may have been a confusion with the fact that peeing after sex can help women avoid UTIs.

Nocute @86, apologies to Fantastic_Mrs_Fox. I am enjoying this newbie's comments as well. Welcome to the madhouse!

88

@46. Ensign. Yes, you do well to build bridges--Nocute and I are talking about similar things. On the question of whether a couple can recover their mojo, as considered by Nocute here and elsewhere, I actually think something very similar to her: sometimes the answer is a flat 'no'. And this is in the 'hard' cases where neither partner has done anything wrong; both are responsible, sensitive individuals; they've divvied up the housework and financially providing for the relationship and/or family in a fair way; they've never stopped listening to each other, they still get on well. Of course the 'easy' cases are where one person is acting unreasonably--maybe often impulsively or in an unchecked manner--grating on their partner, building up resentment and turning them off sex. And there's a big moral imperative in these sorts of cases to say to the person grousing about lack of sex, e.g., 'well, maybe it's not about sex, it's about you not doing the washing-up, or not taking part in any long-term plan for your family'. But outwith these instances where there's a potential non-sexual remedy, maybe there is such a thing as a Seven-Year Itch--and the responsible thing relationship counselors should do is not (just) to tell people how to head it off or defeat it, but to normalise the assumption and suggest ways of coming to an accommodation.

As I see it, there's very little acceptance in culture at large that the 'sexual partnership' stage esp. of a monogamous relationship will last seven years. We don't as a norm imagine that couples will still go on living together companionately while pursuing sex outside the nested pair. A wingnut (someone evidently to me a wingnut) like Mike Pence, not talking in private to any woman but his wife, gets to be Vice-President--and I'm not sure an avowedly poly person would. This may be illustrates how far people have to go before being ethically rational about their sex-lives--or how far out on a limb Savagistas are.

@47. Venn. The reason it wouldn't work is that readers would have a reasonable expectation of opening up a converaation with a known individual. Maybe people could only see the poster's identity once they'd 'liked' or 'disliked'.

@45. Bi. Saying 'some people find it hard to talk about sex' was commentary, not advice. The implicit advice was at the end--make the test of sexual compatibility whether you can talk about sex, not whether the NRE-fueled sex is good. And if you can't, weigh that up seriously when entertaining thoughts of a long-term future.

89

@83 venn
"The distinct among us are easy enough to imitate; it's being able to do it well that's the sticking point."

True.

"Maybe some slow week we should have a contest."

I've just amused myself for a while imagining shooting for humor with an over-the-top venn imitation. (It just doesn't sound like that much fun to do an exact copy of most people.)

I'd enjoy such a game! (/This/ seems like a slow week to me. Hell with just one column per week, most do.)

I think venn would the the very most fun character here to imitate. (Though I can think of a close second.)

I cringe thinking of my own imitation, I know I do all manner of irritating things to mock.

The forum 'contest' concept for some reason takes my mind off on this tangent: Once, debating public policy online with a rabidly bellicose rightwinger, I suggested we switch roles and argue the other person's side. With this particular individual, I was convinced he was doing a much poorer job arguing his side than I could have, and that he couldn't mentally engage with the opposing argument well enough to employ it; his foundation was just about being consumed with negative emotions.

90

Who's hungry for this week's Big Hunsky? Tick...tick...tick...

91

It's a slow week but in the interest of remaining bicker-free I'm not sure about a game where we imitate each other. Too much potential for laughing at rather than laughing with, I think. Cute idea though! It might work if we had, say, a dummy SLLOTD and answered it in the style of each other?

92

@92 BDF
"Too much potential for laughing at rather than laughing with"

Good point. It could end up being one more battlefield instead of fun; particularly if done not as someone we love, but as someone we hate.

"a dummy SLLOTD"

Dear Dan,
I've been in lockdown for 345 days, but I've never been better!

My boyfriend is my lockdown roommate. He's a wonderful person, except he eats his fingernail clippings (I don't mind him eating his toenail clippings, I do that too if he misplaces any). Eight mailmen have gone missing on our street; but I know it's a coincidence that my roommate padlocked his closet in April and since then his room has an unholy stench.

Those are all the price of admission I think. I plan to surprise my boyfriend with a surprise birthday dinner. Fortunately I have a large oven: can you please suggest a great recipe for cooking his pet dog?

Considerate Human Eating Fido

93

As a guest expert, Dan brings in a Korean master chef.

94

(I am having a go here at Dan's lack of fondness for canines, and tendency to answer the question which is asked.)

95

@Griz, NoCute, and Bi - thanks for the acknowledgement and well wishes! It's been a fun, peaceful week to jump into the fray. Some notable regulars are conspicuously absent this week... but I'm wary or accidentally conjuring them if I mention them by name.

Another thought: how often do folks avoid ending a relationship that isn't working for one or both parties, simply to avoid looking like the "bad guy" in the situation? I say this as a societal standpoint - I don't think there are actual good/bad folks in these situations, but it seems endemic that people seek Dan's "permission" to end a relationship absent of really heinous abuse or other bald-faced relationship deal-breakers.

Also also, could a tech-savvy at-risk youth talk me through the process of creating an avatar??

96

@95 fantastic
One notable regular worthy of wariness isn't gone, just appearing in a long line of new usernames as the old ones get banned (like the way new Agent Smiths pop up in the Matrix as previous ones are defeated).

Re: avatar creation, if you post a URL in a comment of an image I'll be quite happy to crop it optimally (including per your wishes), then post a URL you can use to use it in your account. This is a standing offer than the oldtimers have seen my offer many times. I've even been known to google image search to find images, but if you're up to that all the better!

97

Mrs. Fox @95: I'm not sure how at-risk he is, but the ever-youthful curious2 has a knack for avatars. If you were to suggest some parameters (a fox, perhaps?) I suspect he might be coaxed into coming up with something.

The theme I've seen, reading SL over the years, is people slamming the "eject" button, as the illustrious Mr. Savage puts it; behaving in such a way as to force the other party to do the dumping.

Also, people seem to seek permission to end relationships that feature heinous abuse or other bald-faced relationship deal-breakers. One often scratches one's head.

While I'm at it: welcome to the melee. I've enjoyed reading your posts. I'm not sure who the notable regular trouble-makers might be, as I have them all blocked, but yeah, no, for sure (as we say in Canada) don't conjure them up.

98

@34: He could be not just friend material, but companionate material.

Or, maybe he can rise to the occasion and become more?

99

Along a similar line of thought as that of Ms Fan, I was thinking along the line of the target's serving as judge.

100

HUNSKY!
Mrs Fox @95, a common theme in letters (and real life situations) where one doesn't want to be, or look like, the bad guy is that the partner will, at least in the short term, suffer badly for being dumped. This is amplified if the partner is dependent in some way, such as having mental health issues or being unemployed. "I can't dump them, how will they take care of themself?" a kind person asks themself. They may figure the other person's misery will be greater if they break up than theirs will if they stay together. I fell into this trap once, dating someone with depression. Fortunately the relationship only lasted about six weeks, but that was five weeks too many -- all we did was argue, he was constantly and unapologetically late, rude to my housemate, condescending to me -- but he had depression so how could I dump him and make it worse? He needed support, not to be dumped like a MF. My breakup was hastened when he stood me up and left me stranded, after I finally decided not to give him several reminders, and left me a vague voice mail saying "uhhhh, did we have plans?" DTMF. So I can see how this mindset is easy to fall into, and if the person isn't a MF, just incompatible, the nurturing/sympathy instinct could override the one for self-interest.

Music @98, yes, but most people don't want a "companion," do they? They want a partner in all aspects. If they have a closed, companionate relationship, that shuts down the possibility of the relationship they do want. If they have a friend, even a close friend, that leaves it open that they could also find a short- or long-term romantic partner.
Sounds to me like hoping Mr INTIMATE rises to the occasion is a waste of INTIMATE's young life.

Venn @99, that would be a good way to temper any nastiness. Perhaps we could start with the people who are well liked around here, like Nocute, yourself or Griz?

101

84- Harrison-- I didn't think my advice in 12 was pessimistic. Maybe we're focusing on different aspects of what I said.

When I suggested that INTIMATE ask herself the chances of finding a man who will be better for her than what she's currently got, I was thinking the obvious answer is that the chances are great. Maybe I should have spelled that out. There are plenty of men out there who adore sex, cuddling, intimacy, and who would be into her. When I suggested that INTIMATE pour herself into being the best version of herself, I consider that good advice for anyone including those who are happily coupled. If the confidence and outside interests help her meet and attract someone, great. If they don't, also great. That's not to say she should ignore dedicated dating, but don't do so in a way that makes you look desperate.

I agree that wanting a dog is the best reason to get a dog. I'm also of the belief that dogs improve everything in life which means that everyone should want a dog-- except those who are truly unable to take care of one, but that goes without saying.

102

@99 venn
"target's serving as judge"

A good idea!
But perhaps it could still go awry if contestants sought to please themselves instead of the judge.

@100 BDF
Congrats on the hunksy!

"we could start with the people who are well liked around here, like Nocute, yourself or Griz?"

Another good idea! (Or should I say:)
WA-HOOOOOOOOOOO! WA-HOOOOOOOOOOO! WA-HOOOOOOOOOOO!

103

WAH- "He's been extremely patient, and says that we can work through it, but I'm really worried that this is the death knell for our relationship. I'm really trying to figure out ways to get myself back in good working order ... Help?"
Are you worried that he's going to dump you, do you think he's faking or insincere about his apparent patience and devotion? Or are you worried that he's bad for you if your life has become worse since you've been together? Or that your lack of desire means that you've fallen out of love with him?
1) yes people can be mean and fake, but it's rude and usually self defeating to assume the worst with no evidence.
2) what do you think you could have done differently if single? Why can't you do those things with him? If you are working yourself to death trying to support his standards and expectations, can you work together to create more comfortable plans that suit you both?
3) Do you respect and appreciate him and care about his happiness, and think that he's one of the best people to share your life? Then you are still in love and all you can do is try your best to make a good life with him until your sexuality recovers enough to start working with others again. Your sex life should get better once you can work on it.. in the meantime you can try to appreciate that he has a strong libido that is not crushed by the pandemic and you'll have the opportunity for sex with him when you recover your desire, and try to make masturbation better for him (by cuddling, making out, sharing your fantasies, or at least simply showing your gratitude that one of you can still initiate sexually). If you are deeply annoyed by his sexuality, sexual needs or sexual happiness, maybe you are not in love with him anymore and it is time to move on.

INTIMATE- "What can I expect from a man who is emotionally and physically unavailable?"
You can expect nothing from someone who offers nothing. But he does seem to be offering commitments, and sex, just not the kind you want. You can ask for what you want, but not force him to do what you want.
"he has put in little effort"
That's different from no effort, but it's unclear what exactly you want that he's not doing. It seems to be that you primarily want more sexually; more sexual initiation, more time on the bottom, more cunnilingus, and you want him to be able to wait longer before coming.. Has he promised to be on top more, or eat you out more, or cuddle a few times a week, and is not following through? (talk about how it would work if you broke up while living together, then give him a time limit, like a week, that you expect him to follow through on some of his promises, and break up if he can't cuddle or meet more of your sexual needs by then) Or has he said he's unwilling and you are having trouble saying "sorry, I need it so we are not a good match"? (a counselor may have great ideas about how to break up with someone respectfully) Or have you not asked specifically for what you want and are upset that he can't read your mind? (ask specifically for make out sessions, or head, or cuddles, or for him to top, or to keep kissing or fondling after his orgasm)

FIANCE- "Is it even worth continuing this relationship?"
I think you mean, will he ever stop asking you to pretend to be his bf or roommate.. Unfortunately, it sounds like you've told him that pretending makes you deeply unhappy and either he came out to a few more people or ignored your unhappiness. If he doesn't care about your happiness, it would be healthy to break up with him. If he is under the impression that coming out to his mom and some friends was enough for you, then correct his impression. Perhaps you expected that he would stop pretending when you got married, if so, tell him that you expected to stop pretending once you took vows, and ask if that's something he's willing to do. If he's not ready, maybe you need to let him find someone who also wants to be closeted or have time to become ready to come out completely, while you try to find someone who wants to be committed and out with you, too.

It's true that you can't expect someone to do everything you want just because they love you. But you should expect someone to care about your happiness and show that by putting some effort into your happiness and following through with their promises, if they are reasonably sane and love you.

UPFRONTAL- kindness and respect matter much more to the health and happiness of relationships than healthy or capable bodies. If you are searching for someone who will stay devoted through good times and bad, through sickness and health, then it's good that you weed out the guys who can't handle the sad or bad parts of life. I just hope that you don't take it personally when others aren't capable of much kindness or good sense. If you are kind and respectful and reasonable, then you have a good chance of keeping that sort of mate should you find them.

104

WRT to the suggestion that we try to imitate each other's distinctive "voices" here via answers to fake letters, I have to say that although I appreciate the creativity in coming up with something to do to help keep the Covid boredom at bay, I think it's a bad idea.

Just last week (or the week before--I forget), there were accusations of this comments section being too cliquish, too much a closed club for "regulars," where newer would-be commentors felt intimidated, due to in-jokes, old beefs, side conversations, and other games that have been created to foster a sense of fun. I think that this pastime would reinforce the sense that there are official commentors and interlopers.

I also speak from the perspective of someone who was fooled by the vennominon impersonator (the last thing I do is to count the number of "n"s in someone's name). I recall that I thought he didn't sound exactly like himself, but it hadn't occurred to me that someone would be imitating him. I'm not sure what the mimic's intention was, but I believe Mr. Ven was a bit offended that I hadn't been able to tell at a glance that this writer wasn't the genuine article, and I felt embarrassed at having fallen for a cheat.

I see far too many, much less benign possible consequences of this game, all the more likely as people's tempers appear to be high and we are all sort of treading on eggshells following last week's explosive comment section. Suggesting that a bunch of people who are only tentatively maintaining a peaceful coexistence (and that for only one week, so far) be encouraged to mimic each other sounds dicey to me.

105

@104 nocute
I agree with nocute inasmuch as she repeats previous concerns.

I don't agree from the cliquishness angle. As many people might aspire to participate more going forward to become immitation-worthy in the future, as might be /newly/ put off by it (that aren't already). Once a thread has wound down and become quiet as venn suggested, I don't see anything wrong with taking one opportunity to amuse ourselves in front of a lurking audience. If it was really gonna bother them enough for me to care that they care, one would have already de-lurked.

Incidentally, I can't imagine any way I could ever imitate nocute, because I think her clarity of writing is beyond me.

A couple weeks ago I wrote here the most horrendous sentence of my life. It had two parenthetical asides, /and/ two interjections set off by a pair of "--". think it would make me laugh but pain everyone else to see me lampooned.

106

Nocute @104, I agree completely with your analysis. It would be nice to think of ways to make this a more fun place, since we all have precious little fun in our lives these days. But I don't think "pretend to be me in the comments" is the right way to go about it.

Brainstorming further: There are other advice columns out there, if we get bored (and we're all bored) we could repost some sex-related questions from those, and discuss them here? Make your own SLLOTD? Curious, I think your dummy question didn't get many answers because it was so obviously a joke all the way through.
The front page has links to other advice columns. I know Carolyn Hax is behind a paywall. The first link to Ask Amy was this:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/ask-amy/ct-aud-ask-amy-0209-20210209-buj6f55v2rhdhjp4fkgm23mgmu-story.html
TL;DR: How can I come to terms with my son's being poly? A question for Dan fans if I ever heard one.

107

@96 Curious, thank you for your kind offer! Here's a URL with an image I like, second pic down of Maid Marian looking all coy. Let me know if there's anything else you need. And thanks again!
https://id.fanpop.com/clubs/walt-disney-characters/articles/106568/title/encyclopedia-walt-disneys-animated-characters-maid-marian

108

Agreed with other that any attempts at mimicking the tone/writing styles of others are fraught at best. That being said, I also hope no one is feeling they have to overly bite their tongue or walk on eggshells to avoid hurting anyone's feelings this week. That's great that no one's trying to be pugnacious, but we don't need to treat one another with kid gloves either, I hope.

@97 Fubar, I think you're picking up what I'm laying down. Yeah no, indeed.

@106, Bi - I like your idea of tossing in questions from other advice columns once we've chewed the SL letter to bits. I saw one recently that boils down to "husband and I (cis het woman LW) have agreed to an open marriage; husband would like to see sex workers; I don't like the way it sounds that he wants to see sex workers, how do I get over this?" And I so badly wished LW had written Dan. Personally it struck me as an ideal way to open a previously closed relationship. My husband and I have discussed off and on the possibility of opening our relationship, and our main quibble would be the whole "don't catch feelings" aspect, so seeing a sex worker seems an ideal starting point.

Side note: I have learned * so damn much * from this column and from all you good folks who make up the regular commentariat about alternative relationships. One of many insights I've gleaned is "oh right, thirds and special guest stars are humans with feelings and it's completely unreasonable/unrealistic to expect people to not 'catch feelings' or to want to act as another couple's plaything." I know, it's so obvious, but it has been eye-opening to hear it straight from the horse's mouth, as it were. And so we have happily filed such talk into the "fun pillow talk" category and not something that needs to be realized in real life. Because sometimes (often) fantasy > reality.

109

@106 BDF
Interesting suggestion about other columns.
A few times my newsfeed has presented me with other similar columns, and usually the answers in Dan's wheelhouse are so horrible that I never look at them again. It would be a great service to have them answered less terribly let alone well. (I think the only one I've seen that didn't appall me was Stoya's column in Slate.)

@107 fantastic
https://i.imgur.com/Ds2WQsP.jpg

Fantastic choice; I thought you might be going for the character in the wonderful Wes Anderson film, but this one is much sexier.

110

@107 fantastic
p.s. obviously, what I did was try to optimize the impact in the tiny avatar display box.

111

@109, I love it! And wow, that was fast! Now how do I attach it as an avatar?


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