Comments

1
I don't have anything to add to Dan's good advice, but just want to remind all the young folks that so long as you are safe and careful, you are unlikely to regret enjoying yourself in your 20s as much as you can. I've met plenty of 40 and 50 year olds who wonder what life would have been like if they'd made different choices, but I've never heard anyone say "gee I wish I'd had less sex when I was 23". Not that this helps the LW's immediate situation, but it might be a good thing to keep in the back of the mind when figuring out how to deal with both the breakup and the friendship.
2
A romantic entanglement that lasted a week sent LW into an emotional tailspin for months?

WTF, LW?! If you’re not in therapy, get there. It takes me longer to land an interview. That’s the span of a rental at Scarecrow Video. This is not healthy. The problem isn’t your best friend, who might be assuming you’re over the quick relationship that happened eons ago...which you’re clearly not. Figure out your shit while being happy for your best friend. And ask for their support if you need it.
3
Locked out of a Tinder, what did this girl do.
LW, it can be hard to confront a gf when they are being insensitive, which is what she is being to you. Bragging about her own love life, which does sound hot, except for the tinder part, is her not noticing you are not getting off on her fun fun fun sex stories. Back off a bit, don't contact her so much. Or say your piece straight up.
4
@1 - I’m turning 50 and I think a LOT about how life would be different if I had made different choices at various younger stages of my life. And one is that I wish I had MORE sex (and more adventurous sex) in my 20s. So yeah, I agree. Be safe and have fun!

@2 - I just chalked that up to youth and inexperience. First time and all. Hopefully the melodrama will cool out over time.
5
@2: It’s almost like depression isn’t as rational as people who comment on internet sites would have you believe!
6
I think the friend is being a bit rude - she is apparently not embarrassed by her embarrassment of riches. I think this is unrelated to how little sex/relationship FAG is having - although I'm a bit curious/concerned as to why they included the bit about their one-week lover whom for whatever reason, had to cut off all contact with after being dumped after years(?) of friendship? But whatever.

Option 1, use your words, cop to being a little bit jealous, say you enjoy the stories and are happy for your friend but Everything in Moderation.

Option 2, Become straight.
7
Really Sportlandia, you know it isn't something one chooses. And to that point your comment was great.
8
Concur with @6 that breaking off contact with a close friend because of a week-long hookup gone bad is a mistake. Power through the awkwardness.
8
FAG, although you’re tempted to believe that knowing your friend has a squad of sex partners is making you feel badly, the reality is if you’re not having sex, hearing about the hot, kinky sex life of a monogamous couple would be a hard, as it’s an in-your-face reminder that you’ve not been successful finding a sex partner. And finding one or more sex partners is the issue on which you should be focused.

FAG, in your letter, you identify as a non-binary queer, which doesn’t give much of a clue about whom you might be interested in fucking. I wonder if you spell out your interests in your online profiles. If not, that may be a stumbling block to your online dating success. You also mentioned that your friend’s stories are exciting, which leads me to believe that D/s might be something you’re open to exploring. If so, perhaps your friend should put you in touch with one of her many dominant partners. You could meet for coffee and see if you feel any chemistry for something sexual, and you’ll know that your friend has already vetted them. That would certainly be an easy way to move into a faster lane sexually.
9
LW-
Even a week long experience can be mentally taxing for a newbie, nothing wrong with that. I also suspect your verbally exhibitionist friend isn’t having that much fun after all, and probably also created a series of dramas along the way hence the expulsion from tinder.

EL @1, Kevin @4
Serial late bloomer here. I also wish I had more sex and a more varied one while in my 20’s, but that also comes with a passion to try new things in an older age and the mental ability to handle them.

Sportlandia @ 6
Your “Option 2” is another statement of yours that gets myself, and possibly others, to consider it as offensive and wonder why you wrote it in the first place.
10
The friend is being a braggart around their relatively inexperienced friend either because they're massively insecure or they're simply an asshole. Hopefully Dan's advise can help LW can find themselves a better class of pal too.
11
I think that some people who acquired a non-curable STI in their 20s after having a lot of sex partners have regrets if they find that they are now infertile or have to take medication the rest of their life.

I'm not slut-shaming anyone, but I think it's silly to tell people in their 20s that they're likely to regret not having had enough sex. That's not my regret, even though I had only had 4 sexual intercourse partners up to my 40s.

I regret things I did which hurt people a lot more than I regret not getting a ton of sexual experience (beyond how to give a blow job to a young man, which has to be the simplest thing in the world).

12
@5 LW never says that they’re depressed. If they do have depression, they should seek therapy. If they don’t have depression,they may still need to seek therapy. I’m not saying this to insult them, I’m saying this because I seriously believe LW needs therapy.

Hell, maybe something emotionally extreme or abusive happened in that relationship causing the cut off of contact. Also requires therapy.

Maybe it was something embarassing or relevatory about the status of their non-binary-ness. That may also require therapy.

There’s something that clearly changed since the one-week relationship that LW isn’t dealing with and may be transferring that negative energy onto their bff’s oversharing. They used to enjoy the funny or hot sex stories and now they’re a downer. Something is clearly wrong. Therapy may be the best way to help them deal with that.
13
@9 Well, what do you think?
14
To correct a spelling error and to have a little fun with the language, please change,

"and lots of those same-sex couples met via sleazy hookup apps, not holesome dating apps"

to

"and lots of those same-sex couples met via holesome hookup apps, not wholesome dating apps"
15
Sportlandia @ 13
“Well, what do you think?”
Like I said, I’m not sure how much of your snarky comments are intended to offend others, or how much you don’t realize how offending they can be.
16
@7 and @9. I might be completely off base, but I read that option 2 ironically, like if a guy was having trouble getting sex saying:

Option 2) be an attractive woman.

I read it as you should expect difficulty being part of a fringe sexual group and not compare yourself to a straight (or bi) woman in ability to get with the sexing. Otherwise you'll make yourself miserable.

Once again, might be way off. But then that is exactly what I would say to LW.
17
Ok, did anyone else notice there are two number eights, and they are not the same comment posted twice?
18
@16: “I read that option 2 ironically”

For satire to work it needs a clear target lest it perpetuate unironic shittiness.
19
@16. TheRob, thanks, being someone who tries to throw in ironic/ sarcastic comments which get taken at face value, I can see that now in Sportlandia's comment.
20
Misanthrope @2: You're really living up to your handle. The entanglement was with a "close friend" and resulted in a complete end to that friendship. And they got dumped right before their birthday, which is particularly harsh for someone who hasn't had many birthdays. And they'd never been in a relationship. And "a few months" isn't "eons." Either grow an empathy gland or learn to read, or preferably both.

Sporty @6: I for one took your Option 2 for the joke it obviously was. Because we all know straight people have no relationship problems ever, right? Ha-ha, self-deprecating humour.

Sublime @8: Good idea for Friend to play wingman/matchmaker for FAG.
21
Tachy @17: This seems to happen sometimes when two people are making a post simultaneously.
22
@20 ...Says the woman who calls men respecting each other’s emotional privacy “toxic masculinity.” I’m not sure you should be lecturing people about empathy glands...

I’m fairly certain I’m good with my own, thanks.
23
There’s weirdly a lot of people in here who are stigmatizing therapy for a person who clearly isn’t dealing with things in an appropriate manner. Therapy doesn’t mean LW is mentally ill. But there is a problem in how they’re dealing with life and LW just needs a bit of help.

Maybe they can’t afford therapy (young and non binary may mean little or no health insurance and small wages), but that is a different matter entirely.
24
"I’m a 23-year-old non-binary queer, I’ve never really been in a relationship and this is a source of some emotional baggage on my end. This feeling has been exacerbated by recent events: I got briefly romantically entangled a few months ago with a close friend. It only lasted a week, and I got dumped right before my birthday. I’m not writing for advice about that—I severed all ties with the friend in question and got right back on the dating/hookup wagon—but it ties into the question I do have...

My best friend is in an open relationship and actively dating/having kinky sex with people other than her boyfriend. She tells me about a lot of these people in great detail. In theory, and sometimes in practice, I love hearing about my friend’s wild exploits; it can be funny to live vicariously through her escapades. Lately, though, I find myself feeling a little weird listening to all of my friend’s stories. She has a healthy relationship that is hitting the four year mark quite soon, she has amazing sex with hot dominants on a regular basis, and she still spent fifteen minutes complaining to me a few weeks ago that she had gotten locked out of Tinder.

Given how much sex she’s having, it’s difficult to muster genuine enthusiasm when she tells me about yet another kinky sex partner she met online. I don’t want her to feel like she can’t tell me things, or that I’m resentful of her romantic and sexual success, but I also don’t feel like I’m the best audience lately for some of her tales of debauchery."


First of all, I don't know why FAG felt that they had to sever all ties with a "close friend" after a week-long relationship ended, but since FAG is the one who was dumped, it's possible that the friend did the dumping in an especially cruel way or said something that makes it difficult for FAG to still be their friend. I see no evidence that FAG is over-reacting to this breakup months later. I think TheMisanthrope is assuming a state of being that may not exist.

Secondly, I am not sure that FAG is depressed, though lots of people are, and I don't think it's that big a deal if they are. Being 23 and not having really been in a relationship, while not that unusual, is a perfectly legitimate cause for some emotional baggage if what FAG wants is to be part of a couple. And it sounds to me as though FAG can score random hook-up sex at least occasionally, but what they really want is an emotionally rich, longterm relationship--no shame in that.

What it does sound like to me, is that FAG's best friend is an inconsiderate braggart who behaves badly routinely. I've never used Tinder and don't know what you'd have to do to be locked out of it, but I agree with LavaGirl, that this was a significant and overlooked detail; it tells me that the friend has a hard time following social norms and obeying rules of etiquette--one of which is that you don't rub your good friend's nose in the inequality between your experiences. If you know that your "best friend" would like to be in a relationship and you're having your cake and eating it, too, it isn't difficult to take a minute to stop and realize that boasting about how much crazy hot sex you're having while you celebrate a healthy romantic relationship and then complaining when you are temporarily slowed down in your pursuit of having as much random sex as you can possibly have could be unkind and hurtful to your friend.

So my advice would simply be to dump the best friend already. Or tell her to knock it the fuck off and be more considerate. As far as I can tell, FAG is doing fine. It's totally normal for them to be resentful. As Joe Jackson put it: happy loving couples can be a drag.

25
Mis @22: Gonna pull a Capricornius here and state for the record that I'm not a woman.

OK then, guess there's no link whatsoever between the pressure men face to bottle up their emotions and the far higher rate of suicide among men compared to women. Nope, "emotional privacy" must be a really healthy way for men to deal with their problems. The patriarchy sure knows what it's doing. (I'm guessing that you don't understand what "toxic masculinity" means? Hint: it doesn't mean "men are bad.")
26
A lot of people here seem to think the friend is rude, but I dunno, maybe she's just young and stupid and doesn't realize how much it bothers the OP, especially if the OP previously enjoyed hearing about her exploits. She might also simply think the OP is over the break-up and not realize how much OP is struggling, especially since OP is on the dating bandwagon again.

Since the OP is 23, I'm guessing the friend is around that age too. I had a friend from my teens to late 20s who was sort of like OP's friend. In all the time I knew her, I don't think she ever went longer than a week without a boyfriend, since there was always someone hovering around, waiting to swoop in when one of her relationships ended. She also idolized the women on Sex and the City and tried to emulate them all the time, which often entailed talking about her sex life openly, often, and in a lot of detail. Frankly, her talking about these things and insisting that I dress up and go out with her didn't bother me very much. I mostly found it amusing to indulge her whims and listen to her to find out what a lifestyle I was totally uninterested in was like.

I agree with Dan on this one, OP needs to use their words and ask the friend to dial it back a little. My friend was a super-sweet girl who would bend over backward to help someone, but she wasn't omniscient. If I asked her to stop talking about something, she did. Her talking about her sex life wasn't to "rub my nose in it," it was just what she liked talking about, and unless you said so, it simply wouldn't occur to her that maybe other people don't want to hear it. Yes, perhaps the friend could be a bit more considerate of OP's current relationship status, but that's where being young and stupid comes in - it takes a while for us humans to develop empathy and be less me-centric and think about other people more. I know I certainly said a lot of stupid and thoughtless things like that at that age.

As for getting locked out of Tinder, I don't see why it's necessarily her "bad behavior," it could be something as simple as she forgot the password. OP said she got "locked out," not "temporarily banned." That sounds like "I got a new phone, but since my old phone auto-logged me in, I never needed to remember the password, and now I can't log in, WORST DAY EVER." Complaining about little annoyances in life as if they're the worst thing ever is kind of what humans do, it doesn't mean she was maliciously throwing her crazy hot sex life in OP's face. She probably doesn't even realize that that's how OP sees it.
27
Jina@26: Good point about being locked out of Tinder possibly not being suspended from Tinder.

I don't think the friend is a horrible person; just inconsiderate. I think FAG should say, "hey, you know I'm really having a hard time hearing about all your romantic/hookup-ish successes right now. I'm happy for you, but I'm also struggling with envy and am asking you to dial back giving me all the joyful details for a while."
28
Jina@26, your idea does sound more likely. Which reminds me, I've forgotten my passwords to a few sites.
Being from a earlier era, I don't remember sharing many sexual stories with my gfs. Emotional stories about men, yes, not details of bed behaviour. Perhaps the gf is not having such a rich times sexually if she needs to share it so much, have someone witness it. And given the LW is a late bloomer sexually, she's the perfect one to share with and know on some level that she's stirred by it. Isn't it enough to have the experience.
29
Jina @26: My first thought was also that she was locked out of Tinder due to some glitch like a forgotten password. (I can't remember my password to Fetlife. If I don't log in from my PC, I can't get in!)
30
Re: Tinder lockout. If you "Like" too many people on Tinder in a 24-hour period of time, Tinder blocks you from liking more people for 12 hours. I understood FAG to be explaining that her friend is liking so many people on Tinder that she's forced off the app for 12 hours on a regular basis. FAG is therefore irritated because not only does she have a boyfriend, not only does she have several dominants with whom she's sexually active, but her friend is swiping right at such a pace in search of more partners that Tinder is putting her on a 12-hour time out regularly.

Again, FAG's friend is very sexually active, but its her life, her body, and her free time to spend as she pleases. Hopefully, she's tested regularly, uses condoms, and demands the same of her many partners.

As for FAG, if you want more sex you have to go out and get it and/or put yourself in situations where someone will ask you.
31
@15 it's an easy question: "What do you think I meant". Not this meta answer. Literally, read my comment, analyze it, and then decide what you think I intended.
32
Both the LW and her friend are extremely insecure and need to grow up. I know this from personal experience with my own bff, only in my case, I was the braggy, chatty bitch getting a ton of attention from men and also sometimes women tried to get into my panties too. Why did I brag so f-ing much when I was the skinny pretty one with the miniskirts and perky, natural, DD tits? Shouldn't that advantage be more than enough without me having to rub that shit in anyone's face? You would think so...but then again....my fluffy, BBW, bookish, introvert bff had a ton of shit I didn't and so I was jealous of her sometimes too. The grass is always greener and I had plenty of my own problems to sort out in therapy. It sucked that I had the bipolar crazy mom, dysfunctional home life and she had the goddamned Waltons and picture-perfect holidays. Do you think she was always "sensitive" about my shitty fucked up home life? No, of course not, b/c being from Pleasantville where everything is always 70 degrees, she couldn't even imagine the hell that I went through. So yea, sorry...sometimes I talked too much about the one area of my life where I always felt confident.

For the LW: Stop being a victim. You're probably insensitive to her in your own way as well. If you were more emotionally secure, you wouldn't care that she gets dates easier than you do. If you were happy with the life you have, then it would be fine that her dating life looks different than yours does. Quantity isn't the same as quality, and you don't even know if she actually is happier than you. So don't be some cat-lady-in-the-making, ok? Almost anything at all is better than letting yourself turn into a jealous bag of slop, b/c I know for sure that you have more to offer than that. Just get out there, live a little, make some new friends, go on some dates, and for fucks sake learn to navigate a conversation and speak up for yourself. It's a skill that can be learned- change the topic, excuse yourself to the bar or restroom, make a joke of it and laugh it off, or even just be direct and say that it's TMI. But if you are this big of a doormat with someone who presumably cares about you as a friend, how will you ever speak up for yourself anywhere else? Start fending for yourself now...as in immediately.
33
Sublime @30: Thanks for that bit of inside information on Tinder lockouts.

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