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Comments
Honey, you are giving away the milk without making him buy the cow;
perhaps you would prefer Bessie?
Commie @3: You just called her a cow. And you talk about respecting women? Ahahahaha.
Speaking of second choices, why is this guy her first? She doesn't want to date him; she's not too keen of FWB situations; and this guy's just made a pretty heinous faux pas. She's 22, fun-loving and fresh meat. What's so special about this dude? I'm sure she has plenty more options. SC, respect yourself and go get a new lover. Someone who can remember your name.
Choose. Sorry kiddo, one excludes the other.
Also, you are really young, both in age & in how you are talking about all this. Just keep growing up and learning about yourself and others. And if FWB arrangements don't work for you (where you are unlikely to be loved/cherished or whatever)... cultural influences be damned... stop getting into them.
In any event, I get the sense that this woman isn’t cut out for causal sex. Isn’t everyone having sex with a friend who would rather be partnered having sex with their (at best) second choice.
There are guys out there who will remember your damn name. Go find one and let him stew in his crush.
But you want him to be into you. Just thought I should point that out.
> he made some passing excuse and kept going (we both were on substances)
...Ah. "substances." Of course. If those "substances" were any stronger than chocolate milk, I would be inclined to blame the "substances" before going all in on it being about him masturbating into you while dreaming of her. (Especially because you don't have a desire to date him and he doesn't either.) If this is going to bother you that much, maybe you had better only fuck him while sober from now on.
If the two of them are indeed "quite close," as you say, then of course her name is going to be closer to the top of his mind, because he's been using it a good long while longer than he's been using yours. Those burned-in neural pathways don't come cheap. As someone who has been called by the name of all three of my sisters in succession before getting to the right name (I'm male), and at least once by the name of the dog, by someone presumably very close to me with no excuse for not knowing my identity (my Dad), my take is that your fixation on the name thing is going to get you into a world of hurt if you let it. Especially when there are "substances" involved.
I think the more important thing is whether sex with him is enjoyable for you. Is he a good and generous lover? Is he concerned with your needs and pleasure as much as his own? If you're having a good time and are satisfied sexually, then continue. If the sex is not all that, then there are plenty of fish etc... Move on freely and enjoy your experience abroad fully. Oh, and use those substances judiciously.
The missing piece here is I don't hear that this guy apologized. I mean, c'mon. You'd feel mortified, abject apology required under any circumstances. He lacks basic manners and is making you feel bad, is the sex that good?
Thanks for the chuckle.
Annie: Listen, sweetheart, you shouldn't listen to what a woman says when she's in the throes of passion. They say the darndest things.
Nuke: Yeah, you said "Crash"!
Annie: Honey, would you rather I were making love to him using your name, or making love to you using his name?
Bull Durham, a movie every bit as quotable as The Princess Bride
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094812/
Slomo @27: An identical exchange happened in Drop Dead Fred! Guess this is pretty common, eh? ;)
No, but I did call a lover by a past girlfriend's name once (and apologized profusely). When you've been with someone for 3-4 years and use their name a couple million times, it gets to be kind of automatic. Girlfriend = "Julie" or whatever, and takes a while to consciously totally replace that pattern with a new name. Especially don't hold people to the standards of "civilised" society when they're fucked up on "substances" (in case you didn't know, they tend to do and say stupid shit). If she talked to him about it when he was sober and he didn't say, "Whoa, sorry!" then she's got a mildly irritating fuck buddy, but hey. I'm guessing his mind isn't the part of his body she's primarily interested in.
Crash Davis: "Well, I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days. "
@27. Dammit! I was planning to post the exact same thing
@34 That quote still makes me swoon EVERY. DAMN. TIME.
I think the letter is deserving of the long, thoughtful response Dan gave it. The LW is nearer the beginning than the end of, hopefully, a lifetime of happy, exploratory sex, whether with FWBs, with a partner 'in a relationship' or in multiple friendships/relationships who can tell. (She may start looking for a more substantial relationship when she gets back from her term abroad). The thing to say to her, for me, is 'YES, you absolutely can speak up to your lover in exactly the terms you used in your letter'; you CAN say, with the greatest explicitness you can muster (and are comfortable with), 'you know, in the height of sex, you called out X's name? It made me feel uncomfortable; it made me feel you didn't want me for myself'. Now, however casual the relation between them, this puts the onus on the guy to respond with kindness. Saying words like these is not immoderate; it doesn't reveal too much of herself, it doesn't show she's hung up on some prettier (or less pretty) frenemy. There's no need to get involved in how much of a biggie it was for some date to come out with the wrong name. Being able to say this is good relationship hygiene and good relationship self-love.
I think she should just tell her FWB how it is making her feel, while being understanding of his mistake. Communication is always the key in any relationship, doesn’t matter if it’s a FWB or longterm partner. I’m surprised she didn’t bring it up the second time it happened.
The fact that this has happened more than once and seems to be about a crush would make anyone feel unwanted, regardless if she wants to date him. I believe she just wants to know that he is having sex with her because he enjoys their sexual encounters — and isn’t imagining he is having them with someone else. Even if he is daydreaming about another woman, he should keep it to himself and work harder to respect the person that he IS having sex with.
As for all the weirdo comments above about needing to choose between serious love and random hookups, whatever folks. FWB and casual relationships that do not include serious love and personal commitment, etc, are not excuses to have no human connections and personal interests. It's like none of you ever had really fun personal yet not committed affairs which is sad- maybe go experience that. You sound bitter and judgmental.
Speaking of judgemental.
If promiscuity and cheapening sexual experiences to the same value as having a pizza is your thing, you're presumably a grown up. Your call.
But let those of us who are more human than ape aspire to sex as an expression of intimacy and love, m'kay?
And for this young woman clearly the latter is her preference, people like you evangelizing promiscuity to her notwithstanding.
Put more gently, and I apologize for rudeness:
For me and most of the people I know well enough to discuss it, sex without love would be like dancing without music. Sure, you can do it. But it would lose most of what makes it worthwhile. It sounds a lot like this young woman feels the same way.
I wouldn't tell you your approach to sex is wrong. Not my business and wrong and right here are contextual. But this kid deserves the same respect for her more traditional views from you and Mr. Savage as well as you do from anyone else.
When you leave your teens in a few years, and especially when you approach middle age in quite a few more, you'll realize that not everything your parents and grandparents did was wrong or stupid.
To paraphrase Twain- when I was 16 my old man was the dumbest person imaginable. By the time I was 25 it was amazing how much the old man had learned.
Centet, the LW specifically said she doesn't want to date the guy in question, whom she refers to as someone she “hooks up with.” So while your approach to sex is perfectly valid, I don’t see it as something she shares, or perhaps it is something she is just not interested in pursuing for now. Which is also fine. And you could make the argument that, given her reactions, maybe she actually would be more comfortable with your approach but just doesn’t know it because maybe she doesn’t know herself very well yet. But isn’t figuring all that stuff out what being young is for? Also, I doubt anyone on this board would seriously criticize you for your preferences. Being in love with your partner, and monogamous, is a wonderful way to go (provided no one is fooling themselves, or others, of course). It’s the shaming people for not sharing your values that isn’t cricket.
And your experience of sex without love is only your experience. I value my loving sexual relationship, but I've also thoroughly enjoyed anonymous fucking in the right circumstances as well as longer short-term casual affairs with interesting people.
I don't see where she said she has traditional views. I see where she said she was in a causal affair with a friend while backpacking, and she wants him to respect her as an individual. I don't understand while these two things are assumed to be in conflict- it has not been my experience with the world that I can't treat people as individuals despite the fact that I'm not in love with them and don't plan to develop relationships with them. If people have not tried this, I suggest they do. Treat most of your encounters- sexual or not- as encounters with individuals who deserve respect and who might just be interesting, regardless of whether or not you plan to ever see them again, and I think you'll find it makes the world a richer place.
I still haven't seen anyone here who claims to call partners by their dog's or sister's or mother's name during sex, so that argument is completely moot until someone writes in who has. It seems like there's even discernment in what wrong names are used not during sex - no one seems to be using the dog's name or their mother's name for their wife. Everyone writing in so far is proving the LW's point - you actually do have a lot of control over these mistakes.
If the sex is that good buy earplugs.
I think if I were the guy in this scenario, and my FWB approached me and said "what you've done makes me feel unwanted, as if you don't want me for me," my response (internal) would be "well, she has a right to feel that way, but this arrangement was never really supposed to be about me wanting her for her, and now I feel like there's pressure on me to want something which I don't — maybe I should end this."
Whereas, if the FWB said something like "hey, do you think you could get my name right during sex?" — then my response could be "oops, did I get your name wrong? that is so embarrassing, I'm sorry" and her response to that could be "yeah, haha, it was funny, but you know, you getting my name right would enhance the experience for me" — and then I would know to be careful about that, and I *would* be careful about it, because I'm not a total moron — but it wouldn't be about me fearing an emotionally tangled situation which wasn't what I had thought either one of us had signed up for.
FWB arrangements can be amazing and in my experience very loving — just like any friendship can be — but they are first and foremost friendships, and should be treated as such. "Hey, get my name right" is an appropriate thing to say to a friend. "I want you to want me, sexually, for me," is not. When a FWB is criticized for not acting like an LTR, that can lead to insecurity and resentment, in both parties, about what the arrangement actually is.
Bouncing @56: This, yes. He knows he got the name wrong -- "he made some passing excuse" -- so he's been made aware that her name is not Susan and I doubt he's likely to call her it again. I think the best approach would be to make a joke out of it. "Hey Steve, I mean Joe, I mean Fred, who the fuck are you again?" That's if she wants this arrangement to continue, and I can't see any compelling reason for her to do so.
I have missed more important messages during sex. And after. And before.
My question here is aside from him using the wrong name during sex just cause, why is anyone using names with hookups at all? Isn't that the one thing you save for marriage?
As for having no politeness standards for hookups, can't agree. You fuck up, you give a real apology. You do it twice, double.
LW- it sounds like you knew he was into you for your lookalike qualities from the beginning. Which means you were ok about it. So what's changed? I think it's a lack of manners problem, but I may be wrong.