I dated my ex for six years. Loved her more than anyone else but she was BPD-broken and I started to break, too, so I left. Put myself back together and got on the apps. I’ve been on them a year now; it’s fun. But no one even comes close to her. My question is if I’ll get to feel that twice. I’m 27.
DT: You’ll feel it again for the next BPD chick you meet.
I feel this way about Angela, who I let go. She moved to Europe and had a rich exciting life dating tall men with huge cocks and buckets of gold. Women I meet on Hinge are dull contemptible cretins compared to her. We should set up a free My Dog Comes First T shirt giveaway and execute everyone who shows up, ridding the Earth of Hinge women. But if I dated her she’d kill me. Or I’d kill her. Or we’d murder suicide each other. Passion doesn’t end well.
There’s something about online dating that cockblocks real love coming from it. You audition the person. They audition you. There’s no being forced to be around someone at work and they grow on you. One night you’re alone with them and make out like high school.
So no, you don’t get to feel that twice. You get to feel that when you’re a 19 year old line cook. The first time you cum inside a waitress in a walk in fridge on a palette of iceberg lettuce. The sign by the sink says Employees Must Wash Hands but the next guy’s chicken wings tasted like half Filipino college pussy. You don’t get to feel that on Hinge, Instagram. It’s just how much uglier is she than her picture and what’s her problem that she’s even on here. With the likes of me.
It's over. For you, me, everybody. We’ll never feel anything again. At some point you get too sensible for love. It used to be that was when you got married but now there’s nothing. We’re the walking dead.
Let go of it. You can feel regret but the past isn’t coming back. Maybe something new will come in its place. Probably not. For now it’s fun to fuck Mexicans.
Katherine: The simple answer is that it’s possible.
The more complicated answer is that it depends, and it depends on a lot of different variables. It depends on where you live. It depends on what you look like and how you carry yourself, and contingent on that, who you’ll be able to meet. It depends on if you allow yourself the space to heal and if you know how to grieve that loss. It depends on whether grief becomes a comfortable space for you.
But if what you’re really asking is if people–if you–are capable of falling love multiple times throughout their lives (your life)? Yes.
Even if your ex made you the victim of intermittent conditioning (the most effective way to make someone fall in love with you) or was just unique for a host of inarticulable reasons.
It’s cliche, but I think for a good reason: every love is different. And if you are lucky enough to meet someone new, your next love won’t be the same, but it will be “as good.”
I haven’t experienced many break-ups in my life, but every single one has felt like the end of the world. No one can ever replace your ex, but you’ll be able to create something new with someone new, and soon enough, your ex will become a memory. Maybe even a fond one.
I’ll add this, too. You didn’t ask, but I feel compelled to weigh in on DT’s point about the flattening effect of online dating. He’s right, but it’s not the whole story. People are connecting less, sure, but that doesn’t mean we’re less capable of connecting.
There are just a lot of bad habits you need to try and resist. Treating online dating like some kind of sex buffet; forgetting that you don’t really know the person you’re meeting up with and the first two, three, four dates are going to be at least a little bit awkward; being too exacting on the one hand or too relaxed on the other.
It’s not easy, but you have to try and strike a balance between giving your date and yourself the space to develop intimacy and not settling for someone you’ll end up resenting later. Love grows, but you also know pretty early if that love is capable of growing. ‘Boring’ can shape-shift over time; a tendency to gossip typically only gets worse.
The other side of this coin is that there are a lot of women on the apps who turn into spreadsheet people. Lots of self-limiting behavior from women, it’s more than just being boring or crass. Treating dates like job offers. It’s fucked up. I think these women are broken. I think they’re not very self aware. I think they’re often the cause of their own unhappiness. But if you live in a big, coastal city, you can’t avoid them. You can help snap them back to reality, though. I think they want a man to snap them back to reality. I think they want to be able to tell their friends they deleted the spreadsheet or the powerpoint or whatever.
If one of these women have potential, take the lead. I can’t stress this enough: love, connection and intimacy all develop. If you own that, it’ll put you ahead of the curve.
I love so many things about my boyfriend (personality, attitude, the advice he gives, lifestyle), but I’m not that into sex which frustrates him. I honestly just like cohabitating and sharing ideas, but when it comes to sex, I’m more closed off and like to have my own space. I’m not sure whether this is telling me something or if it’s normal after being in a relationship with someone for two years. What do you think?
DT: I’m shocked he gives a shit after two years. I never got guys who were upset that some woman they’ve fucked 800 times won’t fuck them anymore. Pussy is like The Witcher 3, not Tetris. Incredible the first time. Not much replay value.
I half want to tell you just lie back and take it as a favor. But that’s something guys say that we mostly can’t do ourselves. So it’s horseshit.
Anyway the answer is: it’s normal. It’s 100% normal and is the relationship state of most people on Earth. Guys who can cheat do, guys that can’t will try to guilt you into proffering a hole. There’s no solution.
But I also think, with no information, that women date prosperous tech guys who are pussies. Who they’re not attracted to. The women have contempt for these guys and eat them alive. You might be one of them. If that’s the case then… the answer is the same. There’s no solution.
But also take a look at your psych meds, your birth control, and consider flushing them. You may be taking chemicals designed to castrate you. That would explain it. I got a new chair and could barely jerk off until the flame retardants gassed out.
Katherine: Barring serious incompatibilities, the Great Sex Slow Down starts to set in when the initial novelty of the relationship wears off.
You’ve heard this before—when people talk about the honeymoon period ending, this is what they mean. The way he brushes his teeth starts to bother you; suddenly, you can’t laugh off him farting in bed anymore; sex isn’t as thrilling partially because it isn’t as new.
For some people, this can happen as quickly as after the first time you have sex (sounds like DT’s in that boat). For other people, it can take as long as a couple of years. Either way, it happens, and it’s not necessarily a sign that your relationship is in poor health.
People get bored. There’s probably some psychological reason behind this that’s divorced from the environment we live in, our environment also contributes to it. I have this sneaky suspicion it’s a muscle that most people need to rebuild, just like the ability to pay attention to books.
Now, getting bored doesn’t mean you don’t love your boyfriend. It also doesn’t mean that your sex life is never going to bounce back or that there’s something seriously wrong with your relationship. It just means that you’re bored. But how do you tell the difference between boredom and something deeper?
Something about your letter that stands out to me is that you say you’re “more closed off and like to have your own space,” in relation to sex, which makes me think that even subconsciously, you see sex being more than just a chore.
Think about the phrase you chose—when else do people need “personal space”? And under what circumstances?
I don’t know if you’re using ‘sex’ as a shorthand for all intimacy, but I would interrogate those feelings a little more. Does all sex (or intimacy) make you feel uncomfortable? Are you no longer attracted to him, period, or is it just something you’re not super into right now? Does the reaction go deeper than that?
Sometimes shutting off emotionally and physically is our body’s way of telling us that we think something is wrong, but we don’t have the words to articulate it yet.
I think your first step to solving this problem should be figuring out whether you’re bored, or there’s something more here. Boredom typically can be fixed but I wouldn’t ignore deeper compatibilities.
And sadly, you can love someone—you can even be IN LOVE with someone—and not want to have sex with them or be in a relationship.
Hinge; she swipes. She’s 25 I’m 27. We talk for a week, have chemistry. Museum/dinner date goes well; keep it tasteful no wetwork yet. Talk another week. Grab dinner and drinks. Go back to hers, charm her roommate, charm her dog. Charm her; eat her pussy until she cums and does the thing where she wriggles away because it’s too sensitive. Stay over. Leave early.
Get left on read for four days. It’s over. Have no idea what happened but sensed immediately after going down on her that I had scared her off.
Never encountered this. Don’t know what direction to take w the post-mortem. Whiplash
DT: This is gonna start with a misogynist argument and circle back to a feminist argument.
Women aren't people. Pussy is a substance. There's an old PUA adage. When a guy's asking for advice about one woman, he's already fucked.
Some better guy came around. Her ex came back. She thought better of it. There was a good TV show on. You’re fucked. There’s nothing you can do. This ends up being feminist advice: leave her alone. But it’s also good for you. Women aren’t people. Pussy is a substance.
Pussy's like money. One dollar bill's no better than another. Ask not how do I get this dollar bill back. Ask how to get more money. The way to get pussy is get other pussy. Money begets money. Pussy begets pussy.
When a woman rejects you: leave her alone. If you can do this you're ahead of 90% of men.
If you can leave her alone for two weeks, and she texts you one night-- because the ex left again, the Netflix show fell off or she just needs the attention-- if you can leave her alone then, knowing that any rejection is forever—you're pussy Buddha. You ascend only when you truly don’t give a shit. For me it took male menopause.
Also women seem to treat “museum guy” and “fuck guy” like different species. Museum to fuck is an abrupt gear change when they pigeonhole you. I like museums. I like to fuck. But I’ve not been able to merge these two activities in women’s minds. They want to use me for one or the other.
I guess next time fuck on the first date. And don’t date women with dogs.
Katherine: An orgasm doesn’t always mean there was romantic chemistry. This might be unexpected, but it’s true.
It’s true of men and women, but we usually hear about it from the male side.
“He said I gave him the best head in the world and we have fun together and then I never heard from him again.”
A bunch of things could have happened in that hypothetical, but we can hold that there’s a possible universe where he wasn’t just saying either of those things and he didn’t want to date her. Maybe this hypothetical women will hear from this hypothetical man again in 6 months when he’s bored, horny, and feels like the rules of engagement (she’s sex material, not girlfriend material) have been well-established. Maybe she won’t. Anyway, this scenario goes both ways. Women do it too.
An orgasm doesn’t preclude a lack of sexual chemistry, either: it could be that you did something weird during the act that she’s too shy to mention, and it turned her off.
There’s also this: women experience post nut clarity and post nut guilt too.
You think you like someone, you masturbate or you sleep with them, you realize that you liked the version of them you invented more than you actually like them. Or sometimes you still like them, but you feel guilty because you have some sexual hang-up. (And that sexual hang-up can be anything from past sexual trauma to a boyfriend you’re cheating on.)
Occasionally, women will experience one or the other, forget that they did, and then continue to pursue the guy because they’ve gaslight themselves into thinking they enjoyed an experience that they didn’t, or they pair-bonded, or they’re generically desperate, or the guy has something else to offer them like money or status or both.
So what happened here?
That’s anybody’s guess. Could even be that she’s trying to condition you to be in her queue of back-up guys while she tries to date somebody she sees as higher status. Or that someone higher status just came along and it has nothing to do with any of this crap. Not exactly ethical, but not exactly unheard of either.
But one woman’s bad or confusing behavior aside, it should go without saying that women are people and pussy isn’t a substance and life isn’t a video game where you need to collect infinite quantities of each until you can’t get it up anymore. What kind of life is that?
Anyway, I digress.
I say, leave her alone. Don’t pursue it.
She might still come back. And if she does, don’t let her milk you for attention, don’t let her use you as supporting infrastructure for her self-esteem, don’t give her another chance. Maybe she has a good reason, but she probably doesn’t.
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"DT" is gross.
My least favorite advice. 27 is still wobbly and wet. LW has more than enough time to fall in love with a non-psycho who doesn't erode their self-esteem (having your self-esteem eroded is often mistaken for sexiness). The left-me-at-27 who broke my heart, at 41, is an afterthought. "Who really was that person? Who was I??" is the only thing that comes up when I reminisce.