confused. lost.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-03-2006
confused. lost.
39
Sat, 06-03-2006 - 10:06pm

okay. i don't enjoy dating. not at all. i'd rather have it be casual hanging out as friends... things can build from there.

i ended up in a relationship with the most amazing person ever... so i thought. well, i still think he's the best thing ever, but anyway. i didn't want to get involved, but i ended up falling hard. we were making all these plans and things were going REALLY well. we never had an argument - no trouble whatsoever.

one day, he just ended it. "it's too hard," he told me. well, i was devastated. i actually think it was the first time i had been in love. no, i KNOW it was. i never let my guard down, and with him... it just came so easy. complete comfort from the moment we met. that's incredibly rare for me.

so after we broke up, i decided to have myself a little "coming out" weekend. my re-entry into society, so to speak. well, i planned on meeting this guy and his best friend (who's a girl) at a show last night. we went and met and things were going well! we ended up going back to his place - the three of us. we talked for a long time, then she had to go. i told him i'd leave if he liked, he asked me to stay. so we sat there talking for a while and he made his move.

we kissed for the longest time, and he decided he was ready to move forward. i resisted. he kept on and we eventually ended up in his bed - his pants down, me completely clothed. things happened, and at around 3 am, i went home. when i left, things were fine. he was being really sweet and kissy and nice and huggy and all that stuff.

then today - nothing. he won't talk to me. i im'ed him this morning to tell him hi and everything as i felt a little awkward. he told me he was fine... and that was it. no other response from him. so i thought maybe he was just busy. i im'ed him again later and got NO response at all. evidently, he doesn't want anything to do with me. and i don't understand why!

he was another sweet one! he's really shy and softspoken and nice and polite etc etc. and i've managed to bring out the jerk in him. just like what happened with my ex. i don't understand what i'm doing or what i need to do or what i'm not doing.

i know they say that guys respect you less if you do anything sexual, blah blah blah... i resisted the BIG thing, and i'm still in trouble for it. as much as he pushed me, i resisted having sex. HOW in the heck can this be possible? how can guys push so hard, and then turn around and treat a girl like she's useless?

we didn't have sex, but we did other things, right? okay. he seemed fine with that. i just don't understand. i don't understand him, i don't understand my ex... i think it must be something wrong with me. i don't know how to fix it or what to do.

i just moved to this city, too... so i don't have any friends here yet to discuss these things with. and now i don't feel like going out for fear of this kind of thing happening again (something similar actually happened with two other guys when i VERY FIRST moved here, but i knew they were jerks, so i sort of expected it and it didn't bother me so much). i just don't know what to do now. i don't know how to fix all this or how to fix myself. i'm lost.

anyone have any advice to offer up? shed some light on these situations for me?

so this guy ruined my coming out weekend. now i've locked myself in my apartment which is the antithesis of what i was SUPPOSED to be doing tonight. ugh.

Avatar for cl_shywon
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-20-2003
Tue, 06-06-2006 - 8:15am

As I said before, if a woman isn't comfortable with a man not contacting her after she has sex with him without knowing him much, then it's not a good idea for her to go through with it.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-02-2005
Tue, 06-06-2006 - 12:19pm

Shy,

After reading various comments about what I have written it's clear that you and others simply don't get what I am saying. It has nothing to do with judging people, feeling good about yourself or being comfortable with your decisions. It really doesn't.

I am giving people my opinion on how to avoid men who are only after sex. Nobody has yet come back with any reasonable, logical or even remotely persuasive counter-argument. The only thing that keeps coming up are the predictable "feel good" platitudes.

Whatever gets you through the day....I give up

Avatar for cl_shywon
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-20-2003
Tue, 06-06-2006 - 5:51pm

Hal I understand what you're saying, and in a way we're making the same point, just in different ways.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-17-2004
Tue, 06-06-2006 - 11:54pm

Hal,

Don't give up. I'm sure there a lot of lurkers and people who haven't neccessarily responded to this post who understand the point you are trying to make and for the sake of those people and new members, you should keep on posting.

I agree with you that if a man likes you that he will prolong the physical part of the relationship and that has been my experience where men have not made an attempt to kiss me on the first or second date, go beyond kissing on the third date and tried to get to know me as a person. Alternatively, a man who wants to sleep with me will usually talk about sex, make sexual inuendos or act inapproriately and those men won't even make it to the first date with me.

I have a lot of male friends and acquaintances who will openly say that if a woman sleeps with them on the first date, then they will look at that women in a different light and question how many many times this has happened before. They may have thought of her as relationship material but they are turned off when she sleeps with them too easily. I also think women need to be very clear about their intentions as well and make a decision to sleep with a man or not but don't "let things happen", give men mixed messages and leave men in a state of undress. That won't give you any brownie points either. At the same time, I am equally turned off by men who attempt to sleep with me very early in the dating process as I like my men selective and don't have a tendancy to date men who indulge in casual sex or one night stands.

Feisty

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-11-2003
Wed, 06-07-2006 - 12:36am

"I have a lot of male friends and acquaintances who will openly say that if a woman sleeps with them on the first date, then they will look at that women in a different light and question how many many times this has happened before. They may have thought of her as relationship material but they are turned off when she sleeps with them too easily."


Feisty, what you wrote above has been stated by hal9000 earlier in this conversation and it is SUCH a double-standard! So the same men who sleep with women on the first date and reject her as "not relationship material" are worth being pursued as "relationship material" themselves? I don't think so. Not at all. *Who cares* what these types of men think? I don't. I'm not interested in what men who have this type of sexist double-standard think.


I'm just curious as to why the two of you (feisty and hal) are not pointing out the double-standard in that way of thinking but instead using it to prove the point that women should not have sex with men on the first date. The kind of guys I'm interested in as "relationship material" are not going to hold a woman to a standard they don't hold themselves to, and are also not going to judge a woman based on one action but will be able to see her as a whole person.


iVillage Member
Registered: 06-02-2005
Wed, 06-07-2006 - 2:42am

>So the same men who sleep with women on the first
>date and reject her as "not relationship material"
>are worth being pursued as "relationship material"
>themselves?

Where did I write this? I try to make it as simple as possible and yet my advice is still being misunderstood and distorted....

Here is a brief summary:

- A man most likely to be relationship material will NOT push for sex on the 1st date.

- A man most likely to be relationship material will NOT push for sex on the 2nd date.

- A man most likely to be relationship material will NOT push for sex on the 3rd date.

- A man who is into you will NOT disappear after you have had sex.

>The kind of guys I'm interested in as "relationship material"
>are not going to hold a woman to a standard they don't hold
>themselves to, and are also not going to judge a woman based
>on one action but will be able to see her as a whole person.

How do you end up having sex on the 1st date with a man who does hold a standard? I'm curious. Do you strip naked in front of him and beg for sex?

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-17-2004
Wed, 06-07-2006 - 3:47am

Carriebgirl,

Slow down their sister ... you're a bit of a selective reader :-p Did you not read this part of my post: "At the same time, I am equally turned off by men who attempt to sleep with me very early in the dating process as I like my men selective and don't have a tendancy to date men who indulge in casual sex or one night stands."

Feisty

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-11-2003
Wed, 06-07-2006 - 2:24pm

Hey hal and feisty ... I did read the entire thread ... I was specifically referring to what you are both saying about your male friends who lose respect for a woman if she sleeps with them on the first date ... doesn't the same standard apply to those male friends of yours? Why aren't you saying something like, "and yes, I realize that's a double standard." That's all I was saying ... I wasn't refuting your entire point. I only meant, why aren't you pointing out the double standard of these friends of yours? Instead, you're using it as evidence to back up your point ... but actually it's making your point weaker because it's only underlining the fact that none of us want to be with men who hold such a double-standard anyway. I see your main point -- you're saying if you want a real relationship, not a one night stand, don't have sex right away. I get that, and in general I'm in

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-19-2003
Wed, 06-07-2006 - 2:52pm

Ok, I didn't have time to read this whole thread but I get the jist of the arguement.

But this is my question? What about the situations where you've dated for 3 or 4 months, first getting to know the guy and making sure he is caring, then have the sex and he then loses interest. This has happened to many of my friends and we can't figure out how to tell if a guy's interest in genuine or not. We first believed that if you waited you could definitely tell, but here once again, I have a friends who made her guy wait nearly 4 months, all while things were going great (we all thought they would be exclusive soon) and soon after, he's already responding very slowly to messages and seems as if he's losing interest already. He is pulling away.

Sometimes it seems like you can NEVER really tell if a guy really cares for you and it doesn't matter when sex entered the picture.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-17-2004
Wed, 06-07-2006 - 6:22pm

Cl214,

I sat here and read this in awe. I'm Australian and we don't have this stupid exclusivity thing that you all have. We only usually date people one person so it's much easier for us and I have to remember when I'm posting that I'm posting to people who live in a different culture to me. Australia is very open to influence by America and I hope this is not a direction that we choose to go in because I don't think it is very healthy.

HOWEVER reading your post below ... why your friend make a guy wait four months for sex, sleep with him and yet not have the talk about 'exclusivity'??? And then you claim that you can never tell whether a guy cares for you or not???

Sorry, this is beyond my comprehension. I'm in shock. Surely a guy cared for you, he would be wanting to make sure you are exclusive before he even broached the topic of sex and surely the woman instead of making him 'wait', would be broaching up the topic with him before she slept with him???

I just don't get it. I don't know why women on this board think that sex is a sign of caring or a bargaining tool for a man to make you exclusive. Exclusivity first, sex later. It makes me cringe to think of sleeping with a man who is possibly sleeping with other women.

Why do women on these boards sell themselves so short?




Edited 6/7/2006 6:33 pm ET by feisty01