I've been engaged to a man for seven years, but we haven't been able to afford to get married. I attend college part time while raising my daughter and working. He treats me well and works hard, but he's unmotivated and undereducated. He doesn't even have a high school diploma and can only get low-paying work with bad hours. Three months ago, he was fired from a nursing home for stealing drinks from the soda machine, and he hasn't looked for a job since. He said he couldn't when we had a rainy period; now he says it's too hot. When I suggested he get up early to beat the heat, he got angry. Our relationship has never been about money, but I'm not seeing much light at the end of the tunnel. Why do I stay? Because I love him, and I'm scared I wouldn't be able to make it on my own as a single mother.
--Trapped
A boyfriend who actually "works hard" would be working hard to stop sponging off you -- maybe getting his GED so he could get more than a dead-end, minimum-wage job. That's kinda tough to do when the answers to "Where'd you go to school and what did you study?" are "Meadowood Elementary" and "Babar the Elephant."
Still, school isn't everything. A woman I know, Tig Notaro, flunked eighth grade twice, got moved up to ninth grade and flunked that, too. When her classmates started to be kids she'd babysat for, she dropped out. Like your boyfriend, she could've resigned herself to employment in the paper hat/fry vat sector, but she worked briefly promoting bands, then gave her all to doing stand-up. She went on to have her own Comedy Central special, be a featured character ("Officer Tig") on "The Sarah Silverman Program," and tour internationally as a headlining comedian. She eventually got her GED, "just to get it," but found it most useful as cat food (she reports that her cat ate the left side of it the day she brought it home).
So, the problem isn't that school isn't your guy's thing, but that motivation isn't. You, on the other hand, are attending college and working and caring for two children -- the little girl you gave birth to and the grown man perfecting his napping skills on your couch. You say your relationship has never been about money. Actually, it's very much about money, on account of how little of it he's been bringing home. And then, when it's job-hunting time, he bleats, "It's too hot, it's too cold, it's too wet." Excuse me, but is he a man or Goldilocks?
It's nice to see the good in people. It's nicer for you if the good you see is actually there. Otherwise, you just delay admitting the obvious: There isn't much light at the end of the tunnel. Additionally, you're paying the rent on the tunnel. You say you fear being on your own as a single mother, but you're already on your own. Without your boyfriend, you'd be a single mother with one less mouth to feed. You can have a very different kind of guy in your life -- one who makes you better and happier because you're with him. If you suspect you aren't worthy, try something: Act like you're worthy. Like you deserve a man who brings something to the relationship (and not just a couple Mello Yellos he swiped from the soda machine at the old folks home).
Something a guy said the first time we had sex isn't sitting well with me. He said "Thank you." Those aren't the worst two words in the English language, but hearing them after sex made me feel bad. Sort of used. We made tentative plans for another date, but I'm wondering if I'll even hear from him again. What does it mean when a guy uses this sort of courteous closure after sex?
--Disturbed
After he thanked you, did he ask very politely how much a second hour would be? A lot of women get ticked at hearing "thank you" after sex, feeling they're being seen as service providers. That's because you thank somebody who does something FOR you, not when you've done something mutual together. The thing is, getting naked with somebody for the first time doesn't enhance anybody's ability to articulate thoughts. Maybe this guy was at a loss for words, and suddenly, it came back to him, his mother saying, "What do you say when the nice lady gives you a cookie?" Instead of sitting around dissecting the possibilities, do what you always should when you're hoping to see some date again: Forget about him until the phone rings and he's on the other end asking if you give discounts for repeat customers.
I had to talk a guy friend out of showing up on a first date with a rose and a book the woman had casually mentioned she liked. He's a genuinely nice guy and professionally quite successful, but he repeatedly turns women off by coming on too strong too soon with these gifts. Can you please explain to guys why they shouldn't do this?
--Woman Who's Been There
It's a really bad idea for a guy to give flowers to a girl he's just meeting, unless she's just won the Kentucky Derby. In that case, he could also slip her a carrot and slap her on the rump.
Unless a woman shows up for your first date wearing a saddle, limit your gifts to an on-time arrival and smelling like you've showered recently. Anything more comes off like a sales promotion: "Date your way to a free panini maker! Trip to Mazatlan after five completed sex acts!" Selling a woman on liking you before you see whether you like her suggests you have wildly low standards. Never mind who she is; you'll take any woman who's a woman and not in jail or too busy filing a restraining order against you to meet you for a drink.
Evolutionary psychologist Gad Saad, author of the terrific new book "The Consuming Instinct," has studied the timing of gift-giving in romantic relationships. He explained to me that courtship behaviors need to be modulated in their timing and frequency. "Telling a woman that she looks beautiful is nice. Repeating it 35 times during dinner is not. It creates an asymmetry in the power dynamics that renders the guy less attractive." Likewise, giving gifts too early in dating "reeks of desperation," Saad said. "Recall that many women are attracted to alpha males who can otherwise only be 'tamed' by the love of the one unique woman (the classic rendition of the male archetype in romance novels). If the guy is swooning all over the woman on the first date, there is nothing to tame."
There's that saying that gifts should be given from the heart, which always makes me flash on gift-wrapping Grandpa's stent. But, as a rule, you shouldn't give a present to a woman until you've worked up some affection for her and she seems to have some for you. Expensive gifts early on tend to make a woman who isn't a gold digger uncomfortable and tell a woman who is that you're a prime chump. Instead, give fun, inexpensive things that tell her you were listening when she said she loves monkeys and weren't just saying "Yeah, uh-huh" and running baseball stats in your head. By showing that you care about what's special to her, you're telling her that she's becoming special to you, sending the message "It had to be you," as opposed to "It could've been anyone, but you'll do."
Special thanks to lovelysoul, who asked this question in the comments on another question here, and kindly wrote it up for my column.
This guy I've gone out with only contacts me late at night via text (just looking to text, not for a booty call). I work early, and I'm always about to go to sleep when he texts, but because he so rarely contacts me, I always respond (and usually fall asleep while texting). I've told him repeatedly I'd like to talk during daylight hours and given him my work number. How do I get him to call during the day instead of playing Textmaster Flash until midnight?
--Eye Bags
There's a reason he won't contact you during daylight hours, and it isn't because he's a vampire and that's when he lies in his coffin watching Judge Judy on his iPad. You've actually been setting the time for your texting sessions. Nothing says "How dare you text me at 11 p.m.?!" like spending 20 minutes texting with a guy who just has. Think about what you're telling him: All he has to do is make a bell ring, and you'll roll over and start texting. (Are you looking to be somebody's girlfriend or Pavlov's dog?)
The fact that a guy "rarely" contacts you is all the more reason to avoid texting him back pronto. It's absence, not unlimited text messaging, that makes the heart grow fonder. If you want a guy to respect your boundaries, show him that you have them. When he texts you too late, wait till the next morning and send him a single text telling him you go to bed early and asking him to call you during the day. If he can't swing that, let him call the sort of woman who'll pick up the phone for a man at any hour -- whispering sweet nothings like "Thank you for choosing 24-hour roadside assistance. This is Erica. Do you need a jump or a tow?"
July 12, 2011My fiance's been treating me badly for a while. When I'm at his place, I spend most of my time watching him play video games and drink beer until he's ready for sex or he passes out. He calls me "insecure" and says "get over it" if I bring up anything controversial, like when I noticed the box of condoms we'd just bought was suddenly short one. (There's other evidence suggesting he's cheating.) He's also developed the nasty habit of peeing into two-liter bottles and leaving them around until they're full. He isn't good for me in many ways, but I love him and don't want to devastate him by ending our engagement. While I need that feeling of having someone whose feet I can find with mine under the blankets, I'm a seize-the-day kind of person, and whether or not he's cheating, he's still passing out on his couch, and I'm lonely.
--Sad Fiancee
The water conservation-minded have that saying, "If it's yellow, let it mellow," but they mean in the toilet bowl, not in the living room. (When's the last time you walked into Crate&Barrel and saw two-liter bottles of urine on the Ainsworth Cognac Bookcase next to an antique typewriter and a bowl of seashells?)
Your fiance is acting like you don't exist in his life -- except on nights when he manages to stay conscious long enough to put down one joystick and order you to hop on the other. Oh, and by the way, that condom isn't missing. It's on vacation. You'd know that if you weren't so pathetically insecure.
If this is how he acts before marriage, imagine what you'll be saying after the honeymoon phase ends: "You never blatantly ignore me, treat me like an idiot, and just use me for sex like you used to." Still, you aren't without standards. You say you need a partner whose feet you can find with yours under the blankets, which rules out any degrading and dismissive jerks who also happen to be double amputees.
As for being a "seize-the-day kind of person," you don't mention which day you plan on seizing, but apparently, it's one far into the future. You claim to love this guy, but maybe what you really love is not admitting you're engaged to a lost cause. You worry that you'd "devastate" him by ending your engagement (assuming you could get his attention before he passed out playing "Grand Theft Your Dignity"). Just wondering: While you're busy caring about his feelings, who's caring about yours?
Going limp in the face of confrontation sets you up to have a cheating fiance who's decorating the house with a week of his urine. If you refused to put up with a lack of respect, you'd either get treated with respect or get out of any relationship where disrespect is the main theme. You might end up alone -- maybe for a while -- but that's got to be less lonely than being engaged to a man who not only refuses to go the extra mile for you but won't even go those extra 12 steps to the bathroom.
On both of my dinner dates with this guy, he's excused himself to the bathroom and taken forever. Longer than any girl I know. Like, 10 minutes. Although I barely know him, he doesn't seem vain or like someone who'd be doing drugs. We're going out again, and I hate to be rude and pry, but I'm really starting to wonder.
--Mystified
It could be something intestinal. Protozoan sock hop? Parasite pride rally? He could've been calling his wife or his bookie or enjoying a mid-date masturbation break. Or, maybe he just needed a good cry. Saying nothing to him sets you up as an easy mark if he's a scammer, and as a pushover if he's just a garden-variety jerk. Saying something is less uncomfortable if you use humor. Next time he returns from a sabbatical in a stall, maybe ask "That time of the month again?" and see if he offers some sort of explanation or just asks to borrow a tampon.
If you keep dating him, put him on double secret probation and be prepared for the other shoe to drop (perhaps in a Larry Craig "wide stance"). A guy who takes a 10-minute bathroom break needn't lay out all the icky details, but one who isn't socially incompetent, devoid of empathy or too troubled to care will volunteer some hint that he wasn't snorting lines of powder off the toilet seat ("I picked up something in Guatemala, and it wasn't one of those brightly colored bags").
July 5, 2011My co-worker was really hung up on a guy. She was convinced he liked her, and she did all the flirty things you advise, but he never made a move. This went on for months since she, like you, thought women should never, ever ask a man on a date. I finally persuaded her to offer to make him a home-cooked meal. He thanked her but said he had a girlfriend. So, now she can put this behind her. She's actually relieved she finally made a move.
--Wise Friend
When a woman flirts and flirts with a guy and he still doesn't ask her out, she knows there must be a reasonable explanation: 1. Hairball stuck in his throat. 2. He sprained his tongue. 3. He's temping as a monk.
The woman can either wait months and months for him to cough up that hairball or accept that there's probably a more reasonable explanation: He's not interested, not available, or not man enough to tape hair on his chest and squeak out "You doin' anything Friday night?"
A guy who's not that interested might still go out with a woman if she asked. Great -- if she wants a man who's not that into her but who'll hang around for a while (longer when his favorite TV show is in reruns). In the case of "not man enough," some women tell themselves, "No problem! I'm man enough to ask him!" They end up with a "not man enough" instead of a man. A little water and sunlight will grow carrot greens out of carrot tops in a jar lid, but there's yet to be a relationship that's produced spontaneous growth of testicles.
Enabling "not man enough" can have some unpleasant repercussions. What the man-worm lacks in assertiveness he usually makes up for in passive-aggressiveness. And say he and the woman are stopped by muggers. Do you think a guy who practically wets himself at the mere thought of asking a woman out will try to protect her...or push her toward the bad guys and shout, "Here, take my girlfriend! Call me from U-rape-istan and let me know how it all went."
Being an adult involves accepting that you can't always have all the answers, all spelled out. Sometimes, you have to take no answer for a "no," like when your eyelashes are about to fall out from all the batting and a guy still isn't doing any asking. Yeah, I know -- somebody's fourth cousin's second-best girlfriend asked her husband out and now they're living blissfully ever after. But, in general, a guy who could be really into a woman will be less into her if all he has to do to get her is sit there and look pretty.
Romantic pursuit is a two-person dance, not a one-woman show. It's the woman's job to put out the "Yoohoo, I like you" vibes. She then needs to wait for a response. If none comes, she needs to move on -- tempting as it is to try to go from zero to nesty before they've even had a first date: "Home-cooked supper, Pa? Or would you prefer a get-to-know-you barn-raising?"
In the wake of the penis photo tweet that started "Weinergate," I'm wondering whether women are actually turned on when they get a photo of some dude's package.
--Curious Guy Who's Never Done Such A Thing
Note that there's a restaurant called Hooters but none called Testicles. While men get aroused by visuals alone, women typically need touch and emotion. Dr. Meredith Chivers' sexual arousal studies show that women do get turned on by video of strangers having sex (including, weirdly, strangers who are bonobo chimps), but strange men's disembodied bits really don't do it for most. (What, you were expecting "Wow, you stuck a cameraphone in your crotch just for me?")
Once a woman's involved with a guy, she might be into the occasional peen-mail. But, emailing a woman you don't know a shot of your naked trousersaurus is like hitting on her at a party by unzipping your fly and letting it all hang out: "Will ya look at this! Impressive, huh?" At least on the Internet, you won't hear her run away screaming, "Eeeuw! Gross! Creepy!" (or howling with laughter as she hits "forward"). Sure, emailing your meat takes less effort than buying a trench coat and heading down to the corner, but it's about as bad an idea. Generally speaking, the only package a woman wants coming to her from some stranger via the Internet is one from Sephora or Zappos.com. (Think new shoes, not new schnitzel.)