helpmewithmygirlproblems

Never try to make life or death decisions when you’re feeling suicidal.

Today’s e-mail comes from a returning Anon, who apparently actually appreciated my advice for him in his first e-mail. Read over that one first to get a better picture of the whole situation. Hope I can help again! (I would also like to mention that this was sent to me less than 12 hours ago. Take that, world! I’m back!)

We broke up about a month ago. Being with me really opened up a lot of questions about what she wants in life and the things she believes and desires. She tells me that she’s not sure whether she wants a man who doesn’t have similar beliefs toward god, and she’s going to find out for herself what she wants in life and go for it. Objectively this sounds great to me, and is what I’ve been advocating the entire time we were together, and I genuinely feel happy for her and the fact that she has a chance to find what exactly she wants in her life and pursue it. We still talk every once in a while but not very often.

Here’s where the problem comes in, however. During the time that I’ve been away from her, I’ve come to realize that she is the person I want in my life. I don’t think I’ve met another girl in my life who has so many qualities that I desire in a woman. I want to do whatever I can to show her this, on the chance that she’ll come around and perhaps realize that religion doesn’t have to be a deal-breaker. The problem with this obviously is that there’s nothing I can do to make her do any such thing, and she’s going to have to come to this realization herself, if at all. I also don’t want to pressure her on the chance that she’ll relent only to end up regretting it.

Right now I’m playing it cool and giving her space, but how do I show her that I really want her without making her feel trapped?

Thanks again!

My initial reading immediately brought to mind a number of specific instances with some of my closest friends, where within weeks of a (in most cases, well-needed) breakup they came to the conclusion that it was a mistake. The problem is that it usually isn’t a mistake. After dating for a certain amount of time, you really get the feel for whether or not the relationship can really endure. Then, when you break up, you feel a bit of relief for a while. And then you forget the bad things, and you remember the good things. It’s no one’s fault, really… but the blinders truly do exist. You start to feel like you could work through the differences , that they really weren’t as bad as you were making them out to be in the situation. Sometimes it’s true, I’m sure of that. But most of the time, it’s the combination of a wound plus time plus loneliness.

Like I mentioned, I have specifically helped a few people deal with similar situations. My advice to them was not to push, for two reasons. First of all, it took you a certain amount of time to arrive to this conclusion for yourself. She might have different turnaround times when it comes to making decisions, or she might have completely different factors affecting her life right now. She deserves the same space and respect that you were given. Second of all, you might not be fully considering the implications of getting back together. This includes not entirely recognizing the implications of the differences that broke you up in the first place. I’m not really going to go into everything I could regarding that; personally, I’ve seen disconnections in faith be a huge detriment to a romantic relationship. Especially a long-term one; as soon as you start thinking about the future and marriage and children, the situation gets even more complicated. For both of these reasons, it’s logical to spend at least a little more time living life separately. If she really is the one you want in your life forever, she’ll still be that person in a couple of months. People might say “act on it now or else she’ll be gone!” but that’s crap. If she doesn’t come to the same conclusion on her own, it wouldn’t have worked out if she came to the same conclusion with some prodding from you.

As for making her feel like you really do want her back… I’m not entirely sure I can give you that advice, given what I’ve already said. You could sit down with her and explain the conclusions you’ve come to and why you’ve come to them. Why she is special, why you think you could work through the issues, why you want her to TRY to work through the issues with you. Lay everything out on the line. But, as you mentioned, she might feel trapped or pressured that way. Even if you ended with an explanation of why she doesn’t have to make a decision now but you wanted her to know this and that and blah blah blah, she might feel like she HAS to speed up her decision. The other option is just to let her figure it out on her own. BUT, she might not make the choice you want if you don’t lay everything out. I guess this is the option I lean more towards, mostly just because it gives both of you more time to consider everything, but also because it respects that she is able to come to her own emotional and logical conclusions without a guiding influence. It’s a calculated risk one way or the other. My opinion tends to lean to the one that takes out the risk of ending up in a relationship with the same shortcomings as the one you e-mailed about a few months ago… which means taking more time to think is a good idea.

Good luck, and keep in touch!

Life Update

I graduated college today.

Why am I writing that in this blog? Because I no longer have good excuses not to do things. I hope this means you can expect more frequent (maybe even scheduled??) updates. I really, really hope.

This means you should e-mail me. Or tell your friends to e-mail me. Or just make something really interesting up and e-mail it to me. Questions, suggestions for topics, whatever. Do it.

I’m also working on buttering up a wonderful friend of mine to help me with a feature about a GIRL who has BOY problems. It’s has the potential to be an awesome story of a wonderful girl with unfortunate luck in the romance department. I’m not sure if I should try to do it as a running update or just different questions that come up. I’m not even sure if she will ever let me go through with anything. What do you guys think? Would answering a girl’s questions or seeing a girls point of view when it comes to the basics of dating be something interesting to develop?

Annnd finally, the KY lube product review has been one of my most popular posts. So naturally, when I found out KY has a new interesting sex potion out on the market (drugstore.com e-mailed me with an offer for $5 off, thanks to previous purchases… kiiiinda creepy), I HAD to buy it. It should be arriving within the next few days, so you can look forward to a new product post soon! Try not to get too… INTENSELY AROUSED. If you know what I mean.

You say impressive, I already know it.

Hey guys! I’m still alive. Please e-mail me some girl problems! Or even just suggestions for the blog. Right now, I’m working on some product reviews I think might be helpful. Hopefully, I’ll be posting more soon! Today’s caller wishes to remain anonymous, so please read his entire story in the voice of Stephen Hawking.

I met a girl and we seemed to hit it off pretty well almost right away. She’s a friend of my house mate and she’s from a town about an 40mins away and she has no car. As such when she came over to see him, she came by train and she decided to stay over on our couch rather than travel home. We end up in this conversation about this guy she used to work with that she likes and how she wishes she had a bf like all her friends and how she’s bored on her own etc.

The following morning me and her chat again from 8am until about mid day before I walked her to the train station. She offered me her number and I asked if she wanted to come to a gig the following week and she said she would like to. She claims that she’s not sure why she was talking about the other guy so much as she doesn’t really even like him.

Next week rolls round (so this is Last Friday now). She turns up and me, her and my house mate head to the gig. We get on well again and discover we have a fair few things in common – she suggests we go home and watch Aliens (holy fucking shit, I love that movie). It’s 1am when we get in and we are both pretty drunk.

We watch the film on the sofa and cuddle up under a blanket. The film ends at 4am, my house mate goes to bed and then so do we. Aside from a 5 year relationship which ended about 8 months ago I’ve only been with a couple of girls – none since – and during that relationship she had a coil thing that meant that I didn’t have to use condoms. So basically this was the first time I’d used one in about 6 years. There is not a lot sexy about failing to put on a condom, half drunk at 4am and it takes a minute at which point I’m embarresed and feel the mood slipping. We have sex and it goes on and on and in the end I am completely exhausted and can’t finish, it feels totally weird with the condom. Epic fail. God damn. This has never happened to me before…

The next morning I wake up at 9am and she’s not in bed. I go for a glass of water and she’s sleeping on the sofa. I leave her there. My house mate wakes up and we sit around and talk some more. He goes out and we carry on talking. I cook her dinner and we go to blockbuster to rent yet another film – both a little to hung over to go out to a bar or whatever.

After the film I say, in a jokey manner “I suppose we should go on a date or something” and instantly the mood changes and she kinda goes “hmmmm” then she says she’s sorry and she’s sure that wasn’t what I wanted to hear. She says that she’s not really looking for a relationship and would like to just be friends – despite her saying just last week that she did! We talk for another hour or so during which time things are kinda flirty again but she says “I’m looking for someone really assertive”, my housemate comes home about 11pm drunk and sits right in between us. I go to bed, she sleeps on the couch again.

Next morning we have breakfast and she heads home.
6pm:she text’s me saying “don’t tell marc (my house mate, her friend) about what happened, I don’t want him telling anyone else”. I didn’t get the message until about 5 hours later – so I obviously don’t reply
6:30pm she texts my house mate saying “I don’t know if he’s said what happened, but please don’t tell anyone else, I don’t want it to damage my reputation”
10pm she texts me again saying “office space is on film 4, bet you wish you had TV now! x”

I don’t reply to either text and neither does my house mate.

I spoke to her on MSN yesterday and suggested we watch the Grudge round at my place (we’d talked about it before and she said she hadn’t seen it) and she said yeah, but it was pretty non-committal on both sides.

I seem to have really fallen for her but I don’t know where I stand or if it’s salvageable. I wish I could explain to her why the sex was terrible, but I kinda hope she’s not shallow enough to let that get in the way.. I dunno. I’m going away for 5 days tomorrow – I figured I’d give her some space and not talk to her til I get back, but I’m not sure.

Lost cause? Can I pull some romantic gesture out of my ass and save the day?

XOXO,

The fucking Quake master.

This is a weird situation. I had to read it a couple of times because the first time I was like “oh shit, did she fuck the housemate too?” I’m not entirely sure why she’s so keen on making sure no one tells anyone what happened, that seems a bit suspicious to me.

Anyway, I’d say just ride it out (that means wait and see what happens, not… any other connotation of riding). I figure you’re already on your 5 days away from town by now, but I’d say just avoid initiating contact during that time. If she texts or calls, don’t ignore her, but don’t be the initiator. It sounds like she’s not exactly comfortable with what happened, so I’d give her some time to get over that.

If you are really truly interested and if her attitude readjusts by the time you talk to her again, I think you CAN pull a romantic gesture out of your ass and save the day. But be aware of how she’s handling this situation before you decide whether or not you’re really going to want a relationship with this chick. Instead of talking to you about something that’s making her feel uncomfortable, she’s essentially sweeping it under the rug. Not really a rock solid foundation for the start of a new relationship. And you have to be aware of the fact that something might have happened to make her feel like you are no longer relationship material. It sucks, but most chicks have a switch in their head, and once some random event turns off the romantic attraction, it’s incredibly difficult to turn it back on again. So my advice is to ride it out. It seems like you’re having fun with her even without the sexy stuff, so worst comes to worst you’ve got a cool new friend out of it. Take it slow until it seems like she’s taking whatever wall down that she’s suddenly thrown up. Hopefully then things will just come naturally.

Get it? Come? Naturally? I am so so sorry. That was horrible. I quit.

Sex Before Marriage

Glug glug. Happy holidays, I’m back. This update is brought to you in part because… I’m engaged now! Yeay!

I’m also late to the girls game, and now I’ve a girlfriend I love, and it’s great. However, she’s highly religious and I’m agnostic. She’s gotten over the initial disinclination to date me in the first place, since ideally she’d like someone who shares her passion for her faith, and now we’re together. I’ve been with her for a couple months now, and we’ve talked about sex and our desires and intentions. The short of it: she intends to wait to have sex until marriage (she’s a virgin), while I think it’s a terrible idea to marry somebody before you have sex with them (since I hope to stay married for life, and I don’t really want there to be any large surprises in the relationship before agreeing to marry). I’m also a virgin, and a little bit worried about what to do here, since I don’t think this is such a deal-breaker as to call it off (else I’d have already done that). I don’t think sex should define a relationship, but it seems like an important component, enough so that there would be something wrong were it to be missing.

That said, I’m highly interested in what sex will be like, and I’m hoping to try as many ways as I can think of when I get a willing partner (blame ShackNWS?). – Anonymous

Sex is part of a good, healthy relationship. Whether that be a good, healthy relationship before marriage or a good, healthy relationship after marriage is surely up for debate. But I firmly believe that to really succeed as a couple, two people must see eye-to-eye when it comes to sex.

If one person wants it a lot more than the other, it can lead to serious resentment issues and problems communicating. If one person wants to just FUCK sometimes but the other person would just rather make slow and sensual love every single time, again, serious issues.

It’s just like some of the other “BIG” things that people butt heads over. If one person is really messy and another person is anal retentively clean, this can present problems. Fuck, if one person squeezes the toothpaste from the top and the other one from the bottom this can be a DEALBREAKER for some people. The only way to figure out how to work through those problems is to see how you deal with the other person in that situation. Maybe the clean one decides that they can live with cleaning up after the messy one as long as the messy one helps out a bit. Maybe the messy one decides they absolutely can not live with someone so freakishly organized. Maybe they stop using toothpaste altogether.

It makes the most sense to try out something before you make a lifelong commitment to it. I don’t understand people or religions who have issues against cohabitation or sex before marriage for this reason. In my mind, the founders of religion came up with these kinds of weird hangups so that people worked harder to make their marriage work once they were stuck. But it’s not like that anymore. People have realized that divorce is, sadly, a likely possibility when they get married, so cohabitation and sex before marriage (in a committed relationship) isn’t quite so taboo. The REAL reason to value marriage isn’t necessarily so that person will be the “first” or the “only” love or lover or cohabitator, it should be because they are the best and the last.

Sex shouldn’t necessarily define a relationship, but it has the potential to ruin one. I’ve seen people stuck and unhappy in marriages because they did not have sex before and they realized too late that they did not really mesh with their now-wife or husband. They justify being unhappy because they made a commitment and want to stick to it and it’s not a deal-breaker. So when asked to give advice on the subject, my automatic thought goes to them, and how I’m sure if given the chance they would have MADE it a deal-breaker before they made a deal they REALLY didn’t want to break. I’ve also seen couples in relationships who just aren’t sure if they are with the right person. A guy or a girl who has only ever had sex with one person then wonders what it would be like to have sex with ANYONE else. Until both people jump in with both feet, it’s not really fair to anyone. Those insecurities and unsureities aren’t going to go away until you either turn a corner mentally and decide that the one you’re with is worth not having sex with anyone else, you cheat on her, or you break up with her to figure out exactly what the hell you want before you commit to something you’re not sure about but are stuck with after that.

I would try having that discussion with her and find out what her reasons really are for valuing what she values. It’s not an attack on what she believes and she should be willing to explain to you her justification, just as you should explain yours. If this is a relationship that is really going to go somewhere, these are conversations you will have to have at some point anyway, about pretty much everything. Talk openly and honestly. Both her answers and her reaction to the conversation can tell you a lot about her.

Whatever happens, there is a decision to be made. No, it would not be wise for you to try to get her to go against her beliefs just to save your relationship… but it would also not be wise for you to do something that doesn’t sit well with you just because you don’t want to feel like you are pressuring her. Not saying that she will, but I’ve seen girls who are like this use their beliefs as a way to be a victim. Don’t fall for it. She has beliefs that she would like to stick to, but make sure she also knows that you have feelings that are to be just as much respected. If you simply stand up for yourself, you are doing exactly what she is doing. But people with “convictions” often wield them as weapons; just because your opinions aren’t necessarily the same doesn’t mean they are any less valid even if they aren’t accepted by her, her religion, or whatever else.

Good luck!!

Adventures in Lube

It has come to my attention that I am more or less retarded when it comes to updating on a consistent basis. Guess what? This blog didn’t come with no promises. I have a job, you know! (Not a real job.) And I go to school!

This isn’t to say that I haven’t been enjoying myself. And by that, I mean having sex.

A few months ago, I started seeing commercials for KY Yours+Mine Couples Lubricant. I first must say that as a marketing major I found the advertisements to be pretty awesome. Between the commercials to the print ads, my attention was grabbed. I figured… a) I could write a blog about it, b) it might actually be pretty good from all of the reviews on Amazon, and 3) even if it wasn’t any good, it’d be a fun thing to try.

I should preface this by saying that I don’t like lube. I’m not naturally dry and neither is my boyfriend, we don’t use condoms, and our normal friction seems to work pretty well for both of us. The few times we have tried using lube it has been weirdly slick and we didn’t really enjoy it at all.

Anyway, to the review. I decided that I would try this stuff out so I went to Walgreens to find it. Sold out. A few days later I was near another pharmacy store. Sold out. A week or two later I had been to a few different stores at my convenience; sold out. Well then. Amazon to the rescue! It ended up getting to me on my birthday.  ;D

The concept for this lube is that there are two different lubes. One lube is “Hers” and one is “His”. From what the description, they’re supposed to feel good individually, but they create a completely different sensation when mixed.

I am torn on the packaging. On one hand, it is quite attractive; the two vials are sleek and resemble a toy in and of themselves! The pink-purple coloring of the “Hers” and the royal blue of the “His” makes it pretty clear which tube belongs on which person… but I decided that it would be totally cool if the “Hers” was a glow-in-the-dark pink, and the “His” was a glow-in-the-dark blue. On the other hand, I noticed that the bottles were not exactly easily manipulated. For one, they weren’t exactly easy to squeeze; although this was probably to limit the amount that actually came out (a little goes a LONG way), I can just imagine an awesome scenario… my boyfriend holding the little pink vial and shaking it like a moron trying to get some of the liquid out when it neared the end of the bottle until he ends up smacking his hand into a lamp and knocking the light out, now we can’t see (Hello? Glow-in-the-dark bottles?) and we end up tripping over something and someone is bleeding profusely… OH LOOK, there’s the lube! And also, the “sleek” design doesn’t exactly provide much traction when you’re attempting to close the bottle and put it away when you’ve got lube all over your hands.

Applying the lube is part of the process. They suggest on the bottle that each partner should apply the other’s lube. If my boyfriend and I weren’t laughing and looking forward to these magic potions the first time, it might have actually been a sexy situation but we are ridiculous and while it wasn’t EXACTLY the foreplay they might have been hinting towards, we had fun. After trying it again, it can work just fine as foreplay if you’re not both being goofy idiots.

First, I’ll give you my rundown on the “Hers”. First of all, it smells minty. Actually, it smells and kind of tastes like mouthwash. Why did I taste it? Uh, wouldn’t you? I was curious. Especially after the smell. Mouthwash.

It created the same sort of sensation I would imagine if I were to douse my genitals in mouthwash, too. Within a few seconds, it felt COLD… but not cold cold, tingly mouthwash cold. I already knew what was going to happen when I applied his.

He apparently couldn’t feel anything at first, and wasn’t exactly impressed in general. His is supposed to be a bit more of a warming sensation, but he didn’t get that.

I did.

It felt like he was MUCH WARMER than he normally is. It felt… really neat! The obvious contrast (for me at least) between the weird sensation I was feeling and the intense heat that I felt from him was exciting enough for me to make this product worth the purchase. He didn’t really feel much… but honestly I think my reactions made it worth it for him too.

As I mentioned earlier, unlike a lot of other lubes I’ve experienced, we both agree that it allowed for enough of our own natural friction. I was going to make a reference to slip-and-slides but it disturbed even me so I’ll let you take your own creative liberties with that. It was pretty pleasant as far as lubes go! VERY easy to clean up as well, as it’s a water based lube, which also means it can be used with latex condoms, if that’s your game. OH and I just looked at the bottles to try to figure out how long this stuff is going to last, and we’ve used it a couple of times and it’s not even below the cap level yet, and we used a decent amount! Lots of exciting bang for your buck, although it is one of the more expensive lubes on the market… you pay for novelty, people. And it REALLY is a lot.

We’re curious to see if other people try it and get similar results so we know if it really is mostly for the girl or of his penis is just broken.

So, to conclude my first product review… it’s pretty good! Sex is good! Have more sex!

(Oh yeah, and e-mail me about it.)

Redirection Tactics

I was making fun of my boyfriend because for the past two weeks all he has talked about is the stupid apps coming out on the iPhone App Store and how there are twenty tip calculators or pay-bible apps and nothing new or cool is getting to the store.

He retorted with “Oh, yeah who was right about coating the chicken breasts with Dorito crumbs and baking them?”

“You were right, it was pretty good, I never said it wouldn’t be I just told you not to do it with the NEW YORK STRIP STEAKS we had the other night… and anyway what the heck does that have to do with you complaining about the App Store?”

… “Nothing, I was using that purely as a redirection tactic.”

Redirection tactics. THEY ONLY WORK IF YOU DO IT SUBTLY.

Goodbye, Lois.

I don’t know if this is true or if it’s a literary or pop culture reference that I’m totally missing or if it’s just made up… but I thought it was a pretty beautiful story. Thanks for sharing, anonymous e-mailer.

Hi Laurgasms,

Goodbye, Lois.

The Stupid Zone

I think the “Friend Zone” is stupid. It’s an excuse that a lot of women give to guys so they don’t have to give real excuses for why they don’t want to date them. “You are too good of a friend!” means that I really cannot possibly see myself enjoying sex with you. Guys love using it to make them feel like they didn’t do anything wrong. “Man, I totally got Friend Zone’d” means “I have no fucking clue why this girl will not let me bone her but I’ll call it this so that at LEAST it looks like I’m friends with girls, and it means that it’s not because I’m a jerk or she’s not attracted to me or I don’t have enough of a spine to stand up for myself.” How do you escape “The Friend Zone”? You find out what’s really wrong.

recently i started hanging out with this girl.
i met her while out wearing a fake mustache and she introduced herself by asking if i gave out mustache rides.
that night we made out a little, but that’s about it.

we call and talk or at least text message every day and hang out every couple days. i’ve introduced her to most my friends and me to hers, but always as a friend.
recently she said something along the lines of it taking her knowing someone for a couple months before she’s willing to become boyfriend/girlfriend, and to take things farther.
since then, she’s asked me to come over and watch movies and snuggle, and also if i wanted to look for a new place with her. when ever we hang out, she usually hangs all over me and constantly gives me hugs. i’ve tried giving her small kisses (mostly because i’m a huge fgt and fear rejection) and she gives little pecks back, but we haven’t gone back into full make out mode again.

did i get friend zoned already?

hugs and kisses, -guy incognito

Friend zoned? Probably not. A victim of those stupid rules that girls develop because they think they will be less likely to be hurt? More than likely.

Within minutes of meeting a new guy, girls are analyzing. His fingernails are dirty. He has a Mercedes keychain. He’s friends with Brittany, she’s a whore, he has probably slept with her. Whether or not we realize it, we are making assumptions about someone based on their appearance or their demeanor or any other random factoid we can collect. The same intuition that makes those assumptions REALIZES that we are making assumptions and must also prepare us for pain, whether we are right or wrong.

Stupid rules like that are a defense mechanism. Something has happened to this girl in the past or to someone she knows or she has just dreamed up some possibly painful situation out of thin air to make her think that over-analyzing and putting a timer on relationships will help make things work better in the end. Without the details I probably would have said “She’s just not that into you”, but the fact that she seems more than happy to receive the benefits of a budding relationship without the title make me think otherwise. I would recommend finding out WHY she has a self-proclaimed history of taking a long time to “take things further”… the answer to that might answer a lot more questions. If she has trust issues and is taking them out on you, you have to work pretty quickly to tackle that. You don’t deserve to take the blame for things that have gone wrong in the past. Submitting you to all of these “tests” might still not keep her from getting hurt, and it might even completely turn you off to her. These “tests” are not her, they are her avoiding getting hurt. You want to get to know her, see through the “tests”, and help her realize that they are more of a deterrent to a relationship than they are helpful. Keep making the moves, she’ll bite, and if she keeps leading you on like she sounds like she is, you can either keep it up and bend over and let her rape you with whatever rules she feels like she needs throughout the rest of your pre-relationship, relationship, marriage, whatever… or you can make her see the error of putting a good and well-meaning guy through meaningless drivel.

Short history on me, I’ve pretty much always ended up being a “friend” in regard to girls I’ve been interested in. Never really had a meaningful relationship, just some random hook ups. I realize that in the past I’ve become “that guy” essentially due to a complete lack of confidence in myself and no belief that girl X would want to be with me. Live and learn.

That brings me to my current situation. I am not perfect by any means but I am confident enough in myself and around the ladies that I don’t feel there are any limitations on me meeting/picking up/dating women aside from general incompatibility. That being said, I am crazy about a girl that I have been friends with for about 1.5 to 2 years now. In those ~2 years I have made great personal strides as far as being confident in myself etc., but it seems that all that is wasted because I’m so interested in this one girl .. problem being I don’t really have an interest in other girls aside from general flirting and having a good time when say, we’re out in a bar or something similar.

This girl and I, we have a pretty cool relationship in that we have talked several times about why we are not dating right now. Without getting to into it, essentially she doesn’t want to lose what we have as friends (we are very close friends, as in talking on the phone daily, usually for 1+ hours). And I think it’s that worth mentioning that from the get go, from the time we went from acquaintances to friends she has known I’ve been interested in more than that; but the first time we went out together we talked about it and I told her that I’d rather have her in my life as a friend as opposed to nothing at all because she won’t date me. I don’t want to lose that friendship either – its very important to me – and i realize taking our relationship to another level involves a big risk; but I think it would work very well. She is essentially afraid of the, “what if it didn’t?”

-strider

I used to think I had a Friend Zone. There were people that I could have never even dreamed of dating because I thought they were too much like brothers and I could never see them in that light. One of those people was my best friend Ben. One day Ben and I made out. It was pretty weird. Was he stuck in the Friend Zone? No, probably not. If either or both of us wanted us to happen, we probably could have worked through it. But neither of us wanted to put forth the effort. If I found out that he was really interested, I would probably have to re-think my view. He is an amazing guy and although I might feel a little weird about changing those boundaries, I don’t think I could come up with a valid reason for not dating him. He is not in my Friend Zone because I am open minded and would not risk the possibility of a happy relationship with a great guy just because it felt weird at first. The only thing I can come up with is that it might be weird if he wanted to date me but I was on the fence about dating him and then it ended up not being everything I thought it would be and I had to be the one to awkwardly break up with him. It’s a risk that I think is outweighed by the benefits, especially if the relationship starts off with both people being on the same page. If we both understand that we might get hurt, we CAN come out of it learning something new AND still being good friends.

That said… she needs to figure out if you are worth the effort, and you both need to accept the risk you are taking. You might end up not being friends at the end of it. You might cheat on her and she might realize you are not the person she thought you were. She might end up obnoxious or controlling or kind of psychotic. But any of these things can happen whether or not you date. If you find out she’s obnoxious or controlling or kind of psychotic, you probably won’t want to remain friends with her even if you’ve never dated her.

If I am comfortable in myself and what I have to offer in a relationship, I should have no problem taking the risk in breaking the stupid “friend zone” barrier. I might not be what you are looking for, but I’m pretty fucking awesome. If I’m not right for you, that’s cool… I still think you are fun to hang out with and we can still be friends in our search for what is right. If you’re not right for me, no hard feelings! If you are not who you say you are, if you are hiding something, if you lie to me… well, I don’t know if I want to be friends with you because I don’t really trust you, but I’m glad I found out now instead of torturing myself wondering “what if”.

I hate the Friends Zone. If everyone fell in love with their best friend, maybe people would actually communicate with their partners. Maybe people would be fully vested in their relationships instead of half-assing them. Maybe people would not be afraid to stand up for themselves or to fight or to argue. Maybe people would be happier. Or, maybe the glass is empty. Maybe everyone would realize how shitty people are, even their friends. Or… maybe you should grow a pear.

I thought our story was epic, you know.

Spanning years and continents… lives ruined, bloodshed, epic.

I have been really busy. Really, really, really busy. I’m only not busy today because my e-mail has been down for two whole days so I can’t get much done. Oh and also I celebrated my awesome birthday and took an awesome trip to awesome Tampa where I took a billion pictures of awesome aminals and got insanely sick after drinking an interesting shot called Liquid Cocaine.

When people ask me how my boyfriend and I met, I usually just chuckle and say “It’s a cool story involving us almost being related” and leave it at that. But today, you get the epic tale.

During my sophomore year in high school, I ate lunch every day at the same table in the cafeteria with my best friend Sarah and two of my best boy friends Flipper and Benjy and whoever else decided to join us that day. A consistent source of entertainment for all of us was jokes that Flipper or Ben would tell us about “posts” made on “The Shack”. I had no idea what they were talking about. I Google’d “The Shack” to find out where they were getting this stuff, to absolutely no avail. They also talked about their friend hawkeye, who was getting his G.E.D. so he didn’t have to go to school and he sat home playing video games all day and posting on “The Shack”. He sounded like a huge fucking dork. At some point, I figured out the location of “The Shack” and I joined the community and slowly started posting there under my new nickname that came to me out of a moment of either genius or insanity. I noticed hawkeye pretty quickly; he posted a lot, and I recognized his name from the lunch table boys. Soon after I started posting, we decided that we should meet, so we arranged a “Shackmeet” for the day after Christmas 2002. Ben and Flipper’s younger sister and Phil (hawkeye) came to pick me up in his red Ford Probe (which was cramped but a pretty awesome car) and we hung out for a few hours. I remember thinking he was cool and fun and surprisingly not fat and ugly for someone who spent his days in a recliner. I spent my New Years that year counting down to midnight in a room with Ben, Flipper, and Phil (all single) and posted later on the shack about feeling a bit disappointed at not getting a kiss. Phil responded quickly and promised to make it up to me. We went on a date a few days later and he did.

We dated for about three or four months, and it was pretty good. He was my first ever boyfriend, so my mom was a little obnoxious about restricting my time with him for not really any good reasons. We talked a lot. He made me pretty happy. I started bringing him to hang out with my other friends. He started to like my other friends.

One day, Flipper and my friend Sheila and myself skipped school (listen, it was Physics, we had a substitute teacher for more than half of the semester who could barely speak a lick of English, we rarely went to the class and I’m pretty positive we all passed) and went to a local McDonalds. It was 50’s style and had a jukebox and we randomly started dancing to one of the songs that was playing. A woman told us that we should stop by her swing dancing studio in a nearby town, so we took her card and all decided that sounded like a fantastic idea.

The first time everyone went, I had a previous commitment to go to a show in Boca Raton. The second time everyone went, I had a previous commitment to go to a show in Stuart. The third time everyone went, I got upset that everyone already knew how to do everything and I didn’t so I didn’t bother going. I was a stupid 16 year old girl and I should have sucked it up and just went. Meanwhile, those same insecurities caused me to fear for my relationship; Sheila was pretty much the epitome of an interesting person, not to mention beautiful, and I could sense Phil’s infatuation. He told me time and time again that he didn’t feel that way for her and that he was with me and not her, but honestly, he liked her and there wasn’t really much he could do to hide it from me, and it made me even more upset when he would lie about it. To this day, I have no idea if it would have just gone away if I didn’t have insecurities about it, but I still say that my insecurities were pretty well-founded considering the situation.

Anyway, rambling about insecurities, right. He dumped me and kind of used those as the excuse, but the real excuse was that I had introduced him to all of these pretty girls and he wanted to see what other ones were like. Pretty soon after he broke up with me (as in, like, two weeks soon… my 16 year old soul was completely crushed), he started dating Megan.

He dated Megan for three years. So much for seeing what other girls were like!

In those three years, I did some bad things. I learned a lot of lessons. I slept with my friend’s ex-boyfriend. I dated someone a lot older than me. I made out with one of my best friends at an 18-wheel tractor trailer game at a bowling alley. I started going swing dancing, and got pretty damn good at it. In my freshman year of college, I finally seemed to be settling down and I started dating Bob, a long-time friend… and Megan’s brother. Megan and I got pretty close, probably out of convenience more than anything, but I’d say she became one of my best female friends. It was a little weird for me to see Phil with another girl and I kind of turned Phil into two different people: the boy I dated, and the boy who dated Megan. I was happy, though, and I was happy that they were happy.

Bob ended up joining the military. I was supportive, but scared. He proposed probably about a week before he left for basic training. I was a wreck when he was in basic; I cried almost every day, wrote him almost every day. I didn’t really know who to lean on because I didn’t think anyone really understood how shitty it was to not even be able to contact someone you love. People started to annoy me. When we left to go visit him for his graduation, Megan was complaining to me about missing Phil less than 24 hours after being away from him. She later told me, and was right, that just because I had to go through worse doesn’t mean that her pain didn’t mean anything. But to have the audacity to say it to me when I hadn’t seen my boyfriend for over three months really showed me something. I wasn’t sure what, but it has stuck out in my mind as a turning point.

After basic and tech training, Bob was stationed in England. I visited him for our anniversary, and it was nice but it was probably when I started to really recognize the strain although at the time I didn’t really want to. I came down with an infection and managed to feel physically miserable for most of the time I was there, but most of what I remember was just enjoying being with him because it had been another three months of not seeing him since his graduation. The main issues I had with him were all pretty much revolved around the same thing. I thought that when he left to join the military, he would grow up. At the beginning, I thought that would involve him doing a lot more for himself and not relying on his mom to cook his meals or wash and fold his clothes. Basically, I was just wanting for him to disengage from the teat and do things for himself. He did. But what I didn’t realize that I wanted from him was for him to do all of those things and to also grow up emotionally. In so many ways, he was a kid. He was spending money frivolously. He smoked, which back then was just a huge fight between us but today would be an absolute deal breaker for me. He was still messy. He was selfish… not necessarily on purpose, but his first thought wasn’t really to think of other people. But most importantly, he didn’t make me feel secure. I felt like I had to uproot my entire life and dedicate myself to being a military wife in order to carry on a relationship with him. It was partially selfish. I can admit that fully. I wanted to have a life, and I didn’t want it to revolve around him.

I broke up with him in February. Phil broke up with Megan in February.

We both sort of leaned on each other. We talked about the problems we had been having in our relationships, and realized how similar we were in a lot of ways. We pretty quickly realized that there was still something there. When we were open and honest with our exes and told them about our feelings, we got a lot of suspicion. But we were open and honest. We dated for a few weeks, and Phil yet again felt that he wanted to date other people. Sow his wild oats, if you will. He was afraid that if he dated me again, he would never date anyone else.

I knew in every fiber of my being that he was making a mistake. I can’t explain how, and I might sound like a crazy woman when I say it, but I just knew. While we were broken up, I was still with him. We spent almost every evening hanging out and we still did other coupley things. Only he was allowed to go on dates with other girls (and make out with his roommates ex on top of a washing machine while I was asleep in his bed) without any guilt. I was an absolute wreck. I think back through my life and this is probably the third most horrible I’ve ever felt… it’s up there.

I don’t know how it happened, but something sparked in his brain, and he asked me out again. We’ve been dating since 04/05/06 and I think we’re probably more in love today than we were even at the beginning. We’ve managed to turn our absolutely backwards ass story into a healthy and thriving loving relationship. We argue, but we’re rational. He makes me think about the things I do or the things that I feel. A lot of people know not to take other people at face value, but I don’t think people realize that they take THEMSELVES at face value. Instead of thinking “he made me upset and I am upset and that is the bottom line because he did something that made me upset”, I try to figure out why I’m REALLY upset and use that to get to the root of issues. That’s how I approach a lot of the situations I am giving advice on. There’s usually a lot more under the surface than just “HEY, why won’t my boyfriend spend time with me!” I do it this way because after a lot of trial and error, I’ve found something that not only works, but makes SENSE. It doesn’t just work because we ignore problems. It doesn’t just work because. It works because we apply logic to emotion. The two concepts are not as unique as we all try to make them. They’re completely intertwined, and realizing that has lead me to be very comfortable in who I’ve become and in the relationship I’ve cultivated.

I might have just given away the entire point to my blog. I might have just bored everyone to tears. I should be updating again before the end of the week with some insight on the FRIEND ZONE and my first product review (once I manage to test it again… it’s for science, I swear) but today I was feeling a bit too introspective for something like that.

Need more questions for when I update frequently!

helpmewithmygirlproblems@laurgasms.com

OH! P.S.! The domain http://www.helpmewithmygirlproblems.com now points to my site! Awesome, huh? THANKS, ELECTROLY, LOVELOVELOVE.

22 Orgasms (And One For Good Luck)

In celebration of my birthday on Wednesday (BUY ME PRESENTS), I am going to talk about one of my favorite things. This post is probably the most explicit post I’ve written so far. I don’t really know how to describe cumming in politically correct terminology. If that offends you, read it anyway, masturbate, cry in your guilty pleasure, then masturbate again with your guilty sin tears.

I told someone I was writing a post about female orgasms and they told me that I couldn’t do that because female orgasms are a myth and I might as well write about bigfoot and how awesome he is in bed because he is the only thing in the world that can make females orgasm because he is fake and so are… *sigh*

The female orgasm is no myth. And guess what? Neither are multiple orgasms. I know because I’ve been having them almost as long as I can remember masturbating.

This article is mostly aimed at females who are looking for more. Guys looking to give your girlfriends more… I’m sorry but this probably isn’t going to do much for you, unless you want to send your girlfriend the link and have her read it over. Multiples are rarely something that are given to you. They’re something you learn how to achieve.

So, my first tip is masturbation. Masturbation. Masturbation. If you can learn how to give yourself multiples, you can learn how to have them with your partner. It’s a lot easier to figure out things about your body by yourself, believe it or not… YOU know when you are close, YOU know when you need to touch more or less, YOU know how close you are to the edge to make yourself hang there.

After that… this gets pretty subjective, naturally. I know my body and I know what works for me. Step number one helps you figure out what works for you, but from here on out I’ll mostly be discussing my own methods to give you something to go off of, but YMMV.

Most women are capable of having different types of orgasms. I’ve managed three very different feelings: the clitoral orgasm, the G-Spot orgasm, and the combined orgasm. Most of my masturbation is just clitoral and this is how I’ve managed to train myself to pretty much expect multiples. If you’ve never had a clitoral orgasm, I guess that’s step number one… different women are different, I’ve heard some girls can get off just by humping a pillow which would be kinda neat, but personally I just apply index+middle fingers and rub back and forth. There’s an angle that works for me… figure out what works for you and repeat ad orgasm. The trick to multiples for me is letting the orgasm happen, but not letting my body come all the way back down from the orgasmic state. When it happens, I kind of stop and do it a bit more gently… then I start up again. For a second or two it feels a little like pain, but if I keep going I end up building up completely again. It takes practice, but I can now do this for about five minutes… pretty much five whole minutes of pre-orgasm or orgasm, both of which feel awesome. So yeah, that’s my main trick for multiple clitoral orgasms… wait until you’ve had an orgasm to start again, but don’t let your body come completely off of that climax high before you start again.

Another trick involves PC muscles. The best way I’ve found to figure out how to control them are by stopping your flow when you’re peeing. By strengthening them and then flexing them during and post orgasm, you can create completely new feelings that make it a bit easier to recover from one orgasm and go into another… if you can’t figure out how to have a second one, try having the first normally then the second with your PC muscles completely flexed. Once you have control over them, they can at least help you figure out if certain things feel better. They also really help to have vaginal orgasms, but that’s completely different. They also really help to blow a dudes mind when you flex them when you’re barely moving. Again. Totally different.

I don’t really know what else to say. It’s second nature to me to expect to have more than one orgasm at a time now. Sure one is fine. But I know what my body is capable of. I’m sure some women are not capable of the same things, but my main advice is probably just to try and try again. Masturbating isn’t bad, it’s the fastest way to figure out how to make yourself feel good. And I’ve said this many times before, it isn’t the responsibility of a man to figure out how you orgasm. If you don’t want to take the steps to figure it out yourself, don’t be surprised when no one else knows how the fuck your body works either.

That got kinda violent sounding, but it’s really a sore spot for me. I hate women who complain that they don’t have orgasms during sex with their boyfriend, then when I ask if they masturbate they say “No, I never have”. Um. What? If I was a dude and my girlfriend couldn’t have an orgasm but she didn’t want to figure out how to make me give her one, then I’d fuck her without regard to her pleasure, because obviously it doesn’t mean much to her. Actually, I’d probably dump her, but that’s because I’m a bit of an idealist and I don’t think I could get along very well with someone who didn’t put at least some value on sexual pleasure.

Anyway. I guess that’s it for my scant advice and raving criticisms of many of my gender. Specific questions can be e-mailed to helpmewithmygirlproblems@laurgasms.com or posted in the comments.

Happy birthday to me!

-laurgasms