Reality Check

Matters of the Heart and Loins

originally published February 1, 2006

I love your column… it is the first page I turn to when I pick up the Flagpole. Your advice is always creative; your perspective is always legitimate. Here is the deal: I moved to Athens last fall and met a very interesting guy. He had just moved here as well. We had both gotten out of two-year relationships, and were still pretty attached to our exes. And we were both very sexually attracted to each other. We click VERY well sexually, emotionally and personality-wise. At one point, he told me that he wanted to stop having sex since he valued our friendship so much. After telling me that, he went back and forth from rejecting my sexual advances to initiating them. One more thing you should know is that I am much more physically attractive than him (by everyone else’s standards, of course. I think he is just dreamy!). People at bars give us strange looks when they see us together, and my peers think he is downright ugly. Right before Christmas, we hooked up several times. After that, I did not hear from him until the first week in the new year. It was then that he told me that he had gotten back with his ex during the week he visited her over the break and that she is moving to Athens. Needless to say, I am heartbroken. My questions: he acknowledges our great sex and how much we enjoy being together. What more do you need to be girlfriend material?! Also, how much can he love her if he was able to have sex with me three days before seeing her again? What does she have that I don’t, damn it?! I have seen pics - she isn’t as cute, if that matters. I have not talked to him since, but I have not stopped thinking about him. Should I fight for what I want so badly, or should I walk away with my tail between my legs?

Oops, I forgot some details: The night he told me he was getting back with his ex, he tried to have sex with me (I turned him down and started crying like a pussy). He is about seven years older than me, but his girlfriend and I are the same age. Don’t know if this makes a difference.

Horny, Heartbroken and Hot

So neither of these people is as attractive as you are, but are they as humble? And if you are attracted to him despite his being “downright ugly” in the eyes of your peers, then why is it so difficult for you to imagine him loving his (obviously not as stunning) ex more than you? Could it be, could it just maybe be, that she is marginally less shallow? And that maybe he was just using you to fill the gap while he was away from her? It doesn’t matter what the time frame was, whether he had sex with you three days or three months or three minutes before he saw her. When he saw her again, he decided to go back to her. Difficult as that may be to swallow, he has made a decision, and you have to accept it. And hell, since you’re so hot, you shouldn’t have any trouble finding another guy, right?

Dear Unsigned:

Re: your query of Jan. 18

Could it be possible that one of your casual encounters doesn’t want to continue conversation with one that has proven herself to be a whore? A harlot? A slutbutt? Just how many innocent and unsuspecting gentlemen do you entice into your webbing of seductive succotash? How many do you juggle weekly, like bowling pins none-the-wiser? If men who are trying to fuck everything that moves are considered immature and incapable of a real relationship, then what about women who are, like you, just out to get fucked? And Jyl! Enabler of the whorehoppers! Your devil-may-care, we-bare-all, nude-by-the-lake meretricious, moonpie-in-the-sky attitude is pulling women away from the roles they were born to fulfill.

JBR

Dear Unsigned:

Girls who like to fuck and do so freely aren’t the kind of girls we’re going to bring home to mommy. Maybe if you kept your legs shut and learned a little responsibility, all of those himbos will stop treating you like the slut you are, and maybe you’d get to a second or third date sometime. Jyl, my archenemy, for you to propagate a myth that women who whore about like some kind of whore are somehow noble! Bah!! How can you say that such a beast is a rare jewel! How?!

Pookie

I believe that both of these gentlemen (I use that term loosely) have entirely missed Unsigned’s point. Correct me if I’m wrong, Unsigned, but I did not get the idea that the situation you were describing was a one-night stand, but rather a casual dating situation that cooled after you slept with the guy. Am I right? And I have to ask, bachelor number one, how is it that a woman becomes a whore after sleeping with a man (even if it is on the first date), and a man remains the same man? What exactly makes that slutty behavior? And where do you draw the line? Is it one guy per week? Per month? Per year? And how many dates are you required to have before you can acceptably have sex? Are we truly expected to fend off advances until such a time as we think you guys are going to respect us after we give in? P, the “rare jewel” remark stems from the many, many complaints I get from men about how women are constantly “nesting.” My male friends and readers (present company excluded, obviously) would kill for a woman who is independent enough to hang out with them, sleep with them and still have her own life. From the complaints I get, there just aren’t enough Unsigneds out there.

Jyl Inov Got a question for Jyl? Submit your anonymous inquiry via the Reality Check button over there.

Jyl Inov

Got a question for Jyl? Submit your anonymous inquiry via the Reality Check button over there.