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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
Hope you sort it all out. Dating post-online-stuff has gotten way better in some ways, worse in others. That Skype on & off stuff (which I've seen happen w/ other couples) is one of the "worse", IMO.)
Who knows why he did what he did? You never will.
Maybe he thinks that his behavior is Dommish; maybe he's punishing you for being a "whore" (even though that's what he asked for), when he wants to date a "madonna."
But really, who cares? Maybe he's damaged goods and maybe he's just a sadist--and not just in the bedroom. Either way, he's making you crazy and you don't need that--not from from someone established in your life, and certainly not from someone you just met
Focus on taking care of and figuring out yourself. Why would you continue to set yourself up for this abuse? Value yourself more than that . And that stuff that the self-help books say about this is true: no one will value you unless (A) you value yourself and (B) you demand it of them.
When you deep-down know that you deserve to be treated well and won't accept anything but, when you expect to be treated well and don't have the time to suffer anyone who won't, it will be apparent. You will give off subconscious signals, which will help to self-select for assholes. They will "naturally" stay away from you; decent human beings, conversely, will be more drawn to you. But you have to really believe you are worth being treated decently.
Tell yourself: "What he thinks of me is none of my business." Repeat as necessary.
So unless HLITL likes being the object of this manipulation--and it sure doesn't sound like she does--then, yeah, DTMFA, as soon and as definitively as possible. (And if she DID like it, I'd say she needs to talk to him about boundaries and such right away; if he wanted to find someone to manipulate like that, he should have been more clear about it.)
Meanwhile, he is a self-absorbed asshole, who NEEDS to be dumped fast and completely--do not pass go, do not collect $2000--just delete him and block him RIGHT NOW.
Answer: Three paragraphs. By the second one I said "DTMFA" and skipped to the end.
By the way, this kind of bullshit is what "DTMFA" is used for. It doesn't just mean "break up", as I've seen some people use it, it's intended for assholes who badly need to be dumped and the people who badly need to dump them.
[My therapist says I should DTMFA, that there's something wrong with a straight man who would turn down a casual fuck date with me.]
Far be it from me to White Knight for Teh Straightz Dudez (which Mr Savage does so much better than I ever could; I'll be good and avoid speculating about why), but - really? there is NO valid reason for an opposite-sexer man to decline LW's offer of a casual boink? (should I Mauve Knight for those of the bi persuasion and gripe about erasure?)
I will not quarrel with DTMFA, but I require the addition of DTFTA.
I mean, in context, it does make him look kind of crazy, since he was the one who labeled it a "fuck date." Dude is a douche-star who will explode into a super-douche-nova given enough time.
Is it bad that I read most of the letter thinking "typical startup engineer"? At least in terms of only having time for work and being a bad communicator.
Besides, this guy will have a dozen or two dozen hot women lined up to fuck him and try to "figure him out and change that bad boy to marriage material" anyway.
It's a win for both of them.
Also, there is the remark of Mr Savage - [I agree with your therapist.] And this is the only statement LW puts into therapist's mouth. Mr Savage's comment works as sarcasm, as he clearly sees enough damage in LW that one can hardly say she "deserves" (a big LMB) Hr Federer, Sr Nadal or even Mr Murray. But I doubt I'll sleep easily.
Oh dear, you've said one my trigger words.
You see, back in the day, wife decided to take up crew again, which meant getting up at 4:45am on weekdays and going to bed at 9pm. That didn't leave much room for socializing and fun times. After an unhappy year of that, we were leading separate lives. Had it gone on another year, I would have left her.
So, I can't help but think there is something sort of pathetic about how LW, a 25 year old woman, has nothing else to do in the evenings and can't stay up past 10:30. That's boring and sad.
LW - drop crew and take up a sport that contributes to your having a life. Or date a baker.
@29 I once dated a guy who was recently divorced. His ex-wife was a rower who got up at an ungodly hour. He blamed their divorce on her alarm clock.
Was she raised in a convent?
No disrespect, but for a grown-ass woman to be talking like this about a man in the twenty-first century is giving me serious pause.
(I am going to resist the urge to talk about fish and bicycles, because that's a seriously old trope, but still...)
While I stand behind Dan's response, I'm seriously questioning if the LW is truly non-fictional.
Wish I'd know about this, before I got with a man I spent 30 yrs with. One I had 5 children with. But of course, having an abusive Mother, programmed me for his self centred story. No excuse.
All sites re Narcissistic Personality Disorder say/ Cut All Communication.
And it's true. It's only from a distance.. That the manipulative games really show themselves. Cut This Man Out Of Your Life NOW.
Also, a therapist giving such straightforward advice (if it's really what happened) is not a good therapist. Not to mention that this guy's a douche not because he turned down the sex with you but because he acts as if you were a whore for agreeing to it, judges you for wanting to call him, tells you it's unattractive (!) and otherwise fucks with your brain, and all this in the first few weeks of knowing you. You even say that maybe you rolled out the D/s stuff too soon when he actually brought it up first. Come on!
Let me guess, when you meet someone interesting, you think of them all the time, want to talk to them every day, and are ready to jump into bed at the first opportunity. Guess what, that's okay, and you deserve to have all that and you need to look for people with whom you won't have to tone it down and pretend to be aloof and busy 6.5 days per week just to seem 'interesting'. It should never be so hard as this.
If the guy is into you, he will make time for you. Everything kind of points that he is juggling lots of balls in the air, concerning the dating scene.
Just move on, and Dan's advice is very spot on...
Because, if you don't/ this Man, or someone similar, will continue to hook you in.
-Penis issues. Why else make you wait so long? If you haven't seen video evidence to the contrary, I'd assume he's sh*t in the sack despite his promises.
and no, letter writer, you did nothing wrong, you may need a little help recognizing who is and who isn't worth your time. A person that makes you feel rejected and unattractive is not the type of person that requires a counselor's advice.
I wouldn't block him, since it may help you self-esteem when his funny and creative personality returns instead of one of the dick-headed multiples
If you are seeing a counselor, you'd be spending your money wisely to work on why a successful, single, attractive woman would think twice about seeing someone who made her feel rejected and unattractive. Your automatic first thought should be that he is not worthy. No more nude images unless you are feeling extremely generous, but never again to any person who takes you for granted.
It's impossible to have healthy self-esteem if you are treated the way this asshole treats you, especially when you are being so generous
1. Almost no one works at that hour, and kids are still in bed, so it's the most likely time that everyone in the boat has free time.
2. Racing shells are shockingly unseaworthy, and wind waves or power-boat wakes make it difficult to row. During fair weather, winds tend to be lightest before the sun heats up the land, and recreational boat traffic is minimal at dawn. You can row through small waves (rowers' "big waves" are kayakers' "what waves?") but it's not as enjoyable when the oar is whacking into the wave tops during the recovery stroke.
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Savag…
So maybe they met two weeks before the Disclosing column ran, and then in week 3 he shut down all sex, not even kissing her -- because he read that it would make him an asshole to have sex with her without disclosing first. This particular guy is obviously an asshole either way, sex or no sex, but it just amused me to think of this asshole trying to please the slog commentariat.
And are you truly living such a 'no one would care' life that porn videos floating around, tied to your real name, in the one-time possession of a creepy asshole, are not something that could turn into a negative?
Let people have their hobbies. Not everyone has to go out twerking or stay up to watch Chris Hardwick's @Midnight.
I thought he may have found out he had some STD or something like that around week 3 and didn't tell the LW for fear of rejection or because he didn't want to give out the fact he was having sex with other people while he was already "dating" her.
Second, most human socializing takes place in the evening, whether it's in a bar, restaurant, theater, friend's house, dance floor, concert hall, or in your bed after the kids have gone to sleep. If you never participate in these experiences because you have to be up at the crack of dawn, than I'm sorry, but you are boring and sad. I'm sure there are plenty other boring and sad people you could date - thank god for online dating sites or you'd never meet each other.
Kind of funny that everyone is baffled by the guy's behavior - it seems we all expect a man to go for the sex at every opportunity, and when he doesn't, there's something fundamentally wrong with him. (He has a personality disorder! He doesn't have a penis!)
This asshole dom likes to mind-fuck people, which never involves being honest or transparent. It involves mixed signals like asking her to masturbate for him and other sexual acts, then rejects the real thing in person.
Being honest would entail admitting he is a porn collector, mind-fucker, and a time-waster
and if not, it's just plain shady behavior, either straight up asshole/manipulator or it's likely there is serious lying by omission
honesty and transparency is the least likely scenario, and she could know for sure by asking him a few simply questions to take all the guess work out of the equation
lol
Teal Deer says: he’s worried she’s out of his league.
Yeah, he’s being a dick about it. But I’ve painted myself into that corner more than once and it takes a lot of self-awareness to get out of it gracefully.
@EricaP: OK, fair enough.
He says he likes to have "control in the bedroom." I think he likes to have control, period. What he is doing now is fucking with you to see what he can get away with, and how much you are willing to go along with his head games. First he gets you to feel bad about yourself; then he shuts down the sex, presumably to put you more on the defensive and to be trying to get back on his good side (her's a hint: he doesn't actually have a good side) which you are doing with the nude selfies and the shaving your pubes. Once he has you good and trained to accept his bullshit without question and to be desperate for any bone of attention he throws your way, he will have exactly what he wants: control. Of you.
You only have two real life dates invested in this turd. Scrape him off already.
There's pretty much zero chance that these pics and vids are not already online.
You should set basic limits to what you'll accept from a potential sex partner.
* Shaming you about anything sexual is an automatic dumping offense, whether a partner's shaming you to get more sex or less sex.
* Not kissing on the lips after a date, when you've asked for it ? It means he's not interested in you. Don't contact him again, and tell him "it's not working" if he's foolish enough to contact you.
* Any guy who doesn't call inside 48 hours after I've given him my phone number is dead to me.
As for the therapist, er, no, there are straigth guys who will turn down a casual fuck date with a 25-yo. But this particular guy is an asshole, he's not interested in you, and he does all this just because he's an asshole and the longer you're letting him do it, the worse it's gonna be for you, so you should cut all contacts now.
And about his endless need for your pictures, read #61 above.
@vennominon: You don't know what I look like. Who are you to say I don't deserve Roger Frederer to fuck me? I fucking think I do.
and @seandr: I'm glad you were able to shame your wife out of going to crew, like this douchebag was trying to shame me out of getting my sexual needs met. You're just as much a winner as my abortive boyfriend, but your wife hasn't gone back to the drawing board. Quit apologizing for him and trying to figure out the mystery of what's wrong with HLITL. Hardy Boy.
@Dirtclustit, thx for defending the crew lifestyle for me, it is truly the most BDSM of fancy sports that people will like at the country club. Each race is an act of masochism.
@lucida c. and others, I agree that initial thing about the fuck date was really weird. I included it because I thought it was such a bookend for all of his subsequent behavior.
@avast2006 this advice is all advice gold.
Thank you Dan and everyone who commented!
@rowing@dawn
A girl's gotta be careful about more than STD's in the digital age. Unfortunately, there are many guys out there like the guy you met. Even if you like to lose control in the bedroom, don't lose control outside the bedroom. I never give out "pics". Even slightly risqué pics can be "photoshopped" into something you might not want out there.
I agree with others that say this guy is a controlling A**hole who isn't worth your time. Let this be a learning lesson. Protect your heart before a friend/lover proves they are worth caring about. You can want to be dominated in the bedroom without letting yourself be controlled outside the bedroom. It's OK to say "No" or "Maybe, someday" depending on the request.
As for the rowing ...
It's a great sport, but you may want to take a break from it sometime to be more social. You could use other sports (running, biking, hiking, tennis, roller-blading, ... ) as cross-training and to meet a new circle of friends, both male and female.
Good luck to you in the future.
Do you seriously buy into the concept of anyone "deserving" the sexual attentions or interest of anyone else? I could make a long philosophical post about the difficulties, even accepting such a system, of looks equating to accomplishment, but I'll leave it out. Your letter, which Mr Savage summed up in a way with which I nearly entirely agree, was not the letter one would expect to be written by someone with a sincere conviction of "deserving" someone of superlative achievement.
The sincere belief, though, that something is "wrong" with an opposite-sexer male who would decline a casual boink date with you is a big red flag. There's no such thing as universal appeal, and people can have plenty of reasons besides having something wrong with them to decline to do something even if inclined in favour. Your therapist is promoting your disregard for the agency of others in taking such a line. Whom you do or don't "deserve" is a mere throwaway; being led to think other people aren't entitled to their own standards and preferences is a seriously wrong direction. Dump the therapist.
@Anonymous in the City, I agree. Just because I don't think nude pics are a big deal doesn't mean everyone does, and I trusted this asshole way too soon, because I was excited to be dating someone I found attractive/liked a whole lot and who I thought was interested in D/s. It's super useful when you're getting interested in a guy on the internet to send a titillating image or two, so I'm not going to never do it again. But next time I'll use Snapchat or something better copy-protected than Dropbox and not distribute nearly so many.
Plenty of 'human socializing' (my God your vocabulary is creepy too, seandr) takes place at times other than party o' clock, and you know how I know? Because I'm fucking awake and doing shit then. Rowing is a great opportunity to meet people, not that you would know because you're not a rower. You're just a boring, sad guy with nothing better to do than pick apart a letter you read from a rower you'll never meet.
So I'm apologizing now. Sorry.
Hardly. It was my stupid idea to begin with ("You should totally start rowing again, babe!"), and she only quit because her back started hurting. Had I left her, it would have taken months for her to notice because CREW!
Crew is a horrible, evil sport that tears through lives and leaves nothing but scattered heaps of devastation, chaos, and lament in its wake.
Whichever it is (and it doesn't really matter which), I am willing to give the therapist a pass on the hypothesis that it was a poorly worded attempt to say that whatever is going on, this is so not about you, your characteristics, or your issues.
"I didn't want to be unfair to all the sensitive straight guys (*cough* MRAs) out there"
Well, now you _are_ beginning to dig that hole.
A couple of qu from a woman of mature yrs. what is it with women shaving their pubic hair off( along with leg hair, armpit hair)?
Men these days need their women looking like little girls?
And why send vids of oneself masturbating, surely enough porn online to cover any mans desire for same.
Has feminism freaked men out so much over the last 40 yrs, women finding their sexual power, that they need to debase and humiliate?
-I learned recently that BDSM is not about pain or using restraints etc, but about roleplaying sexual ownership. A group of commands is agreed to be given by the dom and followed by the sub at some time or in some setting. It's more like a coach going through drills than just pain. Without this element, sex is not BDSM (vanilla?). Even hot wax play tied upside down is just called topping and bottoming, not D/s without the role play.
You seem to be into taking sexual commands, but do you exercise the necessary communication skills to negotiate where, when and what group of commands you want? Not that I think it would help with this guy.
Maybe he is more into control than sex, or maybe he's inept or anatomically clueless, or maybe he can't get it up or is STD contagious or was not born with a penis or maybe he's just not into you. Penis problems; mouth says yes, penis says no. Any way you look at it, the PiV is gonna suck. Even if he's into control; great bedroom game is the trump card and he'd use it if he had it.
Sounds like Crossfit!
BDSM is shorthand for bondage and discipline; sadism and masochism; and dominance and submission -- what Wikipedia calls a "compound initialism." If you like just one piece (getting tied up, say), then you can say you're into bondage to be specific, or BDSM if you're not feeling like being specific. There's no rule that says you have to take the whole package -- it's just a way of building community among people who like different bits.
Just as the LGBT acronym pulls people together to make common cause, so too the term BDSM pulls together people who enjoy some aspects of BDSM, to make common cause with people who are more into other aspects.
I don't care if you're Christina Hendricks' double, you don't "deserve" the fucking of anyone. They actually get a say in deciding how attractive you are and whether you seem worth the effort. (Which even for casual sex, is not strictly based on physical form. Personality matters, though less than it does for convincing someone to want to date you.)
@70: If your therapist claims all non-psychotic straight men are horndogs incapable of turning down an offer of sex from any vaguely attractive female, I'll sign on with the advice that you dump the therapist. That's just silly. (I will admit that "any guy who doesn't want to fuck you is an MRA who hates women" is a spin on "any guy who doesn't want to fuck you is gay." Just not an improvement.)
I think Mrs. Avast @78 is onto something with performance anxiety. Rower was supposed to be in awe of his dominant side, not delighted to test drive that baby right now.
I went off the market before the internet was A Thing, but I believe the advice to exchange a couple of e-mails, then meet for coffee, is dead-on. Extended electronic foreplay seems to be a marker for one person expecting the in-person meeting to lead to disappointment. Or just be more effort than thinking up texts with dirty emoticons.
Seriously, you list each item as if it was all one big puzzle when EVERY DAMN ITEM was enough to run away from. I thought this letter was a fake because there are utterly batshit people the world that could see this forest for the trees. Up the therapy to 3x a week and try to find your self-esteem before you get stuck with someone even worse. Love and sex don't hurt, unless you want it to. :)