The Guide to Getting It On (173 page)

He stood staring at this babe like a deer in front of headlights. He felt so paralyzed that he couldn’t even mobilize the words to invite her inside. After about twenty awkward minutes of trying to deal with the situation, the young goddess blew the baffled boy a puzzled kiss and drove away, never to return. Many years have passed since this fellow botched the Summer of Love. For much of his life, he continued to feel clumsy and awkward whenever he met a woman who he was attracted to.

On Being a Sex Object

People usually associate “being a sex object” with being a woman. However, this is about a guy named Steve who women treated as a sex object. Steve was tall, blond, blue-eyed and had a perfect body. In addition to being a fine surfer, he was a male model who was actually straight.

Everyone was thrown into total shock one night at Steve’s tearful lament that he wished women would stop wanting him just for sex. It was a problem none of us could relate to. Steve was in a total funk because women were constantly diving for his crotch.

It’s difficult to imagine that physical attractiveness can get in the way of leading a happy life, but people who are physical 10s are sometimes rather lonely. Friends of the same sex are often envious and sometimes feel threatened by the attention that the 10s seem to get. Members of the other sex often stare or act bizarrely. People who are extremely attractive sometimes marry simply for protection.

What’s Wrong with This Picture?

The opposite problem of being a 10 is when you are less than beautiful and have someone who is drop-dead gorgeous show a romantic interest in you. Instead of responding romantically, you might be saying to yourself, “Naw, can’t be true. Big mistake here.” While the physical 10 may be begging for romance, the less-than-10 is turning a great opportunity into a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom. Sometimes other people can see beautiful things in you that you have no idea even exist.

People Who Claim “The Opposite Sex Is Worthless”

Some people choose sexual partners who can’t supply any of their emotional needs. It’s as if they would be horribly overwhelmed to find a partner who could be both a friend and a lover, and therefore not quite so “opposite.” Perpetual victims such as these claim that they are more mature and able to love more than their moron partners.

The fact is, people who have a healthy self-regard do not suffer the presence of fools and jerks, let alone sleep with them. The perpetual victim is just as immature and has as many problems with intimacy as does the jerk whom he or she dates or marries. Neither has much to brag about.

Giving Friendship a Chance

The male-female relationships that we usually teach our children to value are those with romantic potential. As a result, men and women approach each other as potential sex partners rather than as potential friends.

Platonic male-female friendships are a wonderful thing, but they sometimes become endangered if one person starts to feel sexual and the other doesn’t. A lot of male-female friendships never happen because people are unable to work it out when one of them wants sex or romance and the other just wants friendship. Knowing that a friend wants romance when you don’t can be uncomfortable. However, if he or she were given the time and understanding to cool his or her jets, the nonsexual friendship might flourish for years to come. As for the person who feels smitten and then bitten, keep in mind that a platonic friendship often lasts for years, while that is not always the case with romantic affairs. You might be losing out on something special if you aren’t able to accept the person as a friend instead of as a lover.

Another factor that often destroys male-female friendships is jealous spouses or partners.

Initiating Sex When Holding Is What You Need

Some people find it hard to acknowledge that they need to be held. Asking might make them feel weak or vulnerable. So they sometimes initiate sex when what they really may have wanted was physical tenderness and comfort. Fortunately, the desires for sex and tenderness often overlap, which allows us to receive both at the same time. But sometimes we need more of one than the other. Hopefully you can evolve a set of signals that will help your partner know what you need, assuming you know yourself.

In Love but out of Sync

It’s the saddest thing in the world when people have powerful feelings for each other but can’t make their relationship work. For instance, one of you might become more settled and grounded earlier in life than the other. You may feel like putting down roots or becoming established while the other is still an emotional tumbleweed who needs to experience the outside world and soak in whatever it has to teach. The lack of synchrony forces a breakup, or maybe there’s a missing level of sensitivity or maturity that one partner won’t have for several more years. While you may not have any desire to get back together, there might always remain a place in your heart for the other person.

Breaking Up

Breaking up is the sort of thing that you should write a whole book about. Otherwise, you risk being trite about a phenomenon that can leave even the strongest of hearts totally shattered.

Contrary to what you might think, breaking up isn’t always accompanied by a big fight or a hell storm of hostility. In fact, sometimes you spend your last hours together holding each other tight, with a kind of desperate, profound sadness in your hearts. And even if you are the one who is doing the leaving, the final steps toward the door can sometimes feel horrible. Necessary, but horrible.

Stupid Mistakes — Young vs. Old

If anyone ever tells you that making stupid mistakes is from being young and will pass as you get older, don’t make the really stupid mistake of believing them.

True, you usually don’t make as many mistakes as you get older, but that’s only because your brain doesn’t work nearly as fast. As your brain slows down, you simply don’t have the opportunity to make mistakes with the same lightning speed that you once did.

Forgiving Yourself

Every once in a while we say or do something so stupid that even friends talk about having us committed. This can be particularly devastating when it results in the loss of friendship or love.

The best thing you can do in these situations is to figure out how and why you messed up. Then do what you can to mourn the loss and get on with your life. While there is much to be gained from introspection, there is little to be gained from beating yourself up. On the other hand, if you suffer from a perpetual case of foot-in-mouth, it is possible that there is a chronic confusion or anger in the depths of your soul that prevent you from using good sense. In that case, the input of a respected friend, teacher, colleague, relative or therapist might be an important thing to seek.

The Fantasy of Love & Commitment

When you feel particularly empty inside, it’s easy to have the illusion that things will be better if you can just find someone to love.

Love is a special way of sharing friendship that can bring tremendous joy. It allows you to think and worry about someone other than yourself, which can be a much-needed relief. It also lets you know that there is someone who believes in you when you don’t believe in yourself. But in spite of all its pluses, it’s unlikely that love will take away your fears and insecurities, organize your chaos, cure your bad habits, help you to lose weight, stop smoking, get in shape, or turn you into a better human being—not in the long run anyway. Our personal demons are things we usually need to conquer on our own.

The Dark Side — Nights of Quiet Despair

Sometimes you get hit by a certain mood, one that’s a quiet mix of frustration, hopelessness and despair. It’s when something deep inside you isn’t working right, something incredibly human, but you can’t put a finger on it.

Sometimes it becomes a contest between you, the despair and the beer, pills, sleep, food, sex or whatever it is that helps make you feel better. Presidents’ wives tell you to just say no, the disc jockey on the all-night radio station never plays the song you need, and a river of pain cuts your heart in two.

Nights of quiet despair sometimes go away by morning.

Dear Paul,

Ever since I graduated from college my sex life has taken a big nose dive. I have had sexual intercourse ONCE between then and today! I had a healthy sex life in high school complete with true love and several short-term physical relationships. That was when I wasn’t even an adult. Now I am almost 30, and for most of my 20s my sex life has been NO life at all. I am not at all physically unattractive, although I am somewhat shy and keep very busy. I think my problem is not meeting women. I dislike bars. I do not feel my sex life is representative of a mature, healthy adult male, and the lack of physical intimacy bothers me considerably. Both of my house mates have the same problem, and I know many other guys do. Paul, what is up with this problem, and besides offering your own suggestions, can you direct me to some resources that might help me locate and meet available women? —Blue in Boulder

Dear Blue,

Regarding your question about helping you to locate and meet available women, the odds in Internet dating are stacked way towards women, but if that provides a safety net, see if you can make it work. Also, given your age, a lot of single women are going to have children. If you are good dad potential, don’t forget to mention that, but in the current environment, you’ll need to do it in such a way as to not sound like you’re trolling for children. Maybe saying you hope to have a family some day will put out the right signals.

As for the other matters you listed, here’s my personal take.

High school and college may not fill our lives with happiness and bliss, but they do provide an important social safety net. I can remember my own horror at finally having to leave college. I hadn’t gotten into medical school, I didn’t feel like doing grad work, and my girlfriend had just given me the boot. I didn’t know it was possible to feel so awful. I got a job waiting tables—which is the equivalent of leaving school but not really. I wrote and floundered for a couple of years until I finally went back to graduate school when I was about your age. I didn’t get laid much during that time. I also made the huge mistake of doing what you are doing—trying to find ways of meeting women. There is no shortage of books on that subject. But I’m not so sure they will help, and I don’t know if they are what you need. In fact, I strongly encourage you to do something else with your time besides focusing on how to meet women.

Please take a moment to imagine that you only have a couple of hours to live. I am willing to bet that even if you had been a stud lover and had created wet spots on mattresses all over Boulder, memories of your love life wouldn’t bring you tremendous amounts of solace in the face of death. I don’t think it’s sex that would make you feel like your life had been worthwhile. What’s more important are the contributions that you’ve hopefully made in life.

For instance, if you had volunteered in a program where you helped people learn to read, or helped make your community a better place, you would have something to look back on with pride, not that being good in bed doesn’t help a community be a better place. Or what if you helped build a park or coached a soccer team—not that an affair with a bored soccer mom wouldn’t do you both a world of good. (Am I saying you’ll find more women by coaching their kids than by hanging around bars?)

Instead of wasting your time trying to find a bed partner, why not do things that will make you a better person? Please, don’t think I am suggesting that you take part in altruistic events as a thinly disguised sham for meeting women. There is nothing more obnoxious than people who volunteer for things with the ulterior motive of trying to find love or sex. But do try to improve yourself, and maybe love will come. Maybe it won’t. People who are vitally involved in life tend to have an energy that attracts others.

Counterpoint:
I can’t tell you how many dying people I’ve heard from who have begged to differ—not about the solace that living a meaningful life can offer, but about their thoughts as the end was approaching. For instance, I received an e-mail from a dying man who said the thing he was enjoying most in his waning moments was his memories of sex. And I received this:

“I’m a 58-year-old widower who was married to a supernova of a wife for 25 years. I was a horrifically shy young man. She was the second woman I’d been with. As she was leaving life with stunning poise and bravery, one of the aspects of her life that she specifically named as being valuable and memorable was our love life, so don’t be so sure about how inconsequential this is.”

I stand corrected!

Dating a Single Parent

There is an amazing pool of women to date that some guys don’t realize exist. However, these women come with strings attached besides the ones on their IUDs—kids!

While plenty of single moms are only interested in long-term relationships, others will say it’s the last thing they want. Having a trustworthy guy to meet for sex and conversation could more than fill some single mom’s bills.

While a man who dates a woman without children should be aware of things like restaurants, movies and condoms, a man who dates a single mom needs to know about babysitters. No babysitter, no date, unless it’s a family date or the kids are at their dad’s. So learn about baby sitters. The first words out of your mouth after a single mom agrees to go out with you should be, “Can I help pay for the sitter?” and “This isn’t the time for me to be meeting your kids, but I can pick up a pizza for them.”