Estimated reading time: 14 minutes
Since I’ve come into my 30’s, my decisions for a partner have been more focused on long-term stability and trust. I’ve had my hookups, fwbs, and so on, but when it’s come to whom I plan to build a life with, I’ve been mindful.
During my time single, I met a woman, and another. The first is “N” and the other, “M.” N and I connected deeply through the years. I was friends with her and her ex for a while, and when they broke up, she started to make advances towards me. I saw it as us being two grown adults, and that if we wanted to pursue a sexual or romantic relationship, that it would be our business. Her ex, despite my hangups of him being my friend as well, checked out of the situation entirely, and I feel, left the door open. We’re all still friends to this day, we’ve just kept our business and such to ourselves as we should.
Around this time, I met M. She’s remarkable, intelligent, clever with her humor, and the way she looks at me in our moments of looking eye to eye with each other is a warmth I don’t think I’ve ever felt. The catch to it all was her defensive posturing about it all. Her phrase for the longest time was, “I’m single, but I’m not looking.”
I couldn’t get a dedicated answer from her for a while, and I could tell she was scared to be hurt again. I put the relationship on hold until I could get the answer I needed, and, for a while, me and N began to see each other.
The intimacy I shared with N was nothing short of stellar. From simple hanging out to divine sex, she ticked practically every box as M did, just a lot more in the category of sex. Plus, we had the history to back our romance, and the organic growth of it. She felt right; sex felt like pieces of a shared soul reuniting.
However, she kept her own options open, and at a point, told me the fwb situation needed to be called off for a time; she got a boyfriend. It was of no worries to me, and I went about tending to my business. M was still one foot in, one foot out about it, so I made it clear that if she wasn’t going to take anything seriously, neither would I. But, we still kept in touch and talked often.
N called me a little over a month later, venting her frustration with the new guy, as he was, she felt, using her to get back at his own ex and that he wasn’t a pleasant guy to be around. I knew him as well – that checks out. She came over, and when we discussed her status, she told me they were downgraded to just talking. We resumed our physical relationship from there, and carried on.
But, I came to find out she didn’t have that same conversation with him, and I made an enemy, though unexpectedly. Her other ex, my friend, called me to vent about how she’d been trying to seduce him, and asked me if N was still with that guy. I didn’t know.
At first, I passed it off as a bad relationship gone sour. We hooked up periodically, and she dated around as I did. I still talked with M, who continued being vague, so that was whatever.
To put a long story short, I learned during a hookup with N that she fetishizes cheating. I have never seen a rictus grin like hers upon asking me “even though I have a boyfriend?” after clothes were off, and foreplay had progressed to sex. To this day, it unsettles me a little bit.
N would ask me after our hookups if I ever saw a future with us. I told her that I wanted that too. But, if that was what she wanted, that I understood if the fwb thing needed to stop, because I was aware of her cheating fetish, and that it was better for us not to stoke feelings that would just be left with nowhere to go. I won’t date someone like that.
I urged her to not use me as a tool to satisfy her fetish, even if I obliged like a bastard. (That’s my demon I deal with on my own, and not what this is about.) As of her most recent relationship, she did put a stop to our hooking up, and conveniently, M started making clear her feelings. I have no idea if N has continued her bad habit, and while we talk as friends and update each other on our lives every month or so as we did before we started having sex, a strange sense of longing and regret has settled in me.
M and I are now together. She is everything I’ve sought in a good relationship, and I know she’s the one I want to build my life with. But recently, I’ve been thinking about N. Why do I feel this nagging sense of wistful desire, even if at times, just physically? I keep having recurring dreams of N, and they go about how you’d expect. I wake up feeling terrible about it.
I know I wish N could have been the one, but I can’t change people. We’ve known each other for so long; we have so much in common. I’ve even stated in talks with my father that, were it not for the cheating, she’d be the perfect woman, even despite her flaws. She made me appreciate and love her for her after years of friendship. But I can’t look past how she is. No amount of incredible, practically bar-raising sex lets me see past what she craves. I would be a victim of her infidelity just as every other guy before me was. She cheated on my friend, then lied to cheat on him who came to hate me for it, then cheated on her following boyfriend with me and, as I found out, she maintained a roster of guys even in a relationship.
Meanwhile, M is incredible, fun, sexy, and makes me laugh so often with her antics and attitude. She is the crown jewel of my world. I trust her fully, and I fantasize about her and me and our life together daily.
My question is this: why, even in a lasting, beautiful relationship with the woman I dearly love and would trade the world for, can’t I trade away this sudden sense of longing for what could have been? N destroyed her chance and trust with me, so why do I find myself craving her still? Why, when all logic points in the direction I’m heading already? Is there something I’m missing here? Or is this just sour grapes on a fantasy that never existed in reality? And why did it come about only recently?
And be truthful if I’m just being selfish. I’d rather hear that and come to deal with it.
I’m a bit lost here. I’d like your advice.
Wasted Potential
It doesn’t really take Sherlock to solve this mystery, WP, you answer your own question right here:
“The intimacy I shared with N was nothing short of stellar. From simple hanging out to divine sex, she ticked practically every box as M did, just a lot more in the category of sex. Plus, we had the history to back our romance, and the organic growth of it.”
Shared history, emotional intimacy, bed-rocking, neighbor-annoying sex… yeah, bit of a head-scratcher why you might have sweaty dreams about N.
Look, this isn’t something you need to beat yourself up over. It’s not unusual and it doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with your relationship with M. Nor does it mean that you necessarily want her back in any meaningful sense. It’s the most normal, mundane, even thing in the world: you had a series of intense flings with her and it could’ve turned into more if it weren’t for the fact that she had a kink that you couldn’t rock with, and that she was being seriously unethical about indulging in it.
And if I’m being honest, I wonder if her kink was “cheating” or if it was cheating – that is, the difference between cuckoldry or the thrill of doing something wrong and getting away with it. It’s one thing to be into cucking a consenting partner; it’s another entirely when what gets you off is the fact that you’re doing something that would hurt the other person if they knew. One is a kink you may not be able to rock with; the other is one you shouldn’t.
I’m also not surprised that there’s a little bit of “what-if” going on in your subconscious. That too is entirely normal and doesn’t mean anything other than you are a person with a sexual and romantic history. Thinking about what might have been, whether consciously or subconsciously, is something people have done since we developed the capacity to understand abstract concepts like “the linear passage of time” and “imagination”. Everyone has times when they fantasize about what life would be like if the dice had rolled a different way or the dominos hadn’t fallen just so.
Those fantasies even have a bit of a leg up on reality; you’re seeing the relationship through that golden haze of nostalgia, which makes it easy to overlook the rather sizable dealbreaker in the room. It’s the “Good Parts” version of the relationship, without the inconvenient ethical pitfalls that came with what you had in the real world. If anything, it’s easier to imagine what could-have-been when you don’t have the inconvenience of having to navigate the issues that would’ve come up if you had pursued a relationship with her.
In fantasy and dreams, the relationship can be exactly what you want it to be. In reality… well, as amazing as the sex was, there was a big, blinking neon sign that said “Exit Here”, and you wisely took it.
But here’s the thing you should understand: the fact that there wasn’t a way to make things work doesn’t mean that you turned your feelings off like a switch when you cut off that aspect of your relationship. Ending a relationship, even when you end it for very good reasons, doesn’t purge all the good times out of your long-term memory.
There really isn’t any big, glaring contradiction between knowing that this relationship wasn’t going to work long term and still looking back on all the hot parts and thinking “… g’damn.” Unless it’s becoming intrusive – by which I mean that the fantasies and dreams are actively, negatively interfering with your waking life or relationship with M – then this is a big fuss over nothing.
Enjoy the dreams, rub one out to the memory if you feel like it, or plow that erotic energy into your relationship with M. That’s the great thing about fantasizing; the eroticism is fungible. You can apply it to your real-world relationships and everyone gets to reap the benefits.
But otherwise, just let yourself chill out about it. This isn’t a big deal. This will pass soon enough, and you’ll have other, different weird dreams and fantasies that’ll take its place.
Good luck.
Dear Doctor,
I’ve been talking with “Derek” since spring of last year, when we connected over social media. We bonded over our favorite anime, played Fortnite and FFXIV together and eventually we started meeting up for coffee in person. He very quickly became an important person in my life, who helped support me during very hard times. When I lost my job, he was there to help me look for a new one. When my cousin, whos like my best friend, was diagnosed with cancer, he let me cry whenever I needed to.
Our conversations started getting very flirty and I realized I had a crush on him. That was also around the same time that I realized that I was the person who initiated most of our conversations, which didn’t bother me much at first. But once we seemed to be flirting, I realized that we would reach a point where we would be talking about going on a date and then he would back out at the last minute. Or I would suggest that maybe there could be more between us and he would agree, but then he would be unavailable for a while. I always assumed that he was busy, as he was working 50 hour weeks, but it seemed like it happened whenever we were getting closer to being more than friends.
I decided that I didn’t want to keep giving my energy to someone who wasn’t going to match it, so I would pull back and then Derek would be texting me again and being very sweet. But when it felt like we were going to move forward, he would pull back again. It became hard to see him, and he would always say “let’s see” or “ask me again next week” if I suggested getting together. But if I mentioned that I was going to see a guy friend or that I was going on a trip, he would make jokes about the people who were hitting on me that felt weird to me.
I finally had enough and asked him hey what are we? Because I was getting tired of not knowing. Since then, the energy has changed again and he’s being very distant and it feels like I have to work even harder to get him to talk like we used to. My friends are all saying that he’s leading me on, but if that’s the case, why does he keep pulling away? If he’s not interested then why does he keep flirting and telling me how sexy he thinks I look when I post my ottds or grwms? I don’t want to lose my friend but I don’t like how this is making me feel.
Please help.
Go Away A Little Closer
He’s playing you, GALC. Pure and simple.
Look, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but this is a game to him. I would say that this is just breadcrumbing or back-burner-ing (that is: giving just enough attention to keep you around and interested, without actually committing to anything or investing anything himself) if it seemed like he was ever interested in actually doing anything.
Instead, he sounds like the sort of person who just likes having people be into him, even though he’s not really interested in them. This is, unfortunately, not uncommon, nor is it necessarily limited to romantic or flirty relationships; there’re plenty of platonic relationships that follow an equally toxic pattern. Someone playing games like this will provide exactly what they need to in order to maintain that hold on someone, but not a crumb more than that. They dangle their attention and care like a string in front of a kitten and pull it just far enough out of reach in order to keep them engaged. They’ll withdraw when their plaything gets too invested or starts making demands, but they won’t let them walk away either. If it seems like their toy is about to give up and move on, they’ll be back and giving a little more than before… enough to get you invested again and then they’ll start to pull that attention away again until you’re dancing for them again.
If I were feeling especially cynical, I would even suspect that he might have had intentions of going somewhere with this but changed his mind after you two started meeting up in person. Or maybe he’s always been playing head games with you. Ultimately it doesn’t matter, because the outcome is the same.
It may seem like a lot of effort if they’re not trying to keep you around as an “In Case of Sex Emergency, Break Glass” option, but some folks just groove on the fact they have this power over people – in the sense of “this person likes me more than I like them”, not the “Svengali” sense. The game, the attention and the control is what matters the most.
(Actually, check that: he didn’t get nudes or spicy selfies or videos from you, did he? Because sometimes people encounter a sub-variant of guys like this who like collecting pics like trophies…)
As it is, Derek may be a good guy in some respects – it takes a true sociopath to be a sympathetic ear or help someone get a job when they’re otherwise playing games – but the game he’s playing clearly matters more than the damage he’s doing with this Crouching Nice Guy/Hidden Douchecanoe schtick. This is a toxic situation and to be perfectly blunt, it’s not going to improve. You’ve already seen what happens when you try to call the question; all the sudden Waffles can’t come to the phone any more.
As tempting as it may be to call him out on it, I think you’re going to be better off just pulling the trigger and going no-contact with him. I would be shocked to my core if he actually did anything other than play dumb or gaslight you about what he’s doing. Quite frankly, the amount of effort you’d expend trying to get an explanation would be a waste. At best, you’ll get excuses. At worst, he’s more likely to try to Uno-reverse it on you and leave you more confused and frustrated than before.
It’s a strange game, and the only way to win is not to play. Don’t give him the satisfaction of an outraged reaction; drop him in the compost bin like the trash he is and don’t waste an iota of your mental or emotional bandwidth on him any longer. You’ll be much happier finding someone who doesn’t play fuck-fuck games with people’s emotions and will be honest with what they want and why.
Good luck.
