Open-Mouth Chewing, Replica Girlfriends, and “Why Is Dating So Confusing?”

by A Dude

I need help! After some (ill-advised, I admit) Facebook stalking, I realized I am an exact replica of my boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend. My best friend pointed it out and after asking other friends it has been confirmed: She is bizzaro me. My doppelganger. Hell, in one of her Facebook photos, she’s wearing a vest I have. After pointing it out, my boyfriend says he never noticed. It’s pretty hard NOT to notice. We have the EXACT SAME HAIR CUT, HAIR COLOR, BUILD, STATURE, EYE COLOR, AND SKIN COLOR. Should I be concerned? Does this say something about his type or maybe (which is where I am leaning) that he isn’t over her? They had a pretty stormy relationship, so I’m concerned that I’m literally a stand-in for her. He is adamant that he never noticed. I am adamant that the similarities are so striking you’d have to notice. Thoughts??? (This is so freaky that I’m worried that this is a conspiracy, Fringe-style.)

If it’s a conspiracy, then it’s totally a conspiracy of nature, because this is just one of those weird things people do. Sometimes I wish science would take on this subject instead of wasting so much time proving that beer drinkers and saffron eaters are more likely to sex it up. Because this is a legitimate biological quandary, and it demands attention. Seriously.

My college girlfriend dated a replica of me well after we broke up. She was open about it, too. They later got married. I’ve dated at least one ex-girlfriend clone. Somehow I didn’t realize it, even though all my friends were like, “she’s another version of your ex.” We did not get married. I know a guy who went from one sex blogger to another sex blogger and saw things work out with the second one, and I know a girl whose first boyfriend was a famous person so she’s been chasing that high with subsequent boyfriends ever since. The only lessons to take from any of this are that, one, the traits we like in ex clones can be very specific, and two, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything.

I have my own theory, which is that this phenomenon is related to “imprinting.” You know, that thing ducklings do where they assume the first thing they see is their mother and they follow it around all the time. Usually, it actually turns out to be their mother, but sometimes it’s a wheelbarrow or a basset hound. We invent our own archetypes sometimes, and when someone makes a big impression on us, say, by giving us lots of love, anything that reminds us of that after it ends can look like a substitute. At least, this is my theory. It’s admittedly not a very good one.

Some of this isn’t really that unconscious. After a breakup you do a lot of comparing new people to your ex. Sometimes this is a form of self-abuse, like when the ex has traits better than the new person and you get all filled with self-loathing. But mostly it’s a healthy thing, it’s how we learn about ourselves and move forward into the next relationship. When someone says they have a “type,” that’s an example of this. You might just be his type. Which is a good thing.

Anyway, this is a long way of saying that I don’t think it’s something to be that concerned about, unless he starts calling you by his ex-girlfriend’s name, which is probably indicative of other problems. In fact, please take notes! Let’s crowdsource this issue, since science doesn’t seem to want to help.

When you like someone, and you’ve been on three really fun dates with him, one of which went on … all night … what’s the next step? At the end of our first and second date, we made plans for the next one, but at the end of the third, we didn’t. This made me panic a bit and ask if I would see him again, and he said yes, but four days later, I haven’t heard from him. So is the ball in his court? After how many days of him not calling do I know that he won’t call, ever? And can I write him a nice e-mail at some later date telling him I enjoyed meeting him and that I wish him the best?

I can’t help but think that if you really like someone, you contact her or him, at least to make plans, after a day or two. Should I contact him? What is a casual, non-crazy way to do that? And if he says yes, he will see me again, is he just humoring me?

Sigh. Why is dating so confusing?

It’s not confusing, it’s terrifying. Dating is a psychological mine field, where decisions are usually governed by the pathological fear of scaring the other person off. This kind of pressure tends to also throw off your sense of logic. “He’s either going to see me in a wedding gown or a straight jacket, and obviously this will be determined by the timing of my next email!” Fortunately, it doesn’t work like that. Breathe.

Here’s the impossible-to-remember law of good relationships: they just happen. Two people find themselves in the same place at the same time, and the magnetic poles just line up right. If you think back to the beginning of any good relationship, it was either smooth and easy or it started in a haphazard fashion that you later decided was endearing. So don’t be afraid to trip over your words, or call once more often than you think you should. This may sound like that old “if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be” trope, but I don’t believe in that crap. I do, however, believe in timing and chemistry, and if either of those are off it’s the fault of the situation, not the people involved.

My point is this: If you want to know what he’s been up to the past few days, ask him. If you want to see him again, invite him to something. He might say yes! He might say no. If you really want to control the outcome, you should leave him a voicemail like this. Then you’ll know exactly where you stand!

I suffer from some topsy turvy trouble. The last two men I was involved with who I had serious feelings for weren’t attracted to me. The first relationship I ended, after a year and a half, in part due to how emotionally shredding it is to be with someone who clearly isn’t really into having sex with you, and in the second instance I was dropped because “you’re very pretty, but I just don’t really see you in that way.” Both breakups ended in friendships, at their requests. After more unpacking both confessed that they liked hanging out with me outside of the bedroom so much that they were willing to occasionally lie back and think of porn if that’s what it took to keep me around. This is baffling to me because a) aren’t girls supposed to have the opposite problem? And b) I’m tall, skinny with (natural) big tits and blonde hair and a face that’s in no way disfigured. Even through the fog of early-20s low self esteem I can see I’m pretty good looking.

So I tried the opposite tack and dated someone who I couldn’t talk about capital I-Ideas with, safe in the knowledge they must find me attractive. And that sucked. Now I’m living in a new city with limited friends and I’d really like a love life, but I’m pretty screwed up from all these shenanigans. It’s easy for me to pick up when I’m off-my-tits drunk, but not at all satisfying, plus I’d prefer to keep the cavalcade of miscreants that mar my sexual history to a minimum — not an easy task when you’re in a near blackout state. The guys I have actual conversations with all seem to end up friends-sans-benefits. Where I live people aren’t big on talking to strangers they think are cute without copious social lubrication, and I’m no different. I have no idea how to gauge whether friends-of-friends might be up for it, or what to do about it if they were. I’m great with boy friends but not boyfriends. Female friends suggest that this is because I am either intimidating or just very bad at flirting. This situation is giving me the sads. Short of continuing the drunken promiscuity in the hope of striking gold what should I do?

Once when I was in school I tried to join a regular pick-up basketball game with a bunch of guys I didn’t know very well. It was a new city for me, I wanted to make friends, and I hadn’t played in a while so my game was rusty. A few minutes into playing I put up an airball off an easy jumper. Great, I thought. These guys now all think I’m lame. My embarrassment must have radiated off me, because another guy on my team, a guy who was easily the best player on the court and whose approval I assumed I’d lost, felt compelled to come up to me on our retreat back to defense. “Just keep shooting,” he said. Pure wisdom. I may have missed, but that was in the past. There will be plenty more opportunities.

So that’s my advice here. Just keep shooting. Being good at dating is like being good at anything else. You have to find your rhythm. You have to find your game. It doesn’t matter what you start out doing, or what ideas you come up with to meet people, because some will work and some will be dead ends, and you’ll make adjustments on the fly. But just keep shooting. Give yourself permission to miss. Eventually you’ll be able to relax out there and things will start to happen.

Now, it’s easy to psych yourself out after a couple clangers. Try not to be so hard on yourself. Everyone has a bad streak now and then, and sometimes your sex life is just awkward for a while. Chemistry is not something that can be forced. It’s either there or it isn’t, and often that changes over time. There isn’t a lot you can do to control this, but that’s not all bad, because it means that a lack of chemistry isn’t your fault. One thing you can do, however, is get better at noticing when it’s present, when someone is looking at you in curious attraction and there’s that certain tension in the air, and being attuned to this comes with practice.

You see where I’m going with this. Just keep putting yourself out there. (In case it wasn’t clear, that’s what I mean by “just keep shooting.”)

My boyfriend does a couple of things that seem innocuous but DRIVE ME FUCKING BONKERS. These two things are: talking with food in his mouth and chewing gum with his mouth open. Chewing-related mouth noises are like nails on a chalkboard to me, so these two things really bug me. Every time he does these things I just want to yell at him because, on top of being really really annoying for me, it also makes him look more deficient in the manners-and-refinery department than he actually is. I hold my tongue, though, because he’s kind of sensitive and I have a way of delivering such critical comments in the worst, most condescending way possible. Is this the kind of thing that will make me look like an uptight, psycho bitch to bring up? Is there a way to have “your manners need spiffing up” conversations with a boyfriend without seeming mom-ish and hypercritical?

Does it make me a traitor if I contribute to this whole “How To Train Your Man” wiki that the lady magazines have been compiling for years? Because really, just love somebody for who they are and let that be the end of it.

Sigh. That’s not how it works. I know. I once had a girlfriend demand that I whiten my teeth. I once demanded that a girlfriend do a better job with the dishes. People leave hair on the sink, they don’t wash up after they shave, they leave a milk carton in the fridge with like a drop of milk in it. They think it’s okay to dress like that to dinner, they wear ugly sneakers, they go too long without a haircut. Sometimes they walk too fast or too slow, they insist or refuse to hold your hand, they’re too comfortable with kissing in public or not comfortable enough. You know that thing you do that I hate? Yeah, let’s fight about it again.

A couple words of advice. First, pick your battles. Make sure the thing you want to call to his attention is something that might actually end the relationship if it’s not fixed. Second, be incredibly gentle and as loving as possible. Chances are the thing you don’t like is something that he doesn’t like either, and calling attention to it might make him insecure, or worse, defensive. That’s how fights happen. “Look, I know this is probably my weird thing, but I’m having a very irrational reaction to the way you chew with your mouth open and, look, I know I have a bunch of habits that irritate you, and I’d probably be really annoyed if you asked me to change them, but if you chew with your mouth open at this fancy dinner with all my friends I seriously might lose my fucking shit. I’m sorry to ask you to be conscious of this. But it would really mean a lot to me.”

It’s not just a guy-girl thing — people generally don’t like to be told what to do. They don’t like their faults called out, it makes them feel deficient. This creates a power dynamic, it inspires rebellion, it fosters resentment. You don’t want any of that in your relationship. So don’t be arbitrary, and if it’s really that important just remember that you’re walking on someone else’s sensitive spots. Tread lightly. If you do this wrong, it will boomerang right back at you.

Previously: Tiny Mouths, Reciprocity, and the Itty Bitty [Bosom] Committee.

A Dude is one of several rotating dudes who know everything. Do you have any questions for A Dude?