Friends’ Relationships, Sex, and the Ones Who Get Halfway Away

by A Lady

1. Is there a loving, appropriate way to handle a friend who you feel moves too fast in relationships? Like maybe a friend who moved across the country to continue a relationship that you suspected should have ended a year before it did, who then finally gave up trying to win that person back and moved back home six months after the relationship ended, but who is now asking you to analyze conversations they are having on OkCupid? And also every time you GChat, this friend tells you when the person they are talking to last logged in to OkCupid? Or is that normal now? I am a married person and so am admittedly already not wholly able to empathize with this situation. How would one let this friend know you love and support them, without engaging them in behavior that seems like it is maybe not healthy?

It doesn’t sound like you want to handle a friend who moves too fast in relationships, it sounds like you want to handle a friend who’s sometimes annoying. (Because you can’t really tell a friend not to pursue someone just because they’re on another coast, no matter how insane it seems to you.) Anyway, it sounds like your friend’s a little tone-deaf not to realize her conversation’s getting repetitive. I had a friend who did that once, too — chatting almost every day, at all hours, about the minutiae that [whatever soon-to-be-inconsequential man of the month] was doing/texting most recently. It was overwhelming, and I eventually told her that I couldn’t keep up, and then, when that didn’t work, that I couldn’t talk during work hours but could we catch up over dinner this weekend, and she eventually sort of caught on.

And I’m not entirely sure how being married prevents you from empathizing with her, but I’ll take your word for it.

2. In the grander scheme of unhealthy relationships and identity struggles, the following seems pretty trivial, I know, but I feel like my friends will think I’m stalky bananas if I ask them, and I just need a solid second opinion so I can move on to other things in my head.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about an old bud I’ve lost touch with. We were non-romantical but very close friends who had lots of laughs and adventures for a few years and then just drifted away from each other. We were very young and ended up in different states, which happens, I guess. When I say non-romantical, I honestly mean it didn’t occur to me once; he was a little younger and I was preoccupied with whatever post-adolescent man-boy drama I had going on at the time.

It’s been a couple of years, and while I didn’t really think about him for a long while, it has recently occurred to me that he was goddamn wonderful and that we had really great chemistry. He made me laugh and that’s something I don’t do enough. And I was silly when I was around him. And we bickered a lot. And he was handsome and smart and kind. Yeah, I was an idiot clearly.

So here comes the question part:

I guess first: Am I fucking delusional?! I don’t know this guy anymore! He could be partnered up and I am NOT messing with that. He could not be interested. He doesn’t live in the same state! Is this just me being long-term single and bored? Shouldn’t I just go to a bar? Doesn’t this seem a little high school to have a crush on an unavailable guy? Guy from my past feels one small step away from fictional character, to be perfectly honest.

Secondly: If I do want to re-establish the friendship, there’s a bit of a logistics issue. We no longer have any friends in common, so Facebook seems the way to go. Problem being I’m not on social media. I could pretend it’s because I like old-fashioned things like phone calls and letters, but to be perfectly honest it’s more to do with apathy and laziness. So after years of refusing to get on Facebook, it would feel pretty stalky to set one up just to reconnect with one person. Obviously when I’m on there I would use it like a regular person to snoop at wedding photos and post pictures of my meals, but still it seems like a lot of effort just to maybe see if someone I was once friends with is still as awesome as I remember.

So basically I need either a resounding “Get out of the past, you loon, and go meet a boy in a bar” or a “Hey, there is no harm looking this guy up. Nothing may come of it, but you might just re-find an awesome friend.”

“Stalky bananas” — I like that. But I also think you can and should do both of those options. Go to the bar (not that you’ll meet anyone there, necessarily! Ugh bars, but also: bars!), but also what’s the harm in sending him a note or looking him up? It sounds like it might drive you more nuts not to scratch that itch. But to repeat what you said, his current self might not look a lot like the version you’re remembering. But whatever, maybe he’s even better. Maybe you’re even better. Get in touch! Why not, you know? Lots of people reconnect for weirder reasons, and after far longer stretches of non-communication.

And just send him an email! No need to join Facebook. “Thinking of you / hoping you’re well / wanted to say hi / funny thing that happened to me that reminded me of you / whatever / other thing / etc.” And if you say you don’t know his email …

3. I am a virgin. I am 23. I know that it’s not that abnormal, blah blah blah, but I want to have sex. I feel like I’ve done something heinous or been unattractive enough to screw myself out of, well, screwing.

Maybe your advice will be that I should wait for someone I can be honest with, and maybe I don’t have a choice, but I really just want to join the club and get going. I’m worried about alienating someone who may be right and making him think that I’m less mature, adult, or intelligent than I am because of this one thing; afraid of it being true; but also worried that if I do have a random encounter to lose it, I won’t come out of the experience with much more knowledge than I have now and won’t have the chance for a repeat session to make sure I have everything right.

First off, anyone who thinks you’re less mature, adult, or intelligent simply because you haven’t had sex only highlights his or her own lack of maturity and intelligence. No question there whatsoever.

I was in your shoes, except at 21. I was desperate to have sex, not because I wanted it physically, or because I was in a great relationship or even a mediocre one (I wasn’t in one at all, and hadn’t been, ever, for longer than a month or two), but because everyone else seemed to be having sex, and because that made me feel like an outsider. I just wanted to do what other people were doing, to talk about what other people were talking about. There were a variety of bizarre have-sex-quick schemes that I bailed on at the last minute — or maybe just one that involved a friend’s friend from another school, which is somehow looming especially large and ridiculous in hindsight. In the end, there was a sweet guy I was dating for a while and knew I didn’t feel particularly strongly about, but he was kind and smart and we got along, and we were making out one day and started to get ready to have sex, and I said “I’ve never done this before,” and he said okay and asked if I was sure, and I said yes, and so we did. It was pretty underwhelming, but not in a sad or weird way. It was like, “okay, got it.” We broke up shortly thereafter, but have stayed loosely and platonically in touch the past 15 years. Not that that’s relevant, but the fact that we at least kind of liked each other on a deeper level has been nice, I guess.

The funny thing is that in the end there was a bigger gulf between having average sex and having good sex than there was between having no sex and having average sex. And I didn’t have great sex until I was 28.

Oh, and I met a guy I started dating seriously about six months after that first encounter, and when I’d told him about all my schemes to lose my virginity, he thought I was nuts. In a nice way.

Which is all to say: wait it out! Except, I know what receiving that advice feels like — a pat on the head, essentially — so if you don’t want to wait it out, and just want to get it over with, find someone nice, be safe, don’t be too drunk, and don’t worry about it being amazing or anything. (Maybe you’ll surprise yourself.) But if there’s any way to just not worry about it, try not to worry about it. I strongly believe it’ll eventually seem microscopic compared to other stuff you’ll have going on.

Previously: Ask a Clueless Lady

A Lady is one of several rotating ladies. Do you have any questions for A Lady?