Exhausting Women, Sexual Latecomers, and “Peck Peck Peck, Dart Out”

by A Dude

I’m a 23-year-old woman fresh out of college and living in a large city. Admittedly, I’ve never been the girliest of girls. I’d rather watch sports than a rom-com. My favorite movie is The Big Lebowski. I genuinely enjoy beer, gin, and whiskey. And I don’t need eight separate people to approve my outfit before I leave the house.

Don’t get me wrong, I have some very close female friends, but for the most part I find women exhausting. This is particularly true when it comes to going out. As such, I often find myself opting to hang with my male friends on the weekends. And I mean “friends” in the strictly platonic sense. Unless they’re all secretly harboring feelings for me I don’t know about, not one of them has in any way indicated that he sees me as more than a friend, and I the same. They’re all my bros, and I want to keep it that way.

Here’s the problem: I’ve simply accepted that no other man in his right mind would dare try to strike up conversation with me when I’m out with my guy friends, as they likely assume I’m dating one of them. I don’t want to sound vain, but I’m a tall, leggy, blond woman who puts effort into her appearance. I don’t obsess over it, but I like to look nice and feel sexy, like any other woman, gin-drinking or otherwise. It’s not that I want to be hit on all the time, but I just got out of this complicated … er … prolonged tryst? … with a guy I fell head over heels for who couldn’t reciprocate my feelings. He shattered my heart. I want to move on, and I want to meet new men and have fun. But I can’t help but feel that I’ve accidentally fortified myself behind this seemingly impenetrable penis fence, thus scaring potential new guys away.

I suppose what I’m trying to get at is this: Is there any way for me to hang out with my male friends but still make myself available to other guys?

Are you one of these babes? No? Well, nonetheless, you aren’t that unique. You sound like a boring online dating profile; get over yourself.

There’s a deeper reason why you’re hanging around all dudes, and it’s not because you want to drink gin. My guess is you subconsciously enjoy the attention. Believe it or not, there are other cool, non-exhausting women out there. You’re 23, there’s still time to meet new friends. Oh and at least one of the guys definitely is interested in you. Just trust me on this.

Your situation is simple. As you said, hanging out primarily with dudes is an epic cockblock. The effort you put into looking sexy is like raising a spinnaker upwind — pointless. So if you choose to enjoy the company of platonic dude friends who are secretly in love with you, you have two options:

1. Approach guys. We aren’t used to this, and when it happens it’s fucking awesome. We love it. Just think of yourself as a gay dude in a sexy lady’s body.

2. Invite your ladyfriends out to join the 100%-not-wanting-to-bang-you guys. I’m certain the dudes will approve. Spread the dicks out a little bit; create some lady space. Keep in mind the attention from the dude friends will shift away from you.

A guy I had a casual, friends-with-benefits relationship with seems pretty over the whole “benefits” part of our relationship. Without outright saying it, he’s recently managed to get himself out of any sex but is still really active in texting/chatting/being in regular touch with me. I’ve asked him what’s up, he acted guilty and pretended like he’s been really busy. I’m not delusional, but the problem is, how do I maintain this friendship when I’m the only one left wanting sex? I don’t want him to be out of my life, but every time he reaches out to me and ignores the fact we ever fucked, it drives me insane. I feel like this would be easier if he were just out of my life altogether, but I don’t want to KICK him out of it… he’s still a dear friend and it’s not like this was a messy or damaging break-up.

FWB never works. Want proof? Check out these plot summaries:

• Emma proposes that they have casual sex with each other, setting some ground rules for each other to prevent their relationship from becoming too serious. At first things go well, but then Adam starts becoming jealous of the possibility of Emma being with another doctor, Sam.
• The story centers around two professionals who meet but are too busy to find a mate. They agree to have an intimate relationship with no strings attached. Things get complicated when the guy falls for the girl, who’s dating someone else.
• So what DOES happen when two close friends decide to secretly blur the lines dividing friendship and relationship…and the rest of their tight knit group of friends finds out? The answer: complications arise. A LOT of complications.

I’ll dock him a few points for not addressing the issue when you specifically confronted him. But you sound accusatory by calling him “guilty.” Remember, the whole point of this exercise was to avoid blame, emotions, attachment, n, n+1. The fact that he wants to return to a utopian pre-FWB world should be allowed unless he meant to hurt you (he didn’t). He doesn’t want to talk about it because it will only hurt you more. As I say to lady #4, there’s no “good” way to deliver a bad message.

You need to accept and confront your feelings for him. If this is driving you insane, some time apart may help. He’ll understand. This friendship is not healthy for you at the moment. Hopefully time will mend the wounds; it worked for Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi.

I am a freshly de-flowered young lady in her 20s — perhaps a little bit of a latecomer to the sexual scene, but nothing too serious. I have been seeing a wonderful guy who has been patient and good-natured about my lack of prior experience in the bedroom for a while now.

He certainly isn’t lacking in the experience department, and has a seemingly endless method of tricks up his sleeve to make sure that I’m always, well, satisfied. I, on the other hand, just can’t seem to reciprocate. Sure, he always cums when we’re doing the P-in-V thing, but if I start to give him a handjob (blow jobs aren’t really up my alley — giving or receiving; but at this point I’m desperate enough I guess I’d be willing to give it a shot) it usually ends with him saying “let’s just focus on you,” which I interpret to mean that I’m doing something horribly wrong, but he’s just too polite to tell me.

Dude, what tips have you got for me? What can I do? How do I do it? I need details, please!

It sounds like you two have a good thing going on; congratulations! Here are some suggestions:

1. I believe that the inner freak should be summoned naturally. And once you find it, you will both be pleased. Focusing too hard on specific moves is too mechanical and can feel forced. So here’s a simple trick — listen to FILTHY rap music in bed. Stuff that would make Lil’ Kim blush. I remember being limited to standard sex with an ex, until this came on my winamp. Soon we were incorporating all sorts of exotic fruits and animals into our sex lives.

2. Trial and error. Nibble the ear. Cross-dress. Lollipop in the ass.

3. Blowjobs. I’m going to assume you don’t enjoy getting or receiving oral because it isn’t familiar to you yet. And I’m going to stay away from the feminist politics of blowjobs. Oral sex can be amazing, especially when reciprocal. Think of this as a relationship-enhancing exercise. A sailing analogy seems appropriate here — one time in a race our crew had never reefed the main on this particular boat. Some hadn’t reefed at all. So the skipper decided to spice things up by having us reef in really strong winds! Learning together and putting it into practice was a great team-building experience.

4. No more handjobs. Ever.

Help me out here! I very recently started a pretty successful flirtation with a friend of a friend. He is nice, smart, funny, and really into me so I would like for this problem to not be a total dealbreaker but if I can’t fix it then it kind of is. This weekend, after a very successful round of flirtatious texts and emails, I attended a party at his house. The party was fun and things went well and consequently we ended the night by making out in his backyard. And then…disaster. Dude, the kissing. It was terrible. Not just bad, terrible. The best way I can think to describe it is what it must be like to be pecked in face by a beakless chicken. Like, he was pecking at my face. He would dart in really fast and peck peck peck and then pull back really quickly. Then he would kind of dart in and stick his tongue in my mouth the pull back really quickly. Dart in peck peck peck, dart out. Dart in, tongue, dart out. Sometimes he would pull back really quickly and just kind of stare at me before peck peck pecking again.

I tried to physically insinuate a better way of doing things. Tried to kiss him really slowly or keep my lips on his for longer. At one point I even went so far as to put my hand on the back of his neck to just keep him from darting in a out like that. It didn’t work, he just resisted all physical guidance and kept peck/dart/tongue/dart/pecking away. So I guess my question is … I have to actually say something about it, right? And seeing as how we don’t know each other all that well yet, is there a way to bring it up that would be minimally awkward/embarrassing for him? I mean, we’re both crowding 30. After a certain age you don’t really expect to encounter anyone who is this bad at kissing. And after a certain age it must suck extra bad to be told that you’re bad at kissing. So, how can I make this potential conversation suck less?

One time I hooked up with a girl where it was sloppy and really bad. We each communicated to mutual friends the other was a bad kisser. It sucked hearing that. It sucked hard. Ultimately, we were both so anxious for a do-over that we had a much better experience second/third/fourth time around. She’s now a lesbian, but frankly I don’t see what that has to do with anything. The point is: There’s no good way to convey an inherently bad message. The guy isn’t going to be thinking about the tone of voice or if you saved money on car insurance or other bullshit surrounding the conversation. We can all tell when someone is dancing around bad news. So you say, “I don’t know how to say this so I’m just gonna go out and say it: I like you but your kissing needs work. You need to blah blah blah like this … [start kissing].” Any self-respecting dude will want to defend his honor and redeem himself. If it’s still bad, well, that sucks.

Previously: Love Triangles, Toy Reliance, and Beautiful Nudes.

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

Photo via Flickr