User blogs
VIP
You’ve probably heard it before that
you can’t give what you don’t have. In terms of relationships, this means that
you can’t give love to someone else if you don’t love yourself. But so many
people go from relationship to relationship looking for someone to love them,
as if to validate their existence. For some, it could be because they grew up
in a home where they had to perform or act a certain way to earn love or
acceptance. For others, it could be because previous relationships have made
them feel like they are not good enough, pretty enough or smart enough. So
they’re secretly (or not so secretly) longing for someone to show them that
they are worthy of love.
It is important to remember this when
considering a relationship. When you know your worth, you’ll be careful who you
consider going into a relationship with. When you realize that the Creator of
the universe sees you as so special that you’re worth dying for, you wouldn’t
settle for someone that treats you less than you’re worth.
Loving yourself doesn’t mean you have
to be proud, or haughty. It just means that you refuse to settle for anything
less than you deserve. It means that you respect yourself enough to know when
to walk away from a relationship that isn’t right, or healthy. It means that
you recognize that if someone truly respects you, they would not expect you to,
or coerce you to compromise on your values. But it also means that you know
when to say yes to something good. It also means that you recognize when you
have a good thing going and you allow yourself to say yes to it.
VIP
On our most recent date, we had organised to go to the movies. I told her, prior to meeting her, to go to the supermarket to buy some popcorn or chocolate because it’s cheap. She told me she was happy to buy the popcorn at the movies. When I got there, I walked up to the counter to pay for two movie tickets and she was at the bar buying herself a drink. We then sat down and she said she had forgotten to ask if I wanted a drink. (How could she forget to offer me a drink? She saw me buying the movie tickets.) I declined, but then after five minutes, I said to her that I’d have that drink anyway. So she bought me a drink. She did end up buying the popcorn and chocolate from the supermarket, so we had them during the movie. After the movie, we decided to go for coffee. Guess who paid for this? I don’t mean to sound cheap, but she should have paid for the coffees. In fact, she should have paid for the movie tickets because the previous week I had paid for dinner.
This isn’t the first woman that I’ve had to spend money on. There’ve been others, of course. I’ve heard complaints from friends and other men about women NOT offering to pay. And you know what? I’m tired of it. Men are tired of it.
I’ve paid off my mortgage (she doesn’t know this) but earn an average salary. She’s got a big mortgage but earns slightly more than I do. But that’s not the point. Men and women are equal, right? A lot of women are more highly educated and many make more money than the males. Right? Women have purses with cash and credit cards in them. Right? These women are not poor or helpless or dependent. I think I’m right.
I don’t know how women get this old-fashioned mindset, but it’s really starting to annoy me. Personally, I work just as hard as any woman does for my money and I don’t find it fair. I just don’t want any woman getting the idea that I’m OK with it or that she can take advantage. I don’t want to be her ATM.
It would be nice if a woman offers to pay more often for a change. It’s about being appreciated and not taken advantage of. I am not cheap, but at the same time, I am not made of money. Does it make me a bad person to be thinking this way? I am a liberal, progressive thinker, and this traditional old-fashioned mindset seems backwards to me.
Where is it written that men have to pay on dates? Why can’t the man and woman split the bill or take it in turns? Aren’t men and women equal? How do I mention this to her without sounding cheap? — Not an ATM
I don’t know if I should have sex. Over a six-month period he’s broken up with me on 4 occasions due to my celibate status. I am recently divorced, but a practicing Catholic observing chastity and trying to date. Currently the guy I am in love with is demanding fellatio under the guise that it is not sex. I love him so much, but I’m uncomfortable. I also feel disrespected for him ask for this as our first sexual encounter. For starters, I am not good at it and I worry that he is taking advantage. I am scared to dissent you see. He is putting a lot of pressure on me and only talks around this subject if he texts back at all. I am doing all the pursuing apparently and its been via texts where I’m practically begging for us to retain at least some form of friendship if nothing else.
I feel lost without him. A month ago he disappeared, yep! He swore never to reply my texts or calls ever again and told me to move on with my life. I don’t know if his demands for sex are normal or if I need saving. Please help!
VIP
Mine is a weird story but I’m thinking
now that my guy falls into this category. He broke up with me over text, first
of all. We are both in our later years so this, in my opinion, is very rude at
any age.
He came on strong at first, started
betting busy with his life, then texted me he can no longer date as his 17 year
old is going through issues that he would not discuss. He said something about
depression and suicide counseling.
We had only dated for 3 months and I
get the issues but he claimed to love me and that I was the “woman of his
dreams”.
My question is would you dump the
girl of your dreams if your life got hard and your kid needed some guidance and
support? I would have expected some down time but dumped? I got a sweet card
that said nice things about being in his heart and I ran into him the other day
and he seemed sad but I just don’t get it. Am I being selfish? Was he simply
emotionally unavailable or is this a normal response?
VIPSex with a new guy you’ve just started dating can be a bit of a slippery slope. There’s usually a fear that women face, the fear of potentially losing our power once laying bare with him. Will he call again? Will instant messages with him remain the same or will you start double texting, only to be met with a 5 hour delayed response of, “Oh sorry, I’ve only just seen this.
There will always be clear signs that a man only wants to be involved with you for sexual pleasure, this can be by the way he speaks to you and EXACTLY by what he does.
Is he always dropping sexual innuendos? Is he constantly asking to see nude photos/videos? Does he ask who you live with early on, when it had absolutely nothing to do with the conversation? Is HE sending YOU nude photos of himself on Snapchat? Or slipping in inappropriate comments half the time you speak? Does he pop up every 3 months to ask if you’re still with your boyfriend?
Everything I’ve just listed are clear indicators that he’s trying to fuck you, he might eventually like you, but at this present time, he’s trying to hit.
Then, there are the ones who don’t make it their mission to be so overt with what they’re after. You’ll be taken out on dates, spoilt and develop a great foundation of friendship, yet the only aim he has, is to try and have sex with you.
Most women make the mistake of assuming that sex means they get to live happily ever after with this man, or that it’d bring them closer.
It’s not true. Not even if you’re a virgin.
Having sex with someone will never guarantee you as a permanent person in their life romantically, well, unless you’re after a situationship. That’s why it’s important to remember to only have sex for yourself, not because you believe it’ll keep him, not because your friends suggested you should, but because you want to.
It’s also important to highlight that if you’re a person who can only have sex with someone you’d like to be in a committed relationship with, then explain this to the person you’re dating. It still won’t guarantee anything, but if you’re dating a decent human being, it gives them the opportunity to be transparent with you, but don’t be fooled, because some men will ask to exclusively date you just so they can sleep with you.
Sex can change the narrative of a relationship, but that’s why it’s vital to not rush the sexual side till you’re 100% comfortable on how it could possibly turn out. If you feel like there is a connection, sometimes you might have to withhold sex just to be sure. Yes, I said, withhold sex.
This doesn’t mean that sleeping with a guy during the third month will keep him interested, but instead it allows you to find out what his game really is.
This isn’t to say that men who are relationship oriented don’t exist, they do, but it’s not as common to hear men say they can only get into bed with a woman they’re in a commitment with.
VIPWe were attracted to each other. We got along together quite well. We had similar hobbies, similar senses of humor, liked the same shows, etc. We both wanted to have sex, and her husband hadn't touched her in years.
I did it because she was hot and she wanted to fuck. I didn't feel bad about it because I was single and didn't do anything wrong. Her relationship with her husband is between the two of them and it is not my job to police someone else's activities.
I did feel bad about it, but I'd do it again. Yes, I understand that I am hurting the husband, but I'm not really part of the marital equation. If she wasn't cheating with me, it would just be someone else. Eventually her husband started showing her affection again, and I met someone in in GA that I really clicked with, so we went on with our lives. We still talk every now and then.
VIPI went to Cape Town in South Africa, last spring. I went to some clubs and bars, and ended up hooking up several times in the 10 days or so there, but one night was very memorable.
I was at a bar and these girls start talking to me.I hooked up with three of them that night. One took me to the bathroom and gave me head, but didn’t finish as her jaw hurt. Afterwards, I took two of her friends to my hotel. I almost had a third, the two wanted her to come, but she was terrified of my cock so only a threesome. I have to say, I prefer one on one, but it was a bucket list check mark. There was a lot of sex....
VIPI was never one of those people who wandered around in a stupor until they'd had their morning coffee. I like coffee. I drink a lot of coffee, but I didn't need the caffeine to wake me up. I often don't even have coffee in the morning.
I've also said that I am both a morning person and a night person, the kind of person who stays up past midnight working on one project or another, and then bounds out of bed at 6 or 7 raring to go.
But lately that has not been the case. I discover it takes me some time to "come to" when I wake up, and often "coming to" involves going back to sleep. While 6 a.m. has been my standard morning wake-up time for many years it is now closer to 9 or 10 and Kendall may have made a pot of coffee and fed the dog (bless her), put away the dishes from the night before and has half the paper read before I let the world know I'm ready to face it.
This morning, I stumbled out of my recliner and groggily hobbled to the bathroom and when my sister met me at the kitchen afterwards it was with (it seemed) a barrage of things she was eager to tell me. I just growled at him that I'd only been up 2 minutes and needed my coffee first.
This is such a strange "me" I hardly know her. But I guess she's the older version of "me" that I'm comfortable with. Let me have a cup of coffee (even reheated) and I slowly start to come back to life and be fit for polite society.
I'm also not the person, as a general rule, who takes a whole day to binge watch something on TV, now there were a few notable exceptions these days over the weekends doing those things.
Saturday I started watching NCIS-LAand it was a chunk of NCIS-LAhistory that I don't remember watching before. I was just going to watch onemore but the cliffhanger made me watch the next one...and the next one....and before I knew it, the day was gone.
Sadly, somehow they skipped the one episode that wrapped up the particular situation I was watching, but that's OK.
VIPI remember the first time Svend and I
exchanged “I love you’s”:
We’d been (long-distance) dating for
about eight months, seeing each other for a weekend maybe once every two to
three weeks. I’d felt love for a couple months, but I didn’t feel in a rush to
say it. Part of that was because I was aware that these weekends we spent
together, although romantic and fun and exciting, weren’t real life and I
wanted to make sure my feelings were real, and not based on some fantasy I’d
created from this whirlwind courtship. Anyway, about eight months into said
courtship, I was visiting Drew in Manhattan for the weekend and was waiting for
the bus to take me to the airport where I’d catch a plane back to Chicago.
These good-byes were feeling more and more… heavy, and we’d just started
talking about when and if the long-distance part of our relationship might
transition into something that didn’t require air travel to maintain. As the
bus pulled up, Drew pulled me in for a hug and whispered “I love you” into my
ear. I said it back and then I boarded for another commute home. (It took about
another ten or eleven months before I moved and the long-distance part of our
relationship was done for good.)
so today I say: Life is short; tell
people you love them (but, you know, maybe not on the first date…).
I remember the first time Svend and I
exchanged “I love you’s”:
We’d been (long-distance) dating for
about eight months, seeing each other for a weekend maybe once every two to
three weeks. I’d felt love for a couple months, but I didn’t feel in a rush to
say it. Part of that was because I was aware that these weekends we spent
together, although romantic and fun and exciting, weren’t real life and I
wanted to make sure my feelings were real, and not based on some fantasy I’d
created from this whirlwind courtship. Anyway, about eight months into said
courtship, I was visiting Drew in Manhattan for the weekend and was waiting for
the bus to take me to the airport where I’d catch a plane back to Chicago.
These good-byes were feeling more and more… heavy, and we’d just started
talking about when and if the long-distance part of our relationship might
transition into something that didn’t require air travel to maintain. As the
bus pulled up, Drew pulled me in for a hug and whispered “I love you” into my
ear. I said it back and then I boarded for another commute home. (It took about
another ten or eleven months before I moved and the long-distance part of our
relationship was done for good.)
so today I say: Life is short; tell
people you love them (but, you know, maybe not on the first date…).
If you remember your first “I love
you’s”? Or, if you’re currently single, maybe you have a memory from a former
relationship?
VIP
Manage the Expectations
If there’s one piece of relationship
advice that’s often overlooked, then it’s that expectations should be managed.
People can’t read minds. They can’t know what the other person wants or needs. Sometimes,
the two people in the relationship can have wildly different ideas of what they
expect from their partner. If you’re going to engage in this type of
relationship, then it’s recommended that you say your expectations as early as
possible — it’ll prevent many headaches. If your partner says they would like,
for example, to be told if you’re going out on the town, then you’ll know what
you need to do. Communication is the key.
Have an End-Goal
It’s not easy being in a
long-distance relationship, but it gets much easier to do if you know there’s
an end-goal in sight. Humans can endure just about anything if they know it’s
going to end one day. Problems can begin to arise when your permanent state is
one that’s far away from each other. Of course, things change, and even if you
set a date, there’s always a chance that it’ll change. But it’s important that
there is a date out there, even if it’s dependent on circumstances (for
example, “when I find a job,” “when I’ve saved up enough money,” and so on).
Daily Communication
Do you think being in a long distance
relationship is tough now? Spare a thought for people who did it way back when,
when there was only old snail-mail to stay in touch. There could be months
passing between messages. Now, that problem has been removed entirely thanks to
technology. You’ve got a smartphone in your pocket that can send a message
across the world in an instant. A good morning or good night text can make you
feel all the more nearer to one another. Texts take care of the issue of
regular communication. Video calls are another thing entirely. They essentially
allow you to be in the same room. It can take a little getting used to at
first, but it’s worthwhile powering through with it — it’ll be an essential
part of staying close while you’re apart.
Keep the Positivity
Finally, remember to stay positive.
Long-distance relationships can be tough, but they’ll be enough tougher if
you’re focusing on how hard things are. Instead, be grateful that you’ve got
someone in your life that cares, loves and supports you, and that you won’t be
apart from one another forever.
