SasLinna
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Don’t feel stupid. I’d probably have been waiting for an explicit invitation, too. And then I’d have gone through the mood shift (btw my current bf is the first one who always notices those silent mood shifts and calls me out when they happen, which has helped me to reduce the frequency of them – they don’t make a lot of sense).
One more thing, as I’m really struggling with this, too… I often don’t ask for things explicitly because I’m super afraid of rejection. The context doesn’t even matter much. But it’s really not high stakes to say “the brewery tour you mentioned yesterday sounded like fun. I’d be interested in joining if you’d like me to. Of course we can also do something another time”. When I’m afraid of rejection I sometimes hedge my requests like that – by giving the other person an easy out.
You can even go meta and say “I just had a really good beer and thought about you mentioning the brewery tour yesterday and now I realize I wasn’t clear if you intended to invite me along. I’d definitely be up for it if that was your intention!”
@ktfran: This could easily have happened to me – I am often shy to explicitly ask for things – but I also get the sense he was implicitly asking you whether you wanted to join him. Otherwise, why would he even mention it? It would be kind weird for him to say “they asked whether you’d come too but I’m not going to invite you along, harhar”. He was likely hoping he wouldn’t have to be more explicit and that you’d take the initiative and invite yourself along.
My read on this is that you’re both kind of shy and this was just a miscommunication.
Also… I’ve often experienced stuff like that when a relationship was getting a little bit more serious. There is an awkward stage where you’re not that comfortable yet but you want to include each other in your respective activities more. If you can work through this phase constructively you’ll probably more comfortable and secure soon.If you’re looking to establish an emotional connection first, maybe your quest to find guys who don’t pressure you for sex immediately has led you towards guys who are not interested in sex at all? Of course those build a subcategory of guys who won’t expect sex immediately, but they’re the wrong subcategory for you. What you need is a guy who is cool with waiting to have sex although he ultimately wants it. Maybe dating in a church environment would work well, if that’s your thing.
It’s also totally possible he had sex with his ex girlfriends but is still asexual. I wouldn’t draw any positive conclusions from the fact that he has had sex with women in the past. How many people are there who have had lots of unsatisfying sex they didn’t really enjoy, or sex with the gender they’re not attracted to?
Basically, in the early stages of dating, you (general you) get a lot of information about the person you’re involved with. And you need to take it seriously because the problems you see usually don’t go away. This has proven true in every single relationship I’ve been in. In every case I took note of some potential problems at the beginning, and lo and behold, they turned out to to still matter later on. In some cases they were minor issues I was able to live with, in other cases they were ignored deal breakers. But I always knew about them a few months (or even a few weeks) into dating.
Looking at this from a different angle, I don’t think it really matters whether he’s behaving ‘normally’ or not. For example, asexuality is maybe pretty rare, but it does exist, so if he’s asexual I wouldn’t say he’s not normal… maybe statistically speaking, but not in any relevant sense that matters to address this situation.
The important thing from my perspective is that, as a woman with a desire to be in a sexual relationship, you should allow yourself to go for someone who can share that with you fully, easily, and at least 99% to your satisfaction. You really deserve that. I spent some time in a sexually unfulfilling relationship (we did kiss and have sex sometimes, but the cuddle factor was pretty high), and like @Kate I feel it was really damaging to go through that. There are cool guys out there who will want to kiss you and have sex with you, I promise.
Maybe this guy will ultimately want to kiss you and have sex with you, too? Yes, maybe. But it’s already clear that it’s not a situation where it’s easy, he’s fully into it, and where you can count on being satisfied. Instead it sounds like it’ll be like pulling teeth to get a kiss from him, and you’re already sexually frustrated – before even having sex once!
This is more a sharing thread than an advice thread really. It’s exactly what the “general chat” category is for.
Sounds like a great date, @veritek! I hope he’ll get back to you and suggest meeting earlier than in 4-5 weeks. Honestly waiting 4-5 weeks to see each other is simply too long this early in the dating game. You don’t want to spend a month waiting to get together with him again only to find out things are not taking off anyway. There has got to be some flexibility with the band thing, right?
ktfran, I have trouble expressing my feelings, too. Are you afraid you might ruin things by being too open with your emotions? I sometimes feel that way but I think if things are going well with this guy (and it sounds like they are) the kind of ‘declaration’ you want to make is perfectly fine. And if you have a good thing going you’re not going to ruin it either way because he’ll probably be able to read you correctly.
@veritek: Not trying to talk you into anything, but would a 2 hr distance really be too much? I guess I’m speaking from the perspective of currently living much farther from my SO, but 2 hrs seems sort of doable to me. Depends of course on whether you can imagine moving at some point.
Oh, and then one thing I guess I would change is focus less on relationships. You may meet “the one” at age 22, but it’s unlikely. So don’t narrow your opportunities just because you’ve been with a guy for a year and he wants to live in X place, or doesn’t want to travel abroad, or whatever. Go for what YOU want until you’re ready to make a longterm commitment and the relationship has proven viable, and only if you don’t need to make sacrifices that will wreck you if the relationship still ends at some later point. I’ve seen so many women in their 20ies needlessly being held back by their relationships, and it’s sad to watch. (By that I don’t mean at all that you shouldn’t be in a longterm relationship. I’m just saying don’t make it the be all end all and don’t assume that of course you’ll get married and have kids and that therefore there’s no way you’ll go abroad or take a good opportunity in another city.)
I do sometimes find myself thinking I should have focused on money more… However, the main point is you need to be able to find out how important a certain lifestyle is to you and how you can do your best to secure it. Do you need a certain amount of money to be happy? If yes, then absolutely make sure you can make that money. This is especially true if you want kids, a house, etc.
I’m one of those people pursuing their passion and have always been that way. Though there are definite downsides I don’ think I’d choose otherwise if I could get a do-over. What’s interesting to me is that I know lots of people with enough money who are super bored in their jobs and looking to study a different subject or taking up lots of hobbies. They have financial security and are able to support kids etc., but sometimes feel their lives are very rigid. On the other hand there are people like me doing things they find really interesting but not getting rich. It’s a bit of a dilemma unless your passion lies in a field that also pays really well. Again, it depends on your preferences. You just need to be able to be honest with yourself about what’s really going to matter to you. Plus, I wonder whether people in their 30ies and 40ies regret not having more money, while maybe people in their 50ies then are more likely to regret having wasted their time in a boring profession.
At 22, I almost feel like the main advice is negative: Just try not to do anything that will wreck your life or present a huge burden to overcome. If you don’t have a baby before being ready, don’t develop a serious drug addiction and don’t accumulate huge amounts of debt, it’s all going to be OK.
Looking back at my twenties, I don’t regret any of the more daring things I did, like traveling to Japan on my own and spending all of the money I had at that time for it, or going abroad for a semester to study. Those are actually among my best memories from that time. In terms of studies and work, I can’t even remember many things anymore, especially from the time before I started studying the subject I really love. I was often just trying to get by somehow and not really paying attention. I would advise you to pay attention and do things that really pique your interest, even if you need to get out of your comfort zone to do them. Combine that with pursuing a degree and getting some professional experience and you should be fine.
