Eddie

Hey man, I've not much time, but... You sound very much like me. Believe me mate, there's a lot of us out here and I know exactly how you feel about thinking we're not good enough for true love in some way, like we'll never find it because it's something that other people have. However, I DID find true love, with a very cool and beautiful girl - and this made me feel fantastic for a long time. However, my advice is this...there ARE lots of girls that will fall for you in that you are sensitive and you're not a macho loser - loads of women are looking for you. However, I think we also have to work on the other side of our personalities too - that is, women do need their men to be manly. I think one of the reasons that my true love slipped away was that I was too sensitive. You'll find that most if not all girls want someone who CAN be sensitive but who can also be macho and their hero when the situation calls for it. Of course, these days being a hero doesn't necessarily mean being an athlectics star or the president. Find something masculine that you're good at and pursue it...be courageous - try rock climbing, swimming, karate, DJing, there's loads of things that will bring out the man in us and help us hold onto these women. You WILL find it, just don't LOSE it once you've found it by thinking all she wants is sensitivity. Be aggressive once in a while, it doesn't hurt. At the end of the day, all women are drawn to confident men...men who literally or at least seem to ooze testosterone - it's a science thing and we can't avoid it. Good luck. Eddie

Thanks for the advice, I'll take it into consideration. 2 points - I didn't suggest she shag other guys, just snog them if she thought it would help. I know that she will tell me if she feels like she wants to take it further and at that point, I walk. I am certainly aware of the possibility of hurting my friend and that is the LAST THING I want to do...I'm surprised I forgot to mention this in the original message because it is probably playing on my mind more than anything. I think I'll continue to see her and just enjoy her company. I won't be using her as a rebound. I'm going to insist that my girlfriend make a decision before July because that would mean I've been waiting 3 months for her to work out whether she loves me enough to commit to me! It's all a bit absurd. At that point, my feelings towards my friend may well be the same or they may well be different and I will move forward...very...very...slowly...if it looks like she would welcome me into her life. Thanks again. This website has helped me so much over the last few months...it deserves an award of some kind.

OK, here we go. I'll try to keep it brief. I fell in love with a girl a year and a half ago. We have recently split up - kind of. She's got exams coming up and has told me that we should remain on a break until they are out of the way and she can really start thinking about this situation. The breakup is mainly to do with her fear of commitment (she is 20, I am 23 - neither of us have slept with anyone else), but it isn't just that - we'd had a few rough months due to her high stress levels and some problems I'd been having too...pretty usual stuff really, stuff that real couples can get through if they work at it - and I'm certain that we could have...if it wasn't for these feeling's she's having about wanting to be with other men. I know, it's natural, she doesn't want to feel tied down and so on. So last week, after several weeks apart (except for talking on phone and a few meetings) I said to her that the best thing she can do right now - as soon as possible anyway - is go out with her friends, feel single, dance with loads of men, snog other men if she feels like it and if anything else happens, let me know. That was pretty hard as you can imagine. I was almost physically sick when I turned the corner. But then it started to feel OK. She appreciated it I think...but now I am certain that she WILL do that. I have given her permission to do that and I can't go back on it. I don't know yet if she would be able to accept the same from me. I had been telling her for ages that I am not interested in other women...I think she might be thinking of me as either a shoe-in, or worse, an obsessive boyfriend! That's why I did it. I know that her feeling free is the only thing that gives me a chance in hell of winning her back...but it's bloody painful. Anyway, just as you thought it was getting complicated...I got together with an old friend of mine for a few drinks the other night. Her boyfriend and dad had both been killed about a year ago and she is still suffering as a result of that I sense. She wanted to help me through this time a bit like I tried to about a year ago for her (I don't think I did a very good job though and now I feel bad about that). We had a great night, didn't get very drunk or anything but she offered me her bed for the night (quite a long walk back to mine). I accepted. We slept next to each other. I held her hand. When we woke up, our faces were nearly touching. She smiled and I suddenly realised that she is a truly beautiful person. Comparing her objectively to the girl I've split up with, well, she wins hands down...in terms of kindness, zest for life, positivity, almost everything. So for the last few days I've been like....WHAT THE HELL AM I GOING TO DO??? I just don't know who I really love more...my friend or my girlfriend. They're both amazing to be honest! I can't tell my girlfriend that I've changed my mind after I've been so enormously in love with her and acting all crazy and desperate to have her back...what kind of a person would that make me? At the same time, the chances that my friend would want to be any more than just my friend are probably slim...she has told me that she is nowhere near ready to be with anyone else. However, she did also say (after I had told her a few things about myself that I'd not told her before) that my girlfriend would be crazy to let me go and that she'd have me in a second!!!! I really need a visit from my inner power penguin right now. Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. So, so sorry that this is such a long one...hope I haven't bored you all to tears. It's good just to get it out of my system. I really have no clue what advice anyone would be able to give...but thanks so much if you do think of anything. Eddie

Remember that the feelings you are experiencing are giving him what he wants. It must be incredibly hard, but not giving in to the fear is the only way that this kind of evil can be defeated. Precautions are important, but so is the normality of your life. Get on with things, always be with someone else, but know that smiling and laughing and feeling relaxed is your best protection from anything bad at all. It might be an idea to talk to someone - like a counsellor. There's one on every campus isn't there?

Hey again, I just sent you a personal thank you message then stumbled accross this! It feels like we're both in such similar emotional situations. You sound like you're describing the exact feelings I've been going through! I'm so sorry that you've been made to feel like this. It seems like long distance relationships truly are a crap idea - especially for university kind of age-groups. So many people I know have been through something similar. Anyway, I'm not very good at giving advice I'm afraid, but one thing stuck out to me...that you visited him so much more then he visited you. It sounds like he isn't someone that is prepared to make the effort that you deserve. I'm in Sheffield these days and I KNOW for a fact that if you were my girlfriend, I'd come to Devon any time you asked me and more and I'd bring you things and surprise you with things and do all the exciting stuff you like to do with you...WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS GUY??? Having said that, it does sound like he has a deep and sensitive side, I don't know. Having said THAT, sensitive people can sometimes be the most selfish. I don't know him. And the stuff about her not being as good a kisser as you and he was really drunk...hmmm. It's important that you're not too gullible cos men will take advantage of that. I'm not saying be cynical either because my exish-girlfriend is like that and it's been very damaging - find a balance. And finally, please quit with the ridiculous 'no one else will like me' stuff. You have one admirer right here for a start. Take it easy Eddie

Chat up lines are the biggest no no in any girl's long list. But if you need better ways of asking a girl out than 'do you want to go out with me?', just learn to use your imagination - this does not mean your cheesiness. An example...I once wanted to ask a girl out and wanted to ask her in a special way so after having our usual conversation on the train on the way home from school, I said goodbye, got off the train, and then when it started moving, I let her see through the window that I was thinking deeply about something, then jumped back on the moving train and shouted accross the carriage to her...'by the way, I forgot...I think you're amazing and I want to take you out somewhere this weekend. Let me know what you think tomorrow!' and I jumped off the train again. A couple of people clapped. She was a little gobsmacked. It worked. Another time I asked a girl out during the last night of a play we were in together...while we were both on stage together and the audience never knew...I whispered it to her when I was supposed to be whispering something else. Again, it worked. Don't ask people out in writing, by text or by email...it's not a good start, it's impersonal. Make her feel unique in some way and you will be successful. If it takes a bit of planning to give the impression of spontaneity, so be it. She'll appreciate it either way. All girls want to feel like they're in a movie or a song. Good luck.

Yeah, don't struggle to be funny! Don't try too hard. Don't worry about it! God, it'll never work. Here's a secret for you girls... In social situations, men find it very awkward to admit that a girl might be more funny than any one of them. Notice how much men go on about how they loath female comedians. Your best bet for attracting a guy is by being flirtatious, thoughtful, full of glances and sparkles in the eyes, interesting and interested in him, not moody, silly, unpredictable, confident but not too confident (a little vulnerability goes a long way). But I guess every guy is different and like different things. So in conclusion...don't worry so much about being funny. You''re more likely to get a guy if you laugh at HIS jokes rather than telling your own...pathetic aren't we.

Have fun with it mate. Don't be needy, don't be pushy. Do things that will make her fancy you so much that she will end up asking YOU out. That's the best scenario here. Do confident things...that doesn't mean blokey things. It means grown up things and exciting things. She will be drawn to you like the proverbial moth. She fancies you, yes, no doubt about it. But you're both obviously very young so DO NOT TAKE IT SERIOUSLY. It's the sort of age where she'll fancy you one week and someone else the next. Try and be the same way yourself - without treating her like shit of course or doing things that will humiliate her or make her unnecessarily jealous. Just be cool and as I say, have fun with it. This is your opportunity to be a man when you're surrounded by boys, grasp that chance and she won't be the only girl who's interested in you. I wish I could have had the confidence to do the same when I was your age. I'm so jealous of you. I wish I could be your age again - stuff really is much more simple. Don't let these days pass you by. Don't end up regretting not doing something so cool, so kind, so confident, so mature that she literally falls at your knees. Good luck

It's the room. The room that we all have to come back to alone knowing that when that person comes into your mind again as they have done every day for such a long time, you are only permitted to think of them in terms of absense, not presense. We do not have permission to beg them for forgiveness, for their affection. 'They cannot understand how much pain there is, how much we love them, how perfect everything could be again'. They don't care. We have lost them. Can I really imagine myself being strong enough to move on? It doesn't feel like it. How will I react if she gives me another chance. Do I have permission to even imagine the possibility of her giving me another chance? I have degrees and qualifications, I have written dissertations and essays on complex things and yet I have never thought or felt more about any one thing than her. This has been the most difficult essay I have ever not written. These three weeks. Is it right to expend this much energy on what might be a lost cause? What would a strong, secure person do? It's amazing how parallel our lives are, from America to Europe to Asia and beyond, we all feel such similar things and experience such similar heartache. What is it about? We all just think that it's only us feeling this way. 'No one understands the pain I'm going through, no one has felt this, no one understands the details that make my case more difficult and more tragic than people can imagine'. You will not be the end of me You will examine Purely Everything on top of everything pushing Purely Pushing forwards I will not be the end of you You will learn to shiver You will end days You will not end You will everything pushing outside shivering ending but purely you Send passages accross galaxies. Injections are there in nebulae and frozen Time. So floating for heaven's celestial permanent truth about Goodness and Everything. And so on and so on. And on forever. Into. Move into wait move into. Send myself away. And an answer has replied in terms Forgotten for centuries and Knowing so much. I have arrived in spatial palaces. I have sent myself into nowhere. A darkened zone of backwards beginning in now Memory lost everything long ago as I Stand on the threshold of the Room I have sent myself Through convoluted turns. This is not me. I am inside the Room, Living with my glances in boxes, Hoping to begin again. Knowing everything. Never born. I send myself through convoluted turns, Labyrinths And idiots Cabinets Sculpted in time Containing my fear Sent through history To your door. So Sonja, that's what I'm talking about with doors and rooms and stuff. It's horrible, I know. But what can we do except try to be excited about things that might happen to us in our lives? Take it easy, Eddie

Agree with Gregg. It's very insensitive of your boyfriend. You need to communicate more with him about this in terms that he will empathise with...ask him if it would be OK if you put a picture of Vin Diesel next to him while you're having sex because Vin has a much better body and you would prefer to be having sex with him. This will destroy your boyfriend's insensitivity I reckon...unless he's got a better body than Vin Diesel. But you get the idea. I have started looking at porn since having all these problems with my girlfriend. I feel guilty about it sometimes, but if she was more passionate and more affectionate with me like she used to be...I wouldn't need it. Men DO need it, like clockwork...we can't get on with our lives without regular and frequent ejaculation...it's a fact of nature. Women, less so it seems, but it's there still. The number of times I've just been dying for my girlfriend just to simply put her hand down my pants and... but she won't do it unless she's getting something too...and she never seems to want it these days! Oh God, I'm such a porn fiend!

Problem is...you're too young to be married, but you have a kid so I applaud you for that. However, nothing excuses this kind of stuff. I know you say in your post that you know it was wrong...but I don't get that feeling from you at all. I don't think you really have empathy for your husband. Like the other person said...can't you put yourself in his shoes? Think about it... What if you were to come on this site on day and see a message from your husband saying that he had slept with some girl but wanted advice on whether he should tell you or not? How would you feel? Use your imagination. Stop thinking about your own guilt and your own anxieties associated with this and your own embarrassment and everything...and try to feel something from his perspective. If you can't do it, then you will end up doing this again. Improve your sex life...but not by giving yourself to random men...give yourself more completely to the man who loves you and only wants your happiness. Do you want him to be happy? Sometimes I think women assume men don't feel at all. But to be honest, I sometimes get the feeling that men feel MORE than women. I know this probably isn't the case, but I have so many stories of women sleeping around on their supposedly serious boyfriends or husbands and hardly any the other way round. Is society changing? I don't know. This is just my experience of course. It's all just down to the animal in us at the end of the day. God if you were my girlfriend I would never have given you a second chance to destroy me. I think you should tell him and take the consequences like a grown up.

TELL HIM!!!!!! PLEASE TELL HIM THAT YOU LOVE HIM. BE CONFIDENT! Arrange to meet him. Tell him. If he tells you once and for all that it's a no go, then there is something going on that you haven't realised...he may have been lying to you. As it is...I feel very much like this guy at the moment and I wish so much that my girlfriend/ex-girlfriend would just TELL ME WHAT SHE IS THINKING! I don't know where I stand. I know how complicated it all is. I know your situation. I hope you can sort it out and be happy. He has a low self-esteem - like me - by the sounds of things. He needs you to give him the self-esteem he wants to have and then when he has it, you will find him more attractive anyway. You can give him the self-esteem by making an effort over him...taking the risk of telling him how you feel...being dramatic! Make him feel like your knight in shining armour, your hero, make him feel like a great MAN and he will BE a great man. I wish my girlfriend would do that for me. This is what love is.

God, there's so much pain on this website and I'm feeling it too at the moment. I'm on a break with my girlfriend because of a number of things and I'm pre-occupied with thinking about her ALL THE TIME and it's damn near impossible to get anything done that I need to get done. I was once in your boat mate...I never thought I would find someone. I didn't have a single sexual experience until I was 22...with this girl who is now thinking of leaving me. I was so depressed, I cut my my arms and all kinds of stuff before I met her. The funny thing is, she's gorgeous and she's made me realise that I'm attractive too. And all of a sudden I have felt more confident with women and so on. But ever since we started the descent towards this break, my old despair has returned in even bigger portions than before. I almost wish I could go back to the days before Amy...they actually hurt LESS! What am I trying to say? I guess what I'm trying to say is that your state of mind is down to you, not how other people - even the person you love - perceive you or try to make you or your perceptions of those perceptions and so on into infinity (and it really is infinity when you become aware of what love is). If you are able to sort yourself out, not relying on other people, have confidence in your talents (you seem to have some of the lyrical ability of a rapper or songwriter to me - why not pursue that for a new conversation point at parties?) and just smile, it will be noticed. Women do go for that confidence thing - it makes them sound like shit that they are so demanding and superficial but it's the way of things...it has been the case since cavemen started beating their chests and it won't change soon. Amy was attracted to me because I was directing a ultra-low budget short film that I had written with a crew of 20 and a cast of about 7. It looked impressive and she came along to help as she knew the producer. I was totally out of my depth at the time and secretly panicking about the whole thing but I didn't let it show. She thought I was powerful, assured and had oodles of talent. I have let her down recently by being needy and desperate for her attention and so on. I am trying so hard not to email her today!!! Hopefully I can go back somehow to when I was shooting that film and she will see what she fell in love with again. But pressure is the worst thing you can apply. Sorry to go on about myself, I hate people who do that...it's just that I thought it might be an interesting perspective for you. I'll shut up now. Good luck. Throw yourself into things. Try new stuff...always be aware that you might be shaking hands with the woman that could fall in love with you but never let them see this in your eyes - always be unobtainable and as soon as you get the slightest glimpse of interest (and you have to look carefully), give her something else to grasp on to...ask her about HER...get her to tell you about what she's passionate about and AGREE with her that it's important. Only slip the amazing things that you do or are capable in subtly - don't force them on her. I'll really shut up now, peace Eddie - UK