Reader question #50: I’m a 27-year-old virgin and I’m mostly okay with that but sometimes I feel like a loser.
Posted: May 17, 2011 Filed under: Captain Awkward's Dating Guide for Geeks, Dating, Reader Questions, Sex, Star Wars | Tags: Commander Logic, Dating, Explaining the world 1 Star Wars reference at a time, Sex, virginity 19 Comments »
We're all pretty sure he's a virgin, but does it ever come up?
First things first. Roseanne is totally badass and has just gone to the top of the Famous People I Would Like To Have A Drink With list. (h/t Tiger Beatdown)
Second,here is a reader question and corresponding guest-post from Commander Logic on the subject of losing your virginity after most people around you have lost theirs, but really it’s like a manual on dating and respecting the shit out of yourself, aka, universally applicable.
Dear Captain Awkward:
There are a lot of awkward conversations going to be going on in my future. Hopefully, at least.
Here’s the story:
I’m a 27 female post-graduate student at a German university (I’m German.). I’ve never had a boyfriend (I may never have) and all the guys who were ever interested in me (not many) were sadly not my type. There was one I really liked, too, but he was as shy as me where feelings and touching were concerned and in the end another girl (who was a lot more outgoing) dated him and I was not interested anymore. Another guy I met on the internet actually kissed me on our second (and last) date – right in the middle of the lively market place of my little university town. He never called again – me neither.
Other than that I had some three crushes. One of those I actually tried to talk to (I had a crush on him for two years). We flirted a lot in class – he actually sat next to me on purpose (I think) and touched my hand “by accident” a lot. I really liked that. But when I tried talking to him I totally felt stupid and couldn’t really impress him, I guess.
Last year there was a Japanese guy I totally found hot and we had many nice dates with talking and walking. But when he confessed that he liked me a lot, I totally panicked. I wasn’t happy at all!! I went home, cried and was totally disturbed. I wrote our university counseling because now I was absolutely sure that I was a whacko and not right in my mind. Since then I’ve been there for a few times and it really helps me, but basically there is nothing much wrong with me. (Thank god.) The Japanese guy turned out to have more problems than me and we try to stay friends but sometimes that is really hard, too, because he wants me to adopt every opinion he has about certain things I feel very strongly about. Read the rest of this entry »
Feedburner is broken?
Posted: April 27, 2011 Filed under: Star Wars 3 Comments »A lovely reader alerted me that “Subscribe in a reader” function is broken, and I can see that it is broken, but I don’t know WHY it is broken or how to fix. Any smart nerds want to help me out? Is it affecting those of you who already read it via RSS, or just new subscribers? Thanks!
Reader question #39: My girlfriend is moving away to go to school and be with her other boyfriend(s). Should I wait?
Posted: April 24, 2011 Filed under: Dating, Reader Questions, Relationships, Star Wars | Tags: Explaining the world 1 Star Wars reference at a time 3 Comments »
If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you...duel it to the death? Wait, that can't be right.
Good day Cap-i-tan!
I come to you now with the story if my current relationship, which is very very….. very awkward.
Bit of information to note. She was 19, is now 20, I am 24.
We met through friends, and first started out to be roommates cause mine was leaving me in a month and change. After a few weeks of talking we gave in to the sparks that where there. So she moved in as my girlfriend. By this time I had already learned so much about her that told me the time was not right. But, stupid me, I went ahead and did it anyways. She was currently with two other guys, and seeing another two on the side. She was in the process of getting rid of them all. However the most immediate boyfriend stayed because he was in another city.
Fast-forwarding…
She is moving down to the other guy in September for schooling, and where a large portion of her friends reside. They know nothing about me other than I am the roommate.
I have taken the time to learn her needs, what she loves and how she likes to be treated, and I know that I cannot try to hold onto her. Yet she says she will come back to me when she’s done her classes in 8 months after September. I don’t know what the chances of that are, and it’s biting constantly at me.
Some final notes, she suffers from depression a bit and is on meds for it. The meds have cause her libido to drop. To nothing. We have had sex once in three months and in our 11 month relationship, at least 5 have been dry spells. To cover one loose end, it was defined as a open relationship at the beginning.
What I ask you is simply for a woman’s view of this, feedback, assessment, thoughts. I’m just curious. What do you make of all this? At the end of the day it’s a messed up story that I’m sharing with you. Cause I can. That’s about it I guess.
Thanks!
Mike
Dear Mike:
Let’s say I am magic and I can predict the future. Let’s say that when this girl goes away to school, you just let her go. “Of course I’d love to see you when you get back, but let’s not commit to anything. Let’s enjoy the time we have, and then you should go live your life and have fun.”
You’ll miss her for a little while. Things will be sad and gray for a month or so. Someone who can successfully juggle five guys at a time has a lot of personal charisma, and you’re going to miss being around that charisma.
And then after a little while you will start to feel relieved. It will be like you’ve woken up from being under a spell.
Reader Question #15: Noisy Oxygen Tanks At The Opera
Posted: February 4, 2011 Filed under: Accessibility, Disability, Manners, Reader Questions, Star Wars | Tags: access, Advice, Concerts, disability, Explaining the world 1 Star Wars reference at a time, manners, oxygen tanks, policies, theaters, venues 2 Comments »Dear Captain Awkward:
OK, here’s a bit of an awkward situation for you: Very elderly folks, at the symphony or the opera, with one of those oxygen tanks that gives a very audible puff of air every three seconds, and makes a noise like a clockwork sniff.
I’ve been at many performances when one of these was in the audience, and it is incredibly annoying and very hard to ignore. I was at a concert just a few days ago, not even sitting near the offender, and yet I could hear it loud and clear, especially during quiet moments in the music, and it really did keep me from enjoying an otherwise flawless and moving performance.
What’s more, all the people who were sitting near the elderly man (in this case) were making faces and shifting uncomfortably like someone had farted, for most of the first half. Only some of them moved for the second half, and Mr. Oxygen Tank continued right on sniffing for the entire show.
My instinct is to report distracting noises like this to the ushers and/or management, but at this concert, as with the other concerts, I was 1) comped, and 2) busy during the intermission with work-related socializing. I also assumed someone sitting near the guy, given how uncomfortable they looked and how egregious the noise was, would have said something.
But also, I felt a little bad for him. Unlike people who talk or unwrap candies during concerts, this is something that is presumably unavoidable and medically necessary, and also, for the theater, an accessibility issue.
It must suck to get old and not be able to do so many things that you once enjoyed, and I feel like a bit of an asshole for snarling at an old guy for carrying his life-giving oxygen with him. Does he even realize how annoying the sound is, or has it become invisible to him? Or does it ruin his enjoyment too?
The Oregon Arts Commission has a discussion of this, and they don’t really seem to have a solution, but think theaters should come up with one.
What are your thoughts?
Your question made me play these two YouTube videos at the same time to gain a greater understanding of the problem.
Reader Question #12: How do I deal with my boyfriend’s ex-from-hell?
Posted: January 23, 2011 Filed under: Darth Vader Boyfriend, Dating, Reader Questions, Relationships, Star Wars | Tags: Advice, Explaining the world 1 Star Wars reference at a time, Hoarders, Reader Questions, Relationship Advice, Relationships, The Darth Vader Boyfriend 3 Comments »
Sometimes Darth Vader is a girl.
Dear Captain Awkward:
So, it’s like this. I met a great guy, and get this, it’s one of THOSE love stories where the girl winds up with the guy she went to school with, it was him all along! Hurrah for fairy stories!!!
So, all well and good and life is great with us, but the snag is he has an ex-girlfriend with whom he shared 20 odd (druggy) years. After they split they stayed friends (without the benefits) and were very close. She’s got some fucked up Bonnie and Clyde fantasy going on, romanticizing the good old days when they robbed book stores to feed their habits (yuck!) and, while she says she wants him to be happy with someone else blah blah, in reality is making all kinds of noises (via Facebook comments and sending cards in the post) to let me know that she and he were the golden couple and will be forever.
I can’t help but get jealous about their obvious ‘history’ but as we are in a (new) relationship I feel weird that she sends him cards saying how much she loves him, and sends them addressed from the love nest they once shared. She posts that she loves him all over his FB page, KNOWING that I’m going to read it. (Hello, we are over 40 btw not school kids!)
Is she trying to send a message to me? and how do I deal with it? We aren’t in the same country for a start, which helps, but I feel as if there are three of us in the relationship as he messages her and texts her EVERY day.. I am getting pissed off but don’t want to act like a needy jealous whinge-bag..
Thank you Captain.
Signed,
Not Needy or Jealous (well ok, a bit)
Dear Not Needy, Definitely Jealous:
I feel comfortable saying that this woman is trying to send a message.
People don’t go to the Post Office on purpose and stand in line to get the special stamps that will send letters to other countries without taking a little extra effort to work that into their day. If you and your boyfriend lived in the same area as this woman, she would send you both a lot of messages, like sneaking into your house and peeing in all the corners and dressing up in your favorite clothes and rubbing her crazy all over your pillow so that you will go nuts trying to figure out why everything in your life suddenly smells like crotch.
Reader Question #6: I’m worried about my sister. She is still very close to our abusive parents.
Posted: January 19, 2011 Filed under: Abuse, Families, Parents, Reader Questions, Star Wars, Stockholm Syndrome | Tags: abuse, Advice, dysfunctional families, Explaining the world 1 Star Wars reference at a time, parents and children, reality dating shows, sisters, Stockholm Syndrome 8 Comments »
"So....you have a twin sister..."
Dear Captain Awkward,
I currently have a kind of weird situation going on with my sister that I really don’t know how to deal with. My parents and I are estranged, and after many years of denial and telling myself that it was always my fault (when in fact, it never was, it was just abuse that I was chalking up to my “parents loving me”) and countless hours of very expensive therapy to get me to the mental Promised Land, I have realized the danger my sister is in.
She lives very close to my parents, both of which are very controlling and constantly manipulative and emotionally and mentally abusive. My father, especially, feels the need to meddle in everyone’s life, and always try to “one up” people with his resume of great accomplishments and how much money he makes. He recently decided that I wasn’t good enough to talk to anymore (almost verbatim said this) and the only thing I can deduce is he hates that he is not in control.
Additionally, this means that I have to have an issue with my sister. She’s constantly thrown in the middle, or feels the need to place herself in the middle and whenever there is an “issue” with my parents, there is seemingly a problem with her. I kind of want to shake her by the shoulders and tell her to get the hell away from them and try to find her own place in life with her husband, but it’s seemingly impossible. I know I can’t tell her what to do, or offer her advice when she’s not seeking it, but things are getting very strained, and we were doing so well at starting an adult relationship.
I’ve noticed also that when she is not surrounded by our parents, that she behaves much differently. At my wedding last month, she kind of made a “joke” in front of everyone when I mentioned that one of my best friends is going to be the usher for a bigger ceremony my husband and I are doing this year, and she practically yelled in the restaurant, “Oh really? I didn’t know that. I just thought Usher was an R&B singer!” To which there was nothing but awkward silence and me really trying not to stab her in the face with a fork.
Could you by any chance offer some advice in how to handle the situation without stepping on her toes? She’s very protective of our parents and feels that a life without a close relationship with your parents isn’t a life at all. I’ve realized that this is just something that has been beaten into us since we were little, and I really don’t want to tell her that I *don’t* want a relationship with her.
Sincerely,
Desperately Seeking Sister
Dear Desperately Seeking,
Oh man, your letter kept me up last night.
Let me address the small , easy stuff first: Here at Captain Awkward Dot Com we can’t get behind getting all Stabby McForkInEye at your sister because she once blurted out something that sounded much funnier in her head. When people are nervous or uncomfortable, they blurt. They laugh at inappropriate times, and then they try to stifle that laughter, so it turns into more of a strangled bleat, and the strain of suppressing the laughter makes them fart. They pull a pen out of their purse to hand it to you, except it’s not a pen, it’s a tampon. This is a safe space for blurts, farts, giggling in church, and inadvertent tampons.
When this happened, were you embarrassed FOR her (Oh man, my poor sister, she doesn’t know anyone here and was just too hip for the room) or BY her (Oh man, now all my friends will see what a n00b my sister is)? Be honest with yourself about this, and then cut your sister some slack. Of course in my family, “cutting slack” might involve staged retellings of the joke for the next 20 years and also calling into the local radio station to dedicate Usher songs to each other on birthdays and anniversaries, but do what feels right to you.
Now, the hard stuff. It’s below the cut because it is full of stuff like photos of Bret Michaels and descriptions of abuse. This has been your trigger warning. Read the rest of this entry »
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