The Bitter Single Guy’s Relationship Advice

Best Friends And Boyfriends

Dear Bitter Single Guy: A couple of weeks ago, my best guy friend and I decided to (finally!) date.

The problem is, I’m not sure I feel the way I’m supposed to. I’m used to being in a relationship where I’m high from all the mushy-gushy feelings one minute, and then overcome with lust the next. With “Drew”, it’s not like that. It’s just normal. Now, since none of my past relationships worked out, maybe I’m on to something with what I’ve got with “Drew”. I just don’t know…

He’s the perfect guy on paper – intelligent, funny, sweet, tall, attractive–but he doesn’t give me butterflies in my tummy. I guess what I want to know is how I whether or not I should break up with him. And if I should, how can I do that without losing his friendship? ~GF Without Butterflies~

Dear GFWB: The Bitter Single Guy knows how frustrating the lack of butterflies can be…damned butterflies.  He wishes (as you do) that on-paper attraction was just like butterfly-inducing attraction but we both know that it’s not.

Before he gets to your question about how to break up, the BSG wants to spend a moment on the relationship itself. The BSG’s experience is that butterflies (damned butterflies) are often present early in relationships and get activated because you’re learning festive and surprising new stuff about someone. Deciding to take an existing friendship to the next level means there are likely to be fewer festive surprises; resulting in the damned butterflies slumbering through your courtship. The only reason the BSG points this out is that those damned butterflies eventually quiet down anyway and more than one person has found that in the absence of the unsettling feeling that they’re going to puke at any minute, there isn’t much to their relationship.

The BSG doesn’t think this is a bad thing because relationships aren’t (in the BSG’s opinion) made to last, but many folks are surprised by having to make a relationship work when it’s not all sparky and butterfly-y all the damned time. 

So GFWB, all this is to say that if you’re missing the butterflies simply because you don’t know how to start a relationship without feeling unbalanced and unable to sleep (damned butterflies), then perhaps you should look closer to see if you’ve jumped right to the comfy part of a relationship.  To be clear, this does NOT mean that your BF shouldn’t make your toes curl a little when he licks your ear lobe (or you know…whatever). It just means that you might want to think twice before you bail, lest you become one of those unfortunates (the BSG knows these people; maybe you do, too) who are so addicted to the damned butterflies in the early stage of a relationship that they sabotage every relationship when it gets comfortable. While this keeps the excitement alive, it’s not a pretty pattern when one is in one’s 50’s and beyond (some might say).

OK GFWB, all that aside…your question was how to breakup without losing his friendship. Bummer Dude; it’s probably not possible for all the reasons you think. Unless, assuming you and your beau have the luck of the lotto, you are both feeling exactly the same thing at exactly the same time and are able to articulate it sufficiently well to avoid any weirdness. Not likely, but sometimes we all buy lottery tickets, right?

~BSG~

Soon-To-Be Long Distance Relationship

Dear Bitter Single Guy:  I have been dating this guy for about 8 months, on a recent trip to meet his family we got into a huge fight and he decided to end it. But now I get an email saying that he misses me and wants me back, the things is he’s in the military and will be gone for about 7 months…what can a girl do to find out if it’s true love or if it’s just loneliness? ~Not Sure I’m Ready~

Dear NSIR: The Bitter Single Guy thinks that it could be both true love and loneliness, but that doesn’t help does it? NSIR , GI Joe is going to be gone for nearly as long as you were together before the Big Fight. Even if you had not had the Big Fight, the BSG wouldn’t give your relationship much hope to last when you haven’t had enough time to build a foundation that can survive a 7 month absence. When the Big Fight gets added to that, the BSG is concerned that you will remember being dumped as the last big event in your relationship before GI Joe headed off to war.

All that said, if you’re willing to take 7 months out of the dating pool (the BSG thinks sometimes a break from the dating pool is extremely healthy) this could be the perfect opportunity. You could make up with GI Joe, which would give him something wonderful to think about while he’s protecting our freedom (the BSG knows that there are bitter folks who will be thinking that he’s protecting oil interests and stuff instead of freedom, but it’s his experience that the nice folks in the armed services are usually passionate about their mission…it’s the leaders who are a bit dicey in the BSG’s opinion).

During the time you’re waiting for GI Joe to come home you can take a pottery class, read the classics, tutor school kids, or otherwise do something good for yourself and the world. Tempting, the BSG thinks. ~BSG~

Rapunzel and The Bitter Old Troll

Dear Bitter Single Guy: My ex-fiancé and I dated for 7 years.  We broke up a couple of times during this 7 years and have had a lot of problems.

He is selfish and thinks that everything he does is right.  He expects me to be perfect and never wants to work out/talk about any problems because he believes they’re all my fault.  If I do bring up an issue, he will say I’m ruining the mood for the day.  If I get upset and not talk to him, he blames me for not letting him know that I’m upset about something.

We broke up about a month ago over an argument.  During that time, he told me “he knew and that I should’ve known that this was never going to work”. All my friends think that I deserve better but I just can’t seem to let it go.  I wake up every day feeling like sh*t. ~Lost and Directionless~

Dear LAD: The Bitter Single Guy is usually hesitant to bash one half of a relationship when he only hears from the other half. In other words, it would be easy, based on your description, to conclude that your ex-fiancé is a bitter old troll and you’re a sad tragic princess locked in a tall tower…but it’s rarely that clear (although the BSG loves the imagery there, don’t you?).

So in the absence of clarity about Bitter Old Troll’s behavior, the BSG will focus on one point: you wake up every day feeling like shit (the BSG is OK with minor cursing). The BSG assumes that you feel like shit since the breakup and based on your description he assumes that you felt like shit a lot while you were in the relationship, too. That’s enough LAD. If you’ll recall from your fairy tale training, whether the princess in the tower is looking down at a Bitter Old Troll or at Prince Charming, locked in a tower is locked in a tower.

What the BSG means with all this Rapunzel-let-down-your-hair reference is that it’s not OK to be treated, or believe that you’re being treated like you describe.  You will find yourself saying that if you bail on this relationship now you will have wasted 7 years. The BSG thinks this is the biggest bunch of horse-poop imaginable. The logic there is that if you’ve invested 7 years in your unhappiness you deserve to be unhappy…what…forever?

Let it go. You don’t marry a man, whether he’s a Bitter Old Troll or Prince Charming, who makes you feel like you’re imprisoned.

LAD it also seems that you may be in need of some self-esteem building. You’re coming out of a relationship where you believe you’ve been berated and made to take responsibility for everything that went wrong, so you’re not likely to be feeling a good bit of personal power. The BSG recommends getting some healthy control over your personal environment as a way to get some healing going on. This could look like getting an apartment or house on your own, getting a pet who you can treat responsibly, or…not always the healthiest choice, but an incredibly effective choice…a rebound relationship with someone you can stomp on a little then dump when you feel powerful again. ~BSG~

Getting Over Him

Dear Bitter Single Guy: Okay so I’m in high school and I’ve been best friends with this guy for about three years and of course I started to like him. We hung out every day and I was so happy with my life. Finally we admitted to liking each other but it was never the same.

Now when we’re in a group of people he’ll ignore me and flirt with other girls right in front of me. We hang out still but only if it’s just us two and I think he’s embarrassed to hang out with me. All these other guys like me but I can’t even manage to get those same feelings out for anyone but him. I try to get over him but it’s hard because I don’t want to. if I could have anything in the world it would be him. I really don’t know how to go about my problems and I just want an answer, I don’t care how harsh it is. Please please please help me. ~Devastated n Distraught~

Dear DND: The Bitter Single Guy is SO SAD for you! He swears he’s not being sarcastic here. The BSG knows distinctly what it’s like to have really strong feelings for someone and for those feelings not to be returned. WORSE is when the BSG has had those really strong feelings and really wanted them to go away, but couldn’t be rid of them. DND, is there anything worse than laying in bed unable to sleep, just WISHING you could stop thinking about this person who doesn’t feel like you do?  The BSG doesn’t think so.

DND, this is just as hard as you think. Your Bodacious Beau doesn’t feel what you feel and so he tries – in that effective guy way – to make you feel better through demonstrating that he doesn’t have romantic feelings for you. So he:

1.       Flirts with other girls in front of you. “See!  If you see me flirt with this girl, you’ll just stop having all those feelings that make me uncomfortable!”

2.       Treats you the same when it’s just you two together, but differently when there are other people around.

DND you need to bury your face in your pillow and scream until your face is really red and your voice is all hoarse. Then you need to hang out with your friends and be sad and wretched because you had a relationship pulled out from underneath you before it even had a chance to begin and girl…the BSG will tell you what you already know…that just sucks. Take care of yourself. ~BSG~