The Bitter Single Guy’s Relationship Advice

Is He Ready to Marry Me and Commit?

Dear Bitter Single Guy: My boyfriend has a program to help him get a house and was planning on getting a house on his own when we started dating 2 1/2 years ago. But after we decided that we should get one together he hasn’t said or done anything to show that he’s wanted to do this, such as talk about houses or look at them even on his own online or talk about wanting to. His program is up in about 5 months and when I asked him 7 months ago if he had seen any houses lately, he said he wasn’t sure if he was going to use the program to get a house or when he wanted to get one, saying whatever happens happens.

I told him I’m not comfortable with what he said and that I’m concerned that he doesn’t have a budget and that someday he will need one. He said: what for? I pay my car insurance and I pay my cell phone bill and I am putting money away and making plans on top of what I’m doing for my house program.

I also asked him if he would sell the 3rd car he has and he said that if he needed the money for something he would sell it. I also said that I feel like he feels so uncomfortable talking about the future and when I asked if he was looking at houses I was being curious and I wasn’t trying to be pushy but he wasn’t talking about them or looking at them instead he’s looking at cars for sale in the paper even though he doesn’t plan to or have money to buy one.

He explained that he has been making plans and was planning on asking me to marry him that he wants to marry me and he wanted to surprise me and didn’t want me to know and that he felt like it wasn’t right if we looked at houses or talked about getting a house together until he had put a ring on my finger. ~Wondering Where I Stand~

Dear WWIS: The Bitter Single Guy can see how, once the decision was made to cohabitate, you began your campaign for fiscal responsibility. However, the BSG will tell you what’s going on here. It’s likely that your beau, when faced with the prospect of buying a house and also faced with the reality of a girlfriend he really liked, tossed out the idea of shared housing without really thinking it through.

The BSG, even though he hasn’t agreed to share a house with you, was finding himself all freaked out by the barrage of questions about looking for houses, budgeting, or buying cars. So the BSG is pretty sure that beau-friend got similarly freaked out at your need to be involved in a series of life decisions (about bills and cars and houses) that he just hadn’t prepared himself to share yet.

The BSG swears that he’s going to create an online class called “So You’ve Decided To Live Together” that will highlight all these issues and more (tuna salad: mayonnaise or Miracle Whip? Discuss.) because these day to day issues are the ones that kill relationships.

Here’s the plan WWIS: Tell your beau-friend that you’re totally jazzed about the marriage idea and that you definitely jumped with both feet into this idea of buying a house together and that it had all these ripples into cars and budgets and other things that were not nearly as interesting sounding as wedding rings.

Please also tell your beau-friend that you can appreciate (or at least that the BSG can appreciate) his need to formalize your relationship before entering into a financial arrangement…that’s actually quite responsible of him and should be recognized as such.

After those potentially contentious and undoubtedly scary conversations, the BSG wants you to chill. That’s right, just chill out and let him know that you’d like to continue the conversation about all this so you can better understand what HE wants rather than telling him how it should be. ~BSG~

Dating and Hook-ups and Boot Camp, Oh My!

Dear Bitter Single Guy: Okay, you said you liked long…and well this is long. So I’ll start from the beginning.

4 years ago I graduated college and moved back home. I went to a women’s college and was well not so great at dating…well I’m still not, but anyways. I met this guy I worked with, a total bad boy. Hung out with him all the time, we had a relationship more or less based on sex. I tried to pretend like I had feelings for him just to make myself feel better but, that didn’t work. We stayed friends and I currently live with him. He and I barely talk at this point and most of the time I can’t stand to be in the same room as him. We’ve lived together for a little over 2 years and no, because everyone asks, we don’t sleep together. So anyways, I started meeting all his friends and his Best friend, who I didn’t really like that much went away to college. The roommate, we will call him B, didn’t go to college so he didn’t understand when his best friend (we’ll call him Robby), had less and less in common. Robby didn’t call him much and only saw him on breaks. B was not too happy with this. And Robby being a broke college student, which I fully got, never had money to go out. B got mad that he never had money to do anything and they eventually stopped talking over money. It’s kind of sad really. Robby graduated this past May. He went to school late for financial reasons. He and I have been hanging out on a regular basis ever since he moved back home. We get along great. I guess things got really close in August, we hung out almost daily. Well, I forgot to mention but sometimes when we are drunk we hook up…which this has been going on for a couple years…so it’s nothing new. Anyways, we randomly decided to go to Florida together as friends. I had vacation time and he had to get his transcripts. He had decided to join the army so this was sort of a last hurrah.

We had the best time…I have never had so much fun on a trip. He was talking to a girl at the time, and I sort of hooked up with one of his friends from college. Ever since we got back we’ve gone out 4 to 5 times a week…it’s only been 2 weeks. We text everyday and  he visits me at work. We are really close. He asked me to write him while he was at bootcamp. At first I sort of joked around about it but then he asked me on 2 more occasions. I should mention I am a writer and am working on a book and a poetry book. He told me to include my poems because he has always wanted to read them. Then he told me he was going to give me his basic training sweatshirt and we were going to go to Florida again when he gets out of basic. Again we are not dating, just friends. The whole situation is weird to me. I moved my whole work schedule around to hang out with him this weekend because he leaves on Monday. My friends think there is something going on, but at this point I hate them for making me over think all this. My roommate thinks we are in weird romantic comedy and Robby is going to profess his love for me at any second. I think this is all ridiculous. We have not had sex since before Florida. And I know for sure I am not the type of girl he normally dates. Plus he talks about girls to me all the time. I think it’s all rather innocent…am I being stupid or are my friends stupid? I’m so confused. Please Help. ~Not Sure What’s Next~

Dear NSWN: So the Bitter Single Guy isn’t sure where he said he likes long letters…on the contrary, the BSG has a short attention span and gets confused quickly. As he did with your long letter. By the way, if you’re an up-and-coming writer, the BSG recommends some time spent in editing. Someone (the roommate?) went to school late because of financial reasons? That didn’t actually drive the narration forward…the BSG isn’t sure why that was relevant. But hey, let’s not talk about editing, let’s talk about how confusing your letter was!

Seriously NSWN, the BSG isn’t sure he has all the details, but he’s going to try:

• You live with a guy #1 who you used to have sex with but who you now can’t stand.
• Guy #1 has a Best Friend (Guy #2) who isn’t in college and doesn’t understand people who are in college. The BSG isn’t sure why this is relevant, but whatever.
• Guy #2 has a roommate (Guy #3) who you’ve been hooking up with as friends and traveling to Florida with and who is now in Boot Camp and who Guy #1 thinks is going to profess his love for you (the BSG doesn’t know why you would trust anything that Guy #1 says).
• So your question is basically that you don’t know what’s going on with Guy #3, correct?

OK, if all that’s correct, the BSG thinks he’s got his head around this and has a few thoughts (in a second list):

1. Please move out of the place you share with Guy #1. You have weird history, you don’t like him and he’s overly involved in your experience with Guy #3.
2. What’s up with Guy #2? Have you introduced him to the BSG (and now his readers) and really just left us hanging? Is Guy #2 going to start college? Will he ever understand his Best Friend (Guy #1)? Will they hook up? Seriously NSWN, fill a brother in here.
3. Having sex with someone whose company you like and who you enjoy occasionally traveling with is the basis for most long-term relationships in the United States, with the possible exception of the regular sex. Call it what you want, but the BSG is going to call Guy #3 your boyfriend.
4. Guys (probably girls too) who are in Boot Camp cling to whatever romantic thread they may have left dangling when they began their Military Adventure, so the BSG wouldn’t recommend reading too much into anything he says or does during this time.
5. The Advice: Hang with Guy #3 to see what it becomes, but under no circumstances should you marry him (see point #4 above). If you need more clarity from Guy #3, have this conversation with him: “Hey [insert Guy #3’s actual name here] I like hanging out and like hooking up with you. What do you say we make it official and be boyfriend and girlfriend?” The BSG doesn’t think you should necessarily decide to be exclusive since you’ve recently hooked up with Guy #3’s friend (Really NSWN? Guy #4? Edit, edit, edit) and probably aren’t ready to settle down.

Good luck.

~BSG~

Podcast: How Do You Know When It’s Love?

With apologies to this caller…the BSG was traveling and didn’t get to this voice mail for a week! The BSG has added podcast advice and it’s SO cool! Call today (856-244-1274) and leave the BSG your question on voice mail. But in the meantime, listen to today’s podcast.

Too Much Love Too Soon

Dear Bitter Single Guy: I met a girl a month ago at a friends’ wedding. We’ve been talking everyday. About 3 weeks later I visited her, she was out of town for work. There was cuddling, sex, dinner, etc. Then I left on my preplanned cross country road trip.

I’ve been on the road for two weeks. We still talk everyday, but it is hard. About a week ago, she told me she loved me. I don’t feel the same way, which she is cool with.

I want to date her when I get back, but something feels weird now. Like, some of the spark is gone? Am I freaking cause she told me she loved me? Should I be? ~Unsure Behind the Wheel~

Dear UBTW: The Bitter Single Guy is going to tell you that a declaration of love after a ton of phone calls and one really great date is a little premature. Now the BSG is pretty sure that there are readers getting their gander up about the joy and realities of love at first sight as well as other fairy tales, but he stands by his snap judgment.

The BSG suspects that you are feeling the “whoa” response of someone who’s in a relationship that is going to fast. The BSG suspects that this feeling is felt most often by dudes, but he has spoken to girls for whom this is true, too.

The BSG recommends that you tell Speed Racer that for your ramp-up-into-relationship needs you need to move a little more slowly with the every day phone calls and may need to have at least another live date before concluding that this fledgling relationship is going to be able to fly on it’s own or if it will go the way of so many other new relationships and plunge to an untimely end at the base of a tree.

By the way, you don’t mention whether this traveling and meeting in different cities means that in addition to different affection timing, that you and Speed Racer are also doing a long distance thing. If that’s true, the BSG doesn’t have a lot of hope for your future with SR, since managing variations in expectations is tough at close range. Trying to do it long distance is a recipe for frustration.

~BSG~

Mixed Messages from Across The Sea

Hi BSG, I’m in need of advice. I met a guy who’s much older than me (he’s currently studying for his masters degree and I’m in my first year at college) a few months back online and we have a pretty good chemistry between us. He’d admitted he had “a crush” on me about a month after we knew each other and I like him as well.

But here’s the crunch. About a few weeks before he left for abroad to study for his masters (we were originally from 2 different countries), he said he wasn’t sure if he still had feelings for me. And I just decided to forget about him and we said we could remain as friends. But about a month and half when he went abroad, we had more frequent contact, and that’s when things got really messy.

I wouldn’t say that I have COMPLETELY moved on, but I would say I have tried. This is when he says he THINKS he still has “a crush” on me. My intial thought was, “OMG, are you serious?” *surge of happiness bubble* then the bubble broke. “What the hell does he mean by he THINKS? And after a month he is in a foreign country?”

So my gut feeling tells me that he’s just lonely and looking for sex (which we haven’t had) but he seems to always talk about sex whenever we talk online. So I just wanted to know, from your point of view, BSG, is he really interested in me or he’s just looking for a FWB? Thanks! ~So Many Mixed Signals~

Dear SMMS: The Bitter Single Guy also finds that mixed signals are crazy-making! Thankfully, the BSG is pretty certain that the folks giving off mixed signals aren’t trying to be crazy-making…he thinks they just don’t know what they want. If the BSG is honest with himself he can admit that’s probably been a provider of mixed signals in the past because everyone does eventually.

Here’s the scoop SMMS: If you want to be involved with Willy Waffler the BSG says hang in there. BUT, hanging in there does NOT mean going along with his constantly changing message. The BSG doesn’t know if he’s only into you for the FWB angle, but it’s likely that away from home and not knowing where else to turn for physical flirtation, he’s resorting to what he knows (you).

So for your peace of mind, the BSG recommends putting a stop to any sex-talk on the phone unless you’re ready to be that FWB with him. Something like “until we’re going out and likely to actually HAVE sex, I’m not really interested in talking to you about it.” should chill him out a little.

Mostly the BSG thinks you should let Willy Waffler do all the work at keeping up your relationship until and unless he’s back in your town and willing to step up to the plate in a more real fashion.