The Bitter Single Guy’s Relationship Advice

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~

Should She Move With Her BF?

Dear Bitter Single Guy: My boyfriend just asked me to move up with him when he moves to Vermont. I knew he was going there for school for a while now and got used to the idea, but now a friend of his is thinking of moving up there as well. My beau says that if we both raise enough money to help cover rent, we can live up there for a year easily. I have a month to decide if I want to go, if my boyfriend’s friend and the friend’s girlfriend decide to move as well. I love the idea of being able to see him more often while he goes to a school that he loves, but I just can’t see me moving up with him. One reason is that we are just eighteen. Yes, he will be nineteen by the time this happens, but that still is young. He’s been mistaken as being older and is complimented on how he is so mature and responsible he is. He may be older than his age, but I’m not.

I just got used to living away from home and my family and I don’t think I will be completely confident in my survival skills for a long time. I also am going to college now with almost wholly on scholar ships and state aid and would still do so if I stayed at the school I am at now. I don’t know how I will pay to transfer and go to another school. I have also made friends at my school that I don’t want to lose, which is a big thing for me. I am sure I will find some in Vermont if I do move, but I think I would feel as if I left my new friends behind. So, BSG, what do you think? Should I decide to go? Is it selfish of me not to completely jump on this opportunity or is it selfish on my boyfriend’s part to think I should? Maybe I am worrying about this to much…

Thank you for taking you time to read this and I hope that is not to long. ~On the Border~

Dear OTB: The Bitter Single Guy appreciates that, at the tender age of 18, you’re giving this so much thought. That said, the BSG was pretty sure he knew his answer before he finished reading your letter.

Don’t go. All your reasons for not going are good ones: your age, his age, your friends, your scholarship, the living arrangement. The reasons for going seem to be limited to “because he asked”.

You, your boyfriend, the friend and the friend’s girlfriend all living together while you all get settled in school, with friends, and as room-mates for the very first time is a clear recipe for disaster to the BSG.

Get ready for your boyfriend to dump you if you say you won’t move, but the BSG can say with 100% certainty that if he actually dumps you because you won’t move, the relationship wouldn’t have survived the move anyway. ~BSG~

High School Sucks

Dear Bitter Single Guy: I’m a 16 year old girl, and I know that high school is tough for everyone but these last three years I’ve been very sick with constant pain and have not been able to go to school very much if at all. Thus, my peers have adhered to the “out of sight, out of mind” aphorism as well as most of my “friends”. Now once I am better and am doing normal things, it will get easier, but what can I do to experience social interactions of a relatively normal caliber? Thank you for time. ~Longing For a Life~

Dear LFL: The first thing the Bitter Single Guy has to say is that normal interactions in high school are probably pretty rare given the degree of weirdness that rules most high school social situations.

The BSG’s best recommendations for engaging normally in high school are:

1. Engage. This is just what it sounds like…chat with folks, say hello to friends, meet new friends. Refuse to sit on the sidelines and wait for folks to invite you in. Invite yourself. And don’t look twice if you get some eye rolling and ‘what does she think SHE’S doing’ attitude; that’s just boredom.
2. Be yourself. This seems easy but the BSG and you both know that it’s not as easy as it sounds. The BSG wants you to try out n new styles of speech and behavior in the same way that you try out new sweaters, but he also wants you to be and behave because it feels right to you, not because everyone else is doing it.
3. Remember that this is temporary. Oh LFL, the BSG remembers older folks telling him in high school not to worry about anything because it all gets easier as an adult and he hated those smug adults for their assurances, but it turns out (as it often does with the smug) that they were right. The BSG only tells you this because when it feels like high school is one big pit of unpleasantness (and it will), the BSG wants you to hold onto the tiny hope that it’s actually on a small part of your life.

Good luck and stay healthy, LFL.

The Breakup Series Part 2: So You’ve Decided to Dump Someone!

So you’ve decided to dump someone!

Whether you agonized for years about your decision to end your relationship, or it came to you last night in a dream and by lunchtime you had the car packed, the BSG knows that the decision is always a tough one.

To start out, the BSG wants to say that the difference between dumping and breaking up has to do with style, maturity and compassion. Granted, no amount of delicate artful breaking up will prevent the dumpee from believing anything other than that she or he was dumped plain and simple. But the BSG believes that there are karma points to be gained by taking the high road even when the rewards are few.

The High Road: Breaking up

The BSG is reminded of the sage advice provided by a sign posted on a cubicle wall (in the BSG’s previous life as a Bitter Corporate Drone): “Doing a good job around here is like wetting your pants in a dark suit: it gives you a warm feeling, but nobody notices.”

The BSG believes that breaking up with someone in a compassionate fashion is much like the experience described in that clever little quote. So the BSG wants you to imagine that you are the person in that quote who is trying to do a good job. First, picture yourself in a suit (does anyone but appliance salespeople wear those anymore?). Then, if it’s not too creepy, imagine with the BSG that you’re standing by the water cooler watching other suited women and men come and go for a quick drink (are water coolers even a reality for cubicle monkeys anymore? The BSG needs new info he thinks).

There at the water cooler, you decide to ‘relax into it’ and <ahem> wet yourself. The BSG suspects (he has no actual experience here) that like that sage observation, there would be a relatively unnoticeable warm sensation spreading out from your groin-ish area and before running soothingly down your legs to gather in pleasant pools in your shoes. Are you with the BSG? This is the feeling of doing something good, like a compassionate breakup. But stay with the BSG here. What happens next?

Next that warm feeling is gradually replaced by a cold clammy feeling. The pee pooled in your shoes has seeped between your toes and whether anyone coming and going from the water cooler has noticed or not, you’re feeling pretty icky right about now. The BSG would like to point out that this experience is also the follow up to a compassionate breakup, but at this point it’s necessary to leave this whole disgusting metaphor behind (the BSG feels a little dirty about the whole ‘pee in your shoes’ part, but it got us here, which was necessary).

The Low Road: Dumping

In stark counterpoint to the warm-then-clammy feeling of the mature, compassionate breakup, there is “the dump”, which rarely elicits warm feelings. Usually, dumping someone is preceded by all kinds of negative feelings like anger or self-loathing. But at the end of the day, there’s a reason that it’s called dumping. Imagine if you will, the cartoon experience we’ve all witnessed where a Hapless Harvey (usually male in the cartoons because causing physical harm to females is usually taboo) is standing innocently on a rug when it is literally yanked out from underneath him. The rug and Hapless Harvey’s feet get tugged in one direction while Harvey’s body stays in one place. Physics take over and gravity grabs hold of Harvey to pull him to the floor in a startling fashion. Poor Hapless Harvey.

Dumping someone in a relationship usually has fewer actual bruises, but the emotional bruising can take much longer to heal. Much like Hapless Harvey’s experience, Clueless Connie is standing firm in her belief that her relationship is strong and healthy (or at least not in imminent danger), when Connie’s other half announces that she’s done, and Connie’s emotional feet are yanked out from underneath her just like Harvey’s. In both cases, both Harvey and Connie were surprised and lack of preparation resulted in them on their asses (literal for Harvey, emotional for Connie) on the floor.

So then…break-up or dump? Stay tuned for the next installment of the BSG’s Guide to Breakups!

The BSG Sides with Cinderella

Dear Readers…this letter is long, but a good one. The BSG recommends hanging with it.

Dear Bitter Single Guy: I cheated. I started a relationship with my now-ex-fiance when I was rebounding off of some serious issues during my senior year of high school. We had always loved each other, and he was my rock in my greatest time of need. Not only that, though… I loved everything about him and we were inseparable and just plain happy. I went off to college 6 months into our relationship without knowing a soul on campus and I made the mistake of falling into someone else’s bed more than once when I was completely obliterated. Looking back on it, I’m able to see that I felt undeserving of such an amazing relationship after the mistakes I had made in the past, and hence began to act that way.

After a few incidents over the next couple of months in that first semester of partying and self-loathing, I finally began to see myself for what I was. A kind, empathetic, loving person, and I was finally able to understand that I WAS deserving of a wonderful man who treated me the way he did. It didn’t take any worries about him finding out or any type of major event for me to stop… I just looked at him one night after a great date and realized how lucky (and grateful) I was to have him in my life.

His best friend had heard about what I was doing because we went to school together and it’s a small campus. I didn’t really say much when he asked me about it and he basically told me that he wasn’t going to say anything because he knew it would kill… let’s call my ex Bob. Both he and my close friends all agreed that it would be best to just forget about it since I had quit already and had turned things around.

Well… after 1 1/2 years of being together and 8 months after my last encounter with someone else, he asked me to marry him. I said yes, life was great, and he attended school with me that year. Things were going really well but I had a falling-out with one of my best friends and she decided to e-mail him every gruesome detail about what I had done to betray him. And by every detail… I mean EVERY detail, including some pretty disgusting lies.

When he got these messages from her, it had been 1 1/2 years since my last encounter. It tore our world apart for that day but he decided to forgive me and try to put it out of his mind since we were so in love and he trusted that I was being honest about when I stopped. Unfortunately, we both made the mistake of thinking that it would be possible for him to forgive me so easily and so quickly.

I like to communicate, and I like to communicate a lot. I would always talk to him about what I was needing from him to feel loved and what we could do to make the relationship even better and I would always ask him, “I know I’m not perfect, babe. What can I do to make you happier or to make things even better with us?” He always responded that he was happy and I was great and that he loved how things were going.

Well… apparently not. Just recently, I was bedridden with a bad migraine and he went to hang out with his friend in the common area of our dorm building. He met a girl there, and they were texting eachother nonstop for two days. After we slept together one night, I asked him if he liked her as we were cuddling.

He said this, almost exactly. “If I weren’t dating anyone, then yes I would probably think of her that way. But I love you and I’m committed to this relationship and you can trust me, babe.” Not 36 hours later, he dumped me. He broke off his engagement because he said he didn’t feel that same spark as he had when we first started dating. He said he just wanted space to work through things and to figure out what he wanted. I came to find out that  he immediately started spending time with her and right after we had a tearful (but good) talk later that week… I saw him walking from her room the next morning after he had spent the night there.

I’ll avoid talking about how much this girl makes me nauseous to pursue a guy who is engaged in the first place, no matter how much I want to scratch her eyes out. I just feel like if he had been honest with me from the beginning about how what I did was affecting him, we could have taken a break THEN or at least started to see a counselor… ANYTHING to keep things together in some way. He also mentioned that he was under a lot of pressure with getting married so soon and I’m just thinking… “But you asked me!”

I would have much rather given up planning a wedding than to go through what I’m feeling now. It would have been harder for us to talk about what I did openly and for him to be honest about what I could have done to improve things, but at least I wouldn’t have been going through the past year thinking everything was all rainbows and butterflies. This breakup came completely out of nowhere, for me.

I know we’re in college, but I’m so sick of hearing from EVERYONE that this is the time to date a lot of people and party and have a great time. I feel like you can still party and have fun and make new friends and have all of the great experiences that college has to offer while still having someone you love by your side. Neither of us are the “notch-in-the-belt” type of people to begin with.

I just want to know… what do you think happens now? Are we hopeless? He refuses to sell my engagement ring back just yet (he doesn’t even know why) and he still keeps all of my pictures up on his bulletin board so I feel like he still might have some shred of love for me somewhere.
I’ve forgiven myself for my mistakes by now. All that I felt I could do to show my love for him after I betrayed him was to love him with every cell in my body and to never lie to him again (which came easily to me). I feel like I should have came clean to him myself, but there’s nothing I can do about that now. ~Repentant Cheater~

Dear RC: The Bitter Single Guy should tell you that he normally doesn’t respond to letters as long as yours but after reading your letter he decided to weigh in.

First the BSG wants to say that he feels your pain. You’ve obviously learned well from your debaucheries in the first few months you were college. The BSG also agrees with you…it would have been better if your fiancé had heard about those debaucheries from you rather than from a pissed-off friend. While he absolutely understands not wanting to rock a peacefully floating boat with stories of past infidelities, the BSG is pretty sure that your happy marriage would eventually have been rocked by the fact that you cheated on your boyfriend early in your relationship.

OK so then the BSG will attempt to describe why he doesn’t really blame your fiancé here. He wants you to think about Cinderella (stay with the BSG here, he promises this is relevant). Imagine (in a slightly re-done version of the story) that Cinderella heard about the ball, but thought “nope, my stepsisters and I have all these chores, so no balls for us.” [pun intended] Later, Cinder hears from a nosy neighbor that while she was home scrubbing floors, doing dishes and peeling turnips that her stepsisters were out at the ball! When the stepsisters came home they genuinely told Cinder that they now realize how stupid it was to be out having fun while their sister was at home working. So Cruella grabs the turnip peeler while Ursula grabs the mop. Everyone wins, right? Well not really. Hell, Cinderella LOVES balls, what kind of chump was she to spend hours doing chores while those girls were whirling around a dance floor? So even though the stepsisters learned an important lesson about family cohesion, they still frankly REEKED of the buffet at the ball, while Cinderella reeked of turnip peels and Mop-N-Glo.

The short version here RC is that cheating has an insidious impact on relationships. As much as your ex probably wanted to be OK with how everything went down, the BSG is pretty sure that there was a voice in his head calling him a chump for being home peeling turnips (so to speak) while you were at the ball.

He may, after spending some time “at the ball” himself, decide that what he had with you was worth trying to re-capture but the BSG wouldn’t hold your breath. Sometimes the cost of enlightenment is high. ~BSG~