Q: I was dumped in August by a guy I was seeing for ten months. He told me that he wants to work on himself and “needs to be selfish” right now. Since then, we have spoken every day, shared numerous dinners, and gone on hikes. Our friendship is killing me. With him I hold it together. Away from him I cry all the time. I’ve started seeing a therapist and I’m on medication. I’m trying to be mature about the breakup and match his level of “coolness” but it’s destroying me. My friends tell me that I should stay away from him, allow some time to pass, and reassess. But the thought of losing him is almost as bad as the thought of keeping him in my life. —Simply Heartbroken And Talking To Ex Really Extending Depression
P.S. If you ended a ten-year relationship to date someone—if you ended it for a romantic prospect, not a romantic certainty (and there’s no such thing as a romantic certainty)—then that ten-year relationship needed to end. If your ex-boyfriend implored you to end that ten-year relationship and ten months later dumped you to “work on himself” and then did everything in his power to keep you all to himself even after dumping you, then that “friendship” needs to end too. At least for the time being.
Q: I’m in my early 30s and I’ve been struggling to make new friends. A lot of the people in my extended social circle are polyamorous/queer, and while I identify as queer, I’m in a monogamish relationship that isn’t poly. Lately I have been finding that I have been getting approached a lot by people who want a romantic/sexual connection. It seems like the only people who want me around lately want in my pants and they assume because I’m queer I’m also poly without asking directly. So people ask me if I want to “hang out” and I’m often unsure if they mean “hang out” in a date context or a friend context. I’ve ended up on dates I didn’t know I was going on! My biggest issue is that I don’t understand why people want to date/fuck me but don’t want to be my friend. I’m pretty average looking and I am not overly flirty. So why is this happening? —Noodling On This Problem Over Lattes, Yeah?
