Not a member? Sign up now
January 19, 2011
Savage Love
Dan lets a reader answer a question — but takes issue with the results.
By Dan Savage
I am a twenty-three-year-old straight female. A year ago, I moved across the country after college to live with my boyfriend of four years. He is in graduate school and is the only person I really know here — I am working two part-time jobs, and my coworkers are either much older than me or a very long commute away — so I have been hanging out with him and his friends in my free time. I've developed a huge crush on one of his good friends, and I don't know what to do about it.
I feel really guilty about it, even though I haven't acted on it and doubt anything would happen since I see this friend only when we hang out together in groups. I'm not sure if I should tell either my boyfriend or the friend about this attraction because it would possibly (certainly?) make my social interactions totally uncomfortable and I am basically friendless outside of my boyfriend's social circle. It's hard to get over a crush you see all the time and haven't been directly rejected by. Any advice you could give me about how to approach this?
— Uncomfortably Ogling Friend
Once in a great while, I donate the right to answer a Savage Love letter to charity. Grant Thornley was the winning bidder in an auction last fall, and the money he spent for the dubious honor of giving advice in this space went to organizations that support neglected children and the homeless. Grant is a Seattle-based career-management consultant, and what follows is Grant's advice for UOF:
"It'd be one thing if you'd said, 'I've fallen head over heels in love with a friend of my boyfriend's; he's my soul mate, and I'll die if I am not with him.' But you didn't say 'love,' you said 'crush,' which to me is something that is both surmountable and surely not worth fucking up more than one relationship.
"It's intriguing, UOF, that you don't give any indication of how things are between you and your boyfriend right now. Obviously, you're pretty committed — been together for four years, moved across the country to be with the guy. Yet, despite this pretty serious level of commitment, the primary negative outcome you see of admitting to your boyfriend and/or crush that you have these feelings is that it would make your social interactions 'uncomfortable'? You don't mention your boyfriend possibly being hurt, or perhaps screwing up his relationship with your crush, or causing a rift between you and your boyfriend. You're worried about uncomfortableness. It seems like you almost don't care. I think there's something else going on.
"You moved far from home — do you feel isolated? Do you feel bored and/or lonely? If your boyfriend is busy in grad school, it could be that you're also feeling neglected. Plus you're working two jobs — and even if they're both part-time, that's still a pain in the ass. I think it might be that you're just not feeling great about life in general right now, and this crush is a symptom of that. But acting on an impulse that could make things worse for everyone isn't the way to fix any of this.
"If you're friendless outside your boyfriend's circle of friends, get some friends of your own, forfucksake. If you've lived in that new locale for a whole year and have not met anyone you could be friendly with, you're not trying. Look for people who have similar interests, whether it's fine art, tea making, needlepoint, video games, rugby, animal husbandry, or whatever floats your boat.
"There's a saying where I come from: 'Don't shit where you eat.' Do not crap in the only social circle you have right now, UOF. Walk the fuck away from this friend of your boyfriend's, and find some friends of your own. Oh, and if you're so VERY susceptible to crushing on a friend of your boyfriend's, it sounds like you and the boyfriend need to have a talk ASAP, because you, my friend, are just not happy right now. Good luck."
Thank you, Grant, for your generous donation and your well-written response... and now, if you don't mind, I'm going to jump down your throat:
Whenever a married/partnered/girlfriended/boyfriended person wants to fuck someone who isn't her spouse/partner/girlfriend/boyfriend — when a technically unavailable person finds herself crushing out on someone else — people insist that the crush has to be a symptom of something. UOF, for example, wouldn't be having this crush, Grant writes, if she weren't feeling neglected, unhappy, and isolated. By implication, people who are content at home — people who aren't feeling neglected, unhappy, and isolated — don't have crushes.
I don't mean to jump down Grant's throat... or not just Grant's throat. This is a point you hear people — advice columnists, couples counselors, Drs. Laura and Phil — making all the time: Married/partnered people who are happy at home don't experience inappropriate or awkward crushes on others. The eyes of happily partnered people — to say nothing of their genitalia — never, ever wander. So if you're having a crush on someone you're not supposed to, well, that must mean something is very seriously wrong with your relationship. It's a symptom. Of something. Something dire. Diagnose the illness, treat it, and you'll be cured.
This, of course, is complete and total bullshit. Happily married/partnered/boyfriended/girlfriended people have crushes on other people all the time. Not because we're unhappy or because there's something wrong with us or because our relationships are somehow diseased. It happens because — I hope everyone is sitting down for this — however attracted we are to our spouses/partners/boyfriends/girlfriends, other people are also attractive.
So it's entirely possible that you have a crush on this guy, UOF, because he's hot and you want to fuck him, independent of your feelings for your boyfriend and/or his graduate program. Crushes are normal, and our relationships — closed or open — would be less stressful if we weren't expected to go around pretending that we never find anyone else attractive. And our relationships would be more likely to survive the inevitable, normal, natural crushes-on-others if we weren't led to believe that attraction is a zero-sum game, i.e., that finding someone else attractive means you must find your partner less attractive.
All that said, UOF, while your crush doesn't have to mean something, it still could. The indifference you display toward your boyfriend's feelings, which Grant rightly highlights, could mean that your crush is the person you really want to be with. Sometimes, people meet the people they wind up with under awkward, embarrassing, and painful circumstances. This could be one of those times.
Help! I'm a twenty-one-year-old female with a twenty-year-old boyfriend. We've been together about a year. Eight months ago, he was in a horrible accident, which left him without his left hand. We didn't have sex until after he was hurt. The sex is great, but he will only do it doggie-style, which is fine, and he doesn't do foreplay! Nothing! But he expects blowjobs and handjobs every time we have sex! Is our relationship screwed? Every time I bring this up, he tells me he doesn't know what I want him to do. Hello! It's not that hard!
— Please Help Me
I'm not sure what his missing left hand has to do with... anything... but, um, here goes: take your one-handed boyfriend at his word, PHM. Chalk up the complete lack of foreplay — lacking for you (it sounds like he's getting plenty) — to his youth and inexperience, and provide the direction he needs. He says he doesn't know what to do. So tell him: a hand here, a tongue there, this squeezed, that rubbed. If he can't do as he's told, tell him no more doggie-style, no more blowjobs, no more handjobs, and no more girlfriend.
Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.
Tags
Infidelity
Monogamy
Commentarium (18 Comments)
I disagree with Dan's venom he directs at Grant for his advice. Nobody said that you don't have righteous crushes. But by noticing her indifference to her boyfriend AND her crush with this other guy, you make the possibility of a temporary infatuation much greater.
The points Grant made were spot on: Make some more goddamn friends, at least push for a bit and try to be happier with your boyfriend. Then (and only then) should you attempt to torpedo the relationships you've had with people. Hell, it might end up being okay. I just think it's BS to consider every crush so legitimate you should end a long term relationship.
Grant wrote the above comment.
PHM...not many 20-year old males who have only doggy style sex AND have lost a left hand exist! Fear much?
I don't think it's the crush that's the symptom on something wrong with her/their life. Rather, it's her desire to make something of the crush despite having no cues (that she mentions) from her boyfriend. If disclosing crushes was typical behaviour between them, she wouldn't have written. Since it's not, it seems funny to suddenly want to explore the crush despite apparently knowing the consequences and the improbability of anything happening in the first place...that's weird. So, say she is bored and isolated. This would be typical behaviour of that, being a withdrawal from the communicative intimacy of their relationship to chance this risky business on her own. So while the crush is fine, it's what she wants to do about it or how she's conflicted that points to her unhappiness. Seems to me it might be easy to play up the importance of a crush in this situation too.
But Dan's point is well said. Crushes aren't inherently a symptom. People need to learn this! So much stress can be avoided if even monogamous couples be open about disclosing their romantic or sexual interests.
PHM sounds like a bitch.
HELLO, communicate your needs effectively-- IT TAKES TIME AND EFFORT.
I think that without a hand, it might be difficult to do man-on-top missionary if the guy props himself up with his hands. Another issue might be emotional... he might want to "hide" his injury, and doggy style means you don't get as much of a view of him.
I think UOF's crush is a symptom of her loneliness. Nothing to do with the boyfriend, just with the situation...her boyfriend is the only person she really knows there and she doesn't have any friends of her own. Since she doesn't have a circle of friends to occupy that "social" niche, the crush fills that void. It's fine and it's fun to have crushes, but if she follows Grant's advice and finds her place in the new town, she probably won't be obsessing about it enough to write an advice columnist anymore.
Maybe this is also UOF's first major crush: she's been with her boyfriend since she was 19, and she's relatively young. If she hasn't experienced the crushing-on-someone-else feeling, she might not have learned how to handle it. Lots of people don't, as Dan points out, because they think it isn't supposed to happen and so they're not prepared for it.
I had a similar experience at a similar age: what was helpful for me was realizing that what I was attracted to about the person I was crushing on were the same things I was attracted to in my partner; it's just that they were presented in a new and novel person. That helped me understand the novelty component and deal with my feelings more easily, without thinking they were necessarily telling me something profound. (They might be for her, given the point made about her not seeming to care how her boyfriend feels.)
When I had a huge crush on my boyfriend's brother, I worked it out through the magical act of fantasy. It's amazing what the human brain can do if you use it properly.
Interesting post/comments. PHM, I lost half of my right foot 4 years ago when I was 30. It was fairly painful recovery blah blah blah, life goes on. I'd been with my girlfriend prior to the accident and we were intimate. After I was more or less recovered ( and even though loosing part of a foot is waaaaay easier than loosing a hand), I was fairly self concious about my new body and sex changed. My then girlfriend seemed not to care which I appreciate, but still it takes a long time to get your head around a physical change like that so your guy needs to make sure he a) sucks it up if that is applicable, and b) get counselling and proper pain management. Otherwise, moops and dee have good points too! Talk to him and figure out ways to go for it that don't hurt his still sore left arm.
Ya, read my above comment. Making sure readers know that I didn't have a sex change, and nor did I proof read my comment prior to posting. Just lost the toes, not the penis! Jesus.
"Just lost the toes, not the penis! Jesus." But you can still bragging about "having almost a foot down there!"
Well played, Moops! Thanks, and that is a fantastic idea! hahaha.
Agree with Seattle Blonde... I had the same experience and 7 years later am still with the boyf (now husband). It was a steep learning curve but as soon as I realised that it's NORMAL to crush on other people, especially those with similar qualities to your loved one, I dropped the guilt and started to feel like a grown up in a grown up relationship. Having said that, at no point did I really consider telling my other half about my crush... i was terrified of "ruining everything". UOF doesnt seem to have these same fears/considerations so I'd kinda agree with Grant... she's probably lonely/unhappy/yearning for attention. Just my two cents.
RE UOF: Why in the world would you feel compelled to tell your bf and your crush about this attraction? Sounds like she's got a relationship deathwish to me.
My wife and I have many mutual friends and maybe one or two a piece of friends we can call our own. We are in a closed relationship but have always been very honest and open about our feelings or abstractedness towards other people. Especially since I tend to talk in my sleep and it only gets worse when I'm drunk, upfront honesty is by far the best policy. I truly believe our relationship is stronger and healthier for the fact that we can be honest about our feelings for others. I have looked my wife right in the eye and told her how hot our mutual friend is and how I would like to fuck her. She has covered many of the same topics with me. Never has that been misunderstood as meaning, I am going to fuck that friend. Those are two completely different things. We can still hang out with these friends with out any awkwardness or a feeling like anyone has to be watched out for. Maybe one day we will invite someone home, but I know it will be a mutual decision and everyone will come out the other side happy.
Why do I bohter calling up people when I can just read this!