Miss Information: I Started Dating My Well-Endowed Ex for the Third Time
"I can't have sex with you all the time! I'm exhausted and can't perform in those stupid condoms!"
By Sarah Jaffe
Dear Miss Information,
I am presently entertaining the notion of reconnecting with my ex-boyfriend. This would technically be reunion number three, after two previous attempts to navigate my anorexia, his fishing addiction, and our collective and respective self-destruction, reckless intoxication, higher education, etc. It's been exactly a year since break up #2, after exactly a year of living together. During my year of celibacy (I'm under no illusion that it was a shared vow) I purchased my first home, completed the first half of my master’s degree, got a promotion at work, adopted an awesome dog, and generally got my shit together.
I'm a lot less crazy now, and feel confident that I'm in a better place for a partnership, as he appears to be as well. Evidently I look better too, which has made a return to the physical exhilarating to say the least. It's been about a month of hanging out, with me only recently caving and engaging in some good ol' ex sex, despite my initial (very vocal) reservations about going down that road again.
While this is all richly complex in emotional baggage, let's flash back to alone-on-the-couch me. Tonight we cooked dinner together, took the dogs to the park, and spooned on the couch whilst whispering sweet nothings and sharing our hopes and dreams. We decided to go to bed early, as we both work long, weird hours at painful, soul-sucking jobs, and quickly found ourselves intertwined among dogs, lights out, and cozy. It wasn't until a playful comment about my pup getting more belly rubs than her mommy that the zen aura spiked violently, erupting in a "I can't have sex with you all the time! I'm exhausted and can't perform in those stupid condoms!"
I understand where he's coming from. I really do. He's enormous (we're talking Magnum discomfort) and I'm only now rebuilding my stamina and sexual prowess. He's never been a kisser, or a big foreplaya, but I'm concerned he's already losing interest. We had a rather harrowing experience with an IUD before, so I'm hesitant to go down that road again — especially considering the possibility that my tricked-out cunt still may not be the fix-it-all he needs to give it to me as much I want. I feel like that's more information without really posing a question. I guess, what's your take on the heterosexual male's mating patterns? I'm baffled.
— Once, Twice, Three Times a Lady (Chasing her Ex)
Dear Three Times,
I’m baffled too, by several things in your letter, not least the brief and mysterious mention of a relationship-wrecking “fishing addiction,” which admittedly your expert columnist had to Google to find out if it was some weird new sex or drug thing I’d not heard of. I find out that, nope, there are just actually some really, really avid anglers who struggle with the weight of their love for the hobby and have some pretty intense message boards about it but all this is a topic for another column. (LW, please tell me more about this; I am clearly mesmerized by the concept.)
Now that I’ve got my sleeves rolled up (or pants rolled up and wading boots on, as it were), where to begin? It sounds like yes, definitely, you are doing much better post-breakup with this incredibly well-endowed dude. All the things you described having accomplished in the past year are signs of having a totally functional and thriving adult life, which begs the question: why, why, why, (besides the aforementioned giant wang) would you consider getting back together with someone with whom your chemistry results in nothing but a hot mess? Yes, people change and sometimes whether or not someone is right for you is a matter of timing. But you people have broken up twice (twice!) and now after just a little bit of rekindling, you’re already having heated arguments about your sex life, so pardon me if I don’t give you two crazy kids my blessing to find out if the third time’s the charm. In the Oscar-winning words of Robert Lopez, let it go. You’re right that you’re in a better place for a partnership, but probably not with your double-ex.
(Another small bafflement: in between condoms and an IUD, you missed a plethora of other options for contraception, including that old classic, the pill, and everyone’s favorite throwback barrier method, the diaphragm. But this was not the meat of your question.)
As for the mating patterns of the heterosexual male, he is an elusive beast. Never having been observed in the wild before, anthropologists’ best guess is that the heterosexual male’s relationship to mating is that he enjoys it. A lot. Generally with human women, but again, little is known about what heterosexual men enjoy sexually. It’s anyone’s guess since they’re so quiet about their desires and expectations.
They’re humans. Come on. Do you as a woman want the same things as your mom and your sister and your best friend and the lady down the street? No, you don't, because ladies are not a hive mind and neither are dudes. Some men are assholes and some are dreamboats. Some want sex and some want love and some want both and some want neither and some want the combo plate with a large Coke. Let’s not generalize. Not everybody is your ex, and let's face it, right now you only care about what his behavior means. If your ex’s patterns still make no sense to you, talk to him about it, since he can answer far better than I. Or, you know, if his patterns make no sense to you after two failed relationships, why not go ahead and date him a third time, just in case. Psych! Do not do this. Give up the ghost, and go meet someone else, someone with whom you do not share a long sordid past and who only knows the new version of you with her shit together. There are plenty of fish in the sea.
(I’m sorry, it was right there, I couldn’t help it!)
Image via L'imaGiraphe
