DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: is it wrong to break up my boyfriend after finding out he doesn’t like giving oral sex? And also am I crazy for wanting to move in with him? A little backstory:
We’ve been dating for 3 months and this is both of our first long term relationship. Before him I was very sexually active and I’m comfortable talking and having sex and he isn’t. Before me he’s only had sex with 1 other girl and he’s also 22 and I’m 20. We’re both in college and it’s time to start planning on where you want to live for next year & I want to move in with him because I love him and it’s cheaper, but everyone is saying I’m crazy especially for staying with a guy who hasn’t given me head.
I spoke to him about it and he said he’s willing to learn and start doing it for me but I guess everyone’s words stuck to me. Yet again it’s my relationship not theirs. Everyone is saying I’m rushing towards it and I should think twice before moving in with him. But I feel ready & we talked about it I also have never met anyone like him, I love him, I just wish the sex was better sometimes and that he gave me head and if he said he’s willing to work on it, isn’t that something?
Or is it better that I give up and break up with him.
Head Strong
DEAR HEAD STRONG: I think you’re missing what you’re friends are trying to tell you by a wide margin.
Ok, let’s start with the obvious, HS: you can break up with a partner (whether this guy or any future partners) for pretty much any reason at all. Don’t like the way his nose whistles when he breathes? You can break up with him over that. Don’t like the way the part in his hair is so straight that it’s writing Ed Shereen songs? You can dump him for that.
So yes, you can break up with him over the fact that thus far, he doesn’t like going down on you. If that’s something you need from a sex partner, then that’s something you need and anyone who won’t provide that is someone you can safely drop from your social calendar.
Now that having been said: there’s a difference between “won’t” and “isn’t crazy about it”. You can dump him right the hell now if you so choose, but I think that might be jumping the gun. If he’s willing to give it the ol’ college try for you and is willing to add it to his regular repertoire because it’s important to you? I think that it’s worth giving him a chance to, er, put his money where his mouth is. Or isn’t, as it were.
Now someone get out their phone and dial 1-900-Mixx-A-Lot because there’s one giant “but” coming…
BUT.
You really need to slow your roll on basically everything right now because HOLY S--T you’re bouncing all over the place like a meth-addicted pinball. In the span of a paragraph, the sex is mediocre but he’s the love of your life and you’re going to move in with him but also you’re willing to dump him because your friends said so and honestly, I’m just exhausted trying to keep up with your train of thought here.
We’ll go with the part you don’t want to hear: I really don’t think you’re in love with this guy. ODing on the New Relationship Energy, absolutely. But I don’t think this is love and you definitely don’t want to move in with him.
Look, I get it. You’re 20. You’re in college. It’s probably your first true taste of independence. You’re having all sorts of new incredible experiences, you’ve got this guy you’re really digging… but a) you’re 20 and b) you’ve been dating for three months. At three months, you do not know this dude, and he doesn’t know you. You are seeing New Relationship Guy, when he may as well be working on his Oscar acceptance speech because he’s giving you a performance of the kind of guy he wants you to see. And you are doing the same for him.
It’s not that you and he are being deceitful, it’s that at this stage, you’re still giving 110% at trying to be the ultimate version of yourselves, because this is all new and fresh and exciting, and everything down to the way he chews his food is wonderful and it feels like you can keep this up forever. But while all of this is exciting and it’s fun, there’s still so much that you two don’t know about each other, or even about yourselves when you’re with one another. You don’t know each other’s incredibly annoying habits or peccadilloes, you haven’t had days where you both look like you got run over by the ugly truck because you’ve both got the same bug going around and you feel like you’re 80% snot and gastric distress by volume. Nor have you had serious fights – not disagreeing about whose turn it is to pick something on Netflix – but the real s--t, the deep, core values or having serious conflicts, where you actually get seriously upset at each other.
Hell, I’m not entirely sure if you’ve reached the stage where you’ve actually farted in front of this dude, and you’re still working on whether he’s going to be giving you head or not and if he’s any good at it.
My point is that this is not the period where you should be making plans to move in together, because you don’t know the important s--t about one another. You’re thinking about it being cheaper and being with your snugglebunny 24/7 and how romantic it will all be, but you haven’t seen so much as “can he remember to take the trash out and separate out the recycling”. Or how he behaves when things go wrong and he’s seriously inconvenienced. Or what happens if one of you can’t make rent this month. Or…
Here’s the thing: moving in together is a very significant step in a relationship. But you don’t know anything about what living with this dude would be like. You don’t seem to have so much as had a long weekend together, and you’re half-ready to kick him to the curb.
Call me crazy, but that doesn’t seem like the strongest basis for shacking up with someone.
More seriously: living with people takes a lot of adjustment and some very significant concessions, even with people you’re generally compatible with. I’ve seen decades long friendships end because they tried being roommates and discovered what it was like when they couldn’t get away from all the little things that annoyed them about the other person. And trust me: he’s got little things that annoy you and vice versa.
So do yourself a favor here: let’s take about 20% off the love talk and put off moving in with him for at least a year. For now, why not focus more on the fact that the sex isn’t great and work on that. Because trust me: if the sex ain’t working, the rest won’t either.
Let the dude work on his head game. If he gets that to a satisfactory level… maybe look into taking a vacation first and see how that goes. If you can make it through, say, trying to get a connection out of DFW or O’Hare without murdering each other, you might – and I stress might – be able to survive living together.
Good luck.
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