Where else would you have us look for it? But it is troublesome, I agree, since the goal of every woman for a relationship is as little sex as possible, and to coerce her man into reducing his desire to accommodate her lack of same. At least, I think my bitter, cynical view is as valid as yours. 
Oh, and KneadToKnow must have married my ex-fiancee. That line about “Why do I always have to decide?” was her to a T.
I’m another who doesn’t like to play them game, mostly because I don’t know any of the rules.
I was once chatting with this girl, and she seemed nice. Beautiful, crazy-but-in-a-really-good-way, and for some reason into me. Really into me. She was hanging off my every word, saying how interesting I was, how refreshing it was to talk with me.* And her body language… wow, yeah, she was interested.
Then suddenly she goes cold. I must have done something, broken some rule, failed some test, because all of a sudden she’s not enjoying the conversation, just going through the motions. She gives me her number, but blows me off when I call her.
I don’t know what happened, and that’s just annoying. Knowing how it feels to be on the wrong end of this situation guarantees I wont be dishing out any time soon.**
*The first thing I brought up, the thing that got her the most intrigued in me, were the sexual implications of superpowers. Best… pickup… ever.
**Not that I would have ever done it anyway, but an extra incentive not to is good.
Yup, I’ve done the fixer-upper route. The problem with that is that if you can’t meet each other on equal ground, you can’t have an even relationship. My ex-husband was a fixer upper from the get go, but I just thought, “Awww, he needs me.”
Truth is, he didn’t need me - he needed anyone. And the sooner I got over the self-delusion that I was his magic solution, the happier I became.
Cause I left him and found me.
If you don’t want to take things further say so. Don’t pussyfoot around and hope they’ll just go away. They won’t and it’s much fairer to let them know where they stand so everyone can move on.
I learned to listen to my gut. When I felt like there was something odd going on, there always was.
Never mind dating, that’s the secret to life, right there.
*That’s *the secret to dating.
Mine is pay attention and don’t rush in. You know *nothing *about this person until you’ve experienced some unpleasantness with them. Anyone can be easy to get along with when things are good. It’s how they behave when things are bad that lets you know whether this is someone you want in your life.
One of my big pet peeves. I had to quit dating a woman for this very reason, and the sex was great! Every single time we were together we played the game why I had to guess what would make her happy with absolutely zero input. “Whatever you want to do” became like a buzzsaw in my brain. Should I have just been a jerk and said “more sex please” or should I have continued trying to do things she liked with no feedback to tell me if I was making her happy or sad?
The new habit I learned … Don’t criticize people in front of someone (like a date) who I want to like me. Yeah, I have a smartassed side and I like a good smartass. Got to keep it in check. I must smile when the waiter spills a drink on me, I must stay calm and cool when the my reservation is lost, I must not make fun of the idiot that cut me off in traffic. I have learned to reveal my smartassedness slowly, in measured doses, and to wield it for fun, not in spite. I hope.
Grabbing her hair, wrapping it around your fist, and tugging hard enough to send her to the hospital? Bad. Very very bad.
Running your fingers up the back of her scalp, closing them up, and pulling back just enough to make her vulnerable to your deep kisses? Good. Very VERY good.
My biggest one: Make sure you want to be with someone because you want to be with that person, not just because you want to be with someone and hey, they’re available.*
And vice versa, be sure the person you’re with wants to be with you, not just any warm body.*
*This is, of course, referring to serious relationships. There’s nothing wrong with casually dating someone when you know it’s not really going anywhere just to keep each other company. So long as you both know that and are ok with it.
Okay, no offense meant here and I’m sure you’re a decent fella, but if you did that to me more than once, I would break your goddamn fingers.
Grabbing my hair and using it as a lever to position my head while we’re close to each other (no matter how gentle you are about it) fills me with the overwhelming urge to throw an elbow to the most vulnerable area available to me. I realize that there is clearly a goddamn “how to be the world’s best lover” meme out there somewhere that teaches this is a good move (and that some women enjoy it), but I hate it in ways I can’t fully elucidate outside of the Pit. Further, I’ve asked a number of my friends and we run maybe 40 - 60 on it (40 against, 60 for or neutral) and those of us who are against tend to be really, really against.
I have, in the past, summarily broken up with guys who thought that was a good move. Not being a crazy person, I customarily give a warning the first time a guy tries that - but if it happens again, it’s a definite and clear cut case of “here’s your hat, there’s the door, don’t ever call me again” for me.
YMMV and all, but I’m just sayin’ it’s not always good at all.
And I realize I’ve totally forgotten to respond to the OP, which I had intended to do thusly:
I’ve learned that if a guy doesn’t pay attention when you indicate preferences (in movies, cuisine, music, physical contact, whatever), then you’ll likely save yourself some heartache if you send him on his way.
These are all obviously from a female perspective.
Trust your gut feeling. If you already know why the relationship isn’t going to last, end it. Stringing people along so that you don’t have to be alone is just wrong and it’s only going to get harder.
No one is ever going to fulfill all of your emotional needs - that’s your job.
No one is ever going to make you feel happy and interesting if you can’t do it on your own. Again, that’s your job.
Get over yourself and compromise on the small things that you can live with. No one is perfect and no two people are identical in their living habits.
If they get angry to the point where you’re scared or worse, they hit you, leave and don’t look back. It will happen again.
Don’t humiliate the person that you’re with by flirting with others right in front of them. It’s self-centered and rude no matter what the level of the relationship is. It may make you look popular but it also makes you look like a bitch.
Don’t do that chickenshit thing of trying to be so obnoxious to someone that you want to dump in the hopes that they’ll dump you first. Just do it.
Warn them when you have PMS and then do your best not to blame them for your crappy mood and cramps.
Do nice, unexpected things just because you like to see them surprised and happy and not just because you’re hoping for something in return.
Listen, and don’t assume that you’re always right. For someone like me, shut up once in a while so that you can hear what people who aren’t so verbose are saying.
Well, obviously, if you try this move and get a strong objection, and try it again, then you deserve to have your fingers broken. But we had a thread on this recently, and the response was overwhelmingly “for.”
What I was trying to say was that I’ve found that men don’t really care about you unless you’re sleeping with them. I honestly and truly believe a man cannot love someone and their only goal is finding sex. Seriously fucked up, I know. The practical side of me says “Well that’s not true…” but the emotional part of me says “It’s most definitely true.” Yes, even more bitter and cynical than my first statement. And I know how horrible and sexist that sounds but I can’t help it.
Fucked up and wrong.
I can’t speak for all men, but I can speak for myself. I normally want far more than sex from a relationship. But good sex is crucial. I make no apologies for that, nor should I. I stay far away from women who think that sex is bad, shameful, disgusting, or degrading.
Another important thing you can learn from a relationship is not to measure future prospects according to your most recent past one. Just because you dated an ass does not mean all men are asses.
That was eerily like conversations that I used to have with my ex.
I think that’s an important one, Atomicflea. It’s one thing to learn from your mistakes and another thing altogether to make someone else pay for them.
It’s one of those different strokes for different folks things, I’m thinking. I think what it is is that for those of us against, we’re really, really against 
I know that in my case, it triggers a claustrophobic reaction. It is, oddly, the only thing that does that for me - including actual enclosed spaces. Also weirdly, it only bothers me in intimate situations - hairdressers doing it doesn’t bother me at all.
It does make a damn handy asshole detection mechanism though - since any guy who’s not willing to pay some attention to what I enjoy to the point of repeating behavior I’ve explicitly objected to in no way deserves nooky.
It’s stated upthread, but you MUST MUST MUST MUST be sexually compatible to have an ongoing relationship. You can be a ferret or tortoise…but a tortoise and ferret won’t last long together.
Saying a man won’t have a useful relationship without sex says as much about you as it does about them.
Nobody else can help it for you, I can tell you that much. Really, if you believe a man cannot love someone then I recommend you not fret about it - you might as well fret about a goldfish being unable to play the fiddle.
Of course, I know that my father is still grieving for my mother sixteen years after she died, but that’s probably because he misses the sex. :dubious: