My best experience in a relationship also started this way.
Well, that’s the problem. I don’t give in or make the play, as I want to be sure I am interested in more than sex- but no one wants to wait around.
If I don’t sleep with someone within three dates, and recently it seems to be the first, then I am classified as a friend- it’s one reason I *have *so many female friends. When I was younger, I didn’t try to have female friends all that much. There were potential partners, current partners, and ex-partners, not friends.
I have no problem with casual sex- but I tend not to be casual. I either get emotionally involved or I feel kinda dirty, and not in a good way.
Why would you think that a natural thing like sex would have anything to do with morality? I can understand if it was forced, with a child or an animal or something but, come on, it’s just sex. It’s been going on for quite some time now, y’know.
Many natural things can be looked at in a moral context. It is natural to be angry, but what is the correct thing to do when angry can be examined. It is natural to want to eat, but to what extent and what is eaten can be examined. It is natural to want to rest, but when and how much you should rest can be examined. It is also, as you say, natural to want to have sex, but when and how is something that can be examined. You yourself acknowledge this when you point out it would be different if it forced, or with a child or animal. I am not saying sex is bad or wrong. I do not think that at all, but I see nothing strange about looking at it in a moral context.
For me it depends on what I’m looking for. Wait, let me rephrase that - it depended on what I was looking for at the time.
Was I hot for the guy’s bod and had no interest in anything further? Sure. Women do one night stands too.
Was this someone who I wanted to explore a relationship with? I’d slow it WAY down. He’d know, however, by the third date if it was, sometime in the near or not to distant future, going to happen.
As a woman, to hold down the other end of the spectrum from the “decide in 10 minutes” thing: I have never felt sexually attracted to a guy that I haven’t known for a few weeks at least. Now admittedly I’m pretty antisocial and it takes me a while to warm up to people; tdn’s “seven hours of face time” is about enough for someone to go from “independently mobile lump of meat” to “Bob from Accounting”. It will take at least that much again to get to “hey, this Bob guy is kinda hot”, to be followed at yet further remove by “I could hit that”.
And it makes sense. Not in all cases, of course. But someone who doesn’t enjoy sex, or who fears it, or is morally against it, is far more likely to hold off on that first time. The first four or five dates are a pretty good indication of how the rest of the relationship is going to go.
One usually is happiest if one connects with people who shares one’s opinion of the place sexuality has in a relationship.
For people who think that sex is an activity as normal as eating, it’s best if they find others who think of it that way. They’re definitely out there.
For people who think that a relationship is more valuable the less sex is involved (well, there’s the smell of *my *judgment creeping in), it’s best if they find people who also think of it that way. Such folks are definitely out there.
I suspect trying to find some sort of objective pattern, or depending on society’s amorphous, conflict-positive rules is going to lead to a place of less-than-stellar happiness.
The stereotype is that guys are drooling horny bastards needing to hump anything in sight and only the gravest of threats are enough to keep them from wandering the countryside impregnating everything that has a hole-like structure.
The stereotype is that women dig on everything up to – but not including – sex, and that they will use Mythical Vagina Rarity as a way of leading these uncouth beasts around by the nose.
Both stereotypes are pretty damaging, and woefully undermine what would ordinarily be a reasonable discussion.
Denigrating people who are sex-positive as sluts and whores and so forth is just crappy. Likewise denigrating people who prefer to wait until the third child before they have sex as uptight Puritans is equally crappy.
It’s just better when people find other people who are complementary. It’s too bad our society is so sex-negative that sexuality can’t be discussed as openly as diet, hobbies, and other more common partner-flavored values.
Well, I’m not about to sleep with someone who I"m getting a “drama” vibe from. My initial instincts are pretty good. And sex, to me, is a big part of a relationship, even in the early stages.
I thought it was obvious I wasn’t talking about that kind of situation, but I suppose it wasn’t. Far be it from me to fault a guy for taking a woman up on an offer she made. I’m talking about something else entirely. “Hey, let me make a play for this girl, fuck her, and then have nothing further to do with her while claiming it’s because she’s a slut! It will be so awesome!”
Santo Rugger, I really hope you’re just trying to make a stupid joke, because if you’re not, you’re an idiot. Wait–that would stil make you an idiot even if it were just a stupid joke.
The third date “rule” seems too quick to me. But maybe it’s a reflection of market forces or something like that. E.g. man meets woman, they go on date. Presumably in the course of the first couple dates they talk about themselves and find out any deal-breakers that might exist.
If it’s a scenario where the guy is wining and dining her to impress her, he runs the risk that she’s the sort of person who would soak up all the fun he can dish ($) out without really caring one bit about him. As they say, a man with money to burn always meets his match. And over the course of two dates, the woman has a chance to weed him out if he’s a player. If he’s doesn’t seem likely to commit to serial monogamy or whatever, maybe she drops him.
Either way, there are other fish in the sea and if one can’t imagine going to bed with the other, they’re wasting their time. Time is a precious commodity for many, given the demands of work and other obligations (especially with those who may be single parents). Meanwhile, other fish await.
I’m with those who say it’s best to date your own type. If you’re a sex-on-the-first-date sort of person, date the same. If you go slower, date the same.
Exactly, steer clear of the drama. Problem there is that my last couple relationships were dramarama, and I didn’t catch any warning signs. My radar may be broken.
But my question is, why can’t we kiss, make out, whatever, let it progress slowly-
I am aware that the logical step would then be to sleep together- three, four, five dates cool- that isn’t too early, though three might be a bit early.
I just want to know why it is the first date all the damn time these days.
I am not irresistable, and the women I go out with know I am a full time single dad, so I don’t expect a woman looking for a quick fix. I just don’t get it.
I shall again chalk it up to my density/inscrutability of women.
