By Dan Savage - Mar. 14, 2024

I have a history of dating men I’m not attracted to physically or emotionally. I always found it weirdly comforting to know my boyfriend was obsessed with me while I had minimal feelings for him. 

I have explored this in therapy and chalk it up to lack of self-confidence. But a month ago I started hanging out with this guy, and it’s the first relationship I’ve been in that isn’t one sided. It’s also the first relationship I’ve been in where the guy wasn’t pushing me to “define the relationship” after a month. 

This has led to me feeling quite vulnerable and afraid. For the first time in a long time, I’m dating a guy that I not only like but find very attractive, and now I’m terrified it will end. This fear has led me to keep my feelings to myself. In previous relationships where I was the one with the upper hand, I found it easier to speak up because I felt in control and didn’t really care if it ended. I am now in a place where I’m afraid to speak for fear of saying the wrong thing. 

I want to know what his intentions are, but I don't want to place undue pressure on him either. I’m craving more validation than I’m getting from him because I got used to being smothered with validation in all my previous relationships, but I don't know how to bring this up without making it seem like I am trying to DTR. Any advice? 

— Naked And Afraid  

I wouldn’t chalk up the choices you’ve made in the past — only dating men you held in what sounds like contempt — to a lack of self-confidence. Frankly, I’m a little mystified that your therapist endorsed that interpretation. You either had one of those therapists who thinks it’s their job to help clients construct self-serving rationalizations for their shitty behavior or you came up with that rationalization on your own and your therapist never got around to challenging you on it. 

I’m going to challenge you. 

I don’t think you have self-confidence issues, NAA, I think you have control issues. You only dated men you didn’t care about because you wanted to have “the upper hand.” You wanted all the power, all the leverage and all the control. You not only dated only men you could take or leave, NAA, you seemed to go out of your way to find men who couldn’t leave you. That is not the weak-ass move of a person who lacks self-confidence, NAA: that’s a cold-hearted power play executed by a control freak. 

I’m glad you got into therapy. If that shallow pseudo-epiphany you had in therapy helped you make different and better choices, NAA, then it did you some good. But I think you have more to unpack, perhaps with a different therapist. 

What’s going to happen to this new guy? Most of what you have is hope: You like this guy and you’re hoping you continue to like him as you get to know him better and you’re hoping he likes you too. If it doesn’t go anywhere, you may wind up with a broken heart. But getting your heart broken is proof you have one. 

Whatever happens, NAA, don’t return to your old, shitty, and heartless modus operandi. It wasn’t good for the men you dated, and it wasn’t good for you either. Being open to love means being open to pain.

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