I’m a busy, single girl living in NYC and I need advice on how to meet new guys. I’m a student in the performing arts – concentrating opera – so my access to straight guys feels a bit limited. Rehearsals and classes take up most of my time. I haven’t been on a date in over a year now – its crazy! I want to try something new where I can get to know more guys. I go to the gym a lot but other than that I don’t have much in the way of ideas.

As for not going on a date, I think its a sign that there has to be something I’m doing wrong. I generally feel awkward and nervous around guys so I bail out of talking to them even when there’s nothing to lose. They don’t approach me either, so I’m guessing I’m not sending out the right signals if I’m sending any.

There’s also the fact that my roommate made a bet with me – find a date in 10 days or I’m subject to being sexiled for a weekend. That would be severely inconvenient so if you could help at all that would be great! I would love to have a guys insight!

See our guy’s response after the jump!

[continue reading…]

I have been dating a man for about 5 months and everything is pretty good. He was married for 10 years and has been divorced for about 2. His ex still gives him a hard time, but he says that he has moved on. He has custody of one child and she the other.

We spend majority of our time together. We go out often, I’ve been introduced to the family and he to mine, and he treats me like I’m his girlfriend. Last week I bought up the subject and the answer wasn’t what I expected. He told me how great I was and that he loved what we have, but at this time, he didn’t have the capacity to commit to more. I processed this and the next day told him that we probably shouldn’t talk or see each other anymore. My rationale was that I was too emotionally caught up and didn’t know when he would have the ‘capacity.’ He was in utter shock!

He said that he expected me to pull back, but not cut it off completely. Then, he back peddled and said he prays daily for god to release some of the things in his life. He also said that just because he doesn’t have the capacity today it doesn’t mean that he won’t have it in 2,4, or 6 months. Being a woman, I accepted his logic and things have been good. He continues to treat me well, but in the back of my mind I’m scared things aren’t going to change and that I’m wasting my time. I want to have kids and he knows this (and says this is fine) so this further complicates the situation because I don’t want to waste these years with someone who doesn’t have the capacity to commit at this time.

Lately I’ve also notice that when we talk about things like houses and cars he uses ‘us’ and ‘we.’ For example, I am considering purchasing a new car (sports). We were talking and he told me to purchase whatever I like, but remember that I want to have kids in a few years and that I would have to get a new car. I said that my future husband would just take my car and I would take his. He told me that if we marry that that car switching wouldn’t work (he doesn’t like small cars) and that I better buy a car that could hold the entire family (including his family). Mixed signals?

I’m really confused. Do I leave since the one thing I know for certain is that he doesn’t have the capacity or enjoy our time together?

See our guy’s response after the jump!

[continue reading…]

I’ve gone out with three different guys in the past month. With all of these guys, we talk and have a good time for a few hours over coffee. He asks me out for a second date, and takes down my phone number. He even talks specifics for the next date (what day, what we might do). None of these guys actually call me to schedule the next date.

What is going on here? I can see this happening maybe once, but three times? …and what is the rationale behind asking a girl out and then never calling? If he doesn’t like me, why doesn’t he just not ask me out again, or just not ask for my phone number?

Read on for our guy’s response!

[continue reading…]

I was at a party with some friends, and one certain guy was there that was a friend of a friend. I had known him throughout high school but we never really spoke or spent time together. I was very much attracted to him and wanted to get to know him better. At the end of the night we ended up talking for hours and then impulsively slept together.

Not too much was expected afterward from either one of us. However, I spent the night at his house a few days later and we ended up hooking up again. The next day he sent  me a note saying that he was really sorry but he wasn’t in the right mindset to be in a relationship right now and we should start spending time as friends and nothing more. As upset as I was, I accepted it and was happy to at least still have him as a friend. I really feel like we have connected ever since then.  He shares everything with me, and me with him.

Over the next two months, we hung out as friends. We started to hook up twice but he immediately pulled away and said that he doesn’t want to hurt me.  He said he wants me and that he really likes me but he couldn’t see the relationship going anywhere since we were both planning on leaving at the end of the summer. However, neither of us is planning on leaving anymore, so I can’t understand why he still won’t commit.

I feel like he’s afraid of getting hurt- he battles with depression issues and doesn’t seem strong enough to handle any sort of disappointment. I just get very confused because he runs so hot and cold with me. One minute I feel like he’s changed his mind and wants to further our  relationship and make a commitment, but then he’ll pulls away. At this point, I’m not sure if I should wait it out and see where it goes because I’ve really started to like him and can see myself dating him. On the other hand, I feel like I’m wasting my time and it isn’t  fair to put myself through the constant disappointment.

Is he ever going to come around, or am I wasting my time? Does he really like me or is he just making up excuses to cover his fear of commitment or lack of interest??

Read on for our guy’s response!
[continue reading…]

My roommate met this guy at a bar a week ago. the first date, he took her to Gramercy Tavern (one of the nicest restaurants in New York City). Last night was their second date and he took her to another equally nice restaurant. Before their second date, he had some of his friends meet her and he tells her how much he likes her every other sentence.. When she got home, she was getting concerned that this guy was a desperate loser because he was exposing all way too soon. Tonight, he came over and when I came out of my room I saw a HUGE vase of a dozen roses that he brought her. Now my roommate is convinced that he can’t get a date and probably wants to marry her next. He’s also in his 30s, a lawyer, and looking to buy a place or probably settle down. She likes him but she thinks he has no game and too much strong feelings too soon is creeping her out. What do you think? Are we just cynical and can’t appreciate a gentleman taking us out or does this guy really have signs of desperate loser?

See our guy’s response after the jump! [continue reading…]

I don’t know if it’s my personality or what not, I tend to nitpick a lot with my boyfriends, either because I really am like that or because they are not ideal for me. This was a big problem in my last relationship, which ended really badly. After, I told myself that I would never get into another relationship where I end up nit-picking or feeling unsure of whether or not I should be with him. Anyway, I’ve been seeing this new guy who really loves me and is the epitome of an ideal boyfriend. BUT,- there always has to be a catch- there are certain things I don’t like about him. I think I can overlook it, but I am extremely scared that we will end up badly just like my past relationships because I can still find things I don’t like about him. So what should I do? Do you think I have emotional baggage? I don’t want to break it off because I love him, but I am thinking, should I find someone that I can’t nitpick with so I will never be this confused?

Read out guy’s response after the jump! [continue reading…]

I have been friends with this guy for months- he’s really funny and makes me laugh. When I first met him he was all over my friend and trying to have sex with her. She now has a boyfriend and he started acting the same way with me. He always says how beautiful I am and how happy I make him and is always telling me how much he loves my personality and how much he wants me.

Does he mean it or is he just trying to have sex with me too?

See our guy’s response after the jump! [continue reading…]

I recently started dating a guy who sometimes works night shifts and sometimes day shifts. When he works the day shifts I see him every day, but when working night shifts, we only have time on weekends which means I don’t see him at all during the week. Anyway, when Friday comes along he chooses to go out with his friends rather than being with me and I’m really confused because he always tells me that he loves me.

He also suggested that we buy each other rings as a symbol of commitment to one another. I told him I will think about it since we have only been dating for two months but I now I’m don’t think it’s a good idea to buy the rings, especially if he can choose to go out drinking with his friends over spending time with me.

I just don’t know how to tell him that I think it’s a bad idea since he hasn’t shown he’s really committed to me. What should I do?

See our guy’s response after the jump! [continue reading…]

I recently met a guy out of the country and I thought we hit it off. I visit the country often and plan to return in a few months. I hung out with him the last 2 days before I left so I didn’t get to spend that much time with him. The last time I saw him we discussed him coming to visit me as long as I got time off from work. And it was all his idea to come visit me not me. We also said that we would keep in touch through messenger. FYI- he and his ex girlfriend (first and only girlfriend) were together for 6 years and they broke up last year in March. According to his family (we met through our families), she treated him really badly and controlled his every move. She took advantage of his niceness. He also briefly told me about her and she sounded a bit psycho, but I believe they still keep in touch.

It’s been 2 weeks and I haven’t heard from him. I texted him last week and never heard back. I also emailed him a few days ago and included a pic we took and I still haven’t heard from him. I’m no longer going to bother making my effort because he obviously isn’t but what do you think happened???

Read our guy’s response after the jump! [continue reading…]

I met this guy online about two years ago. Everything was amazing at first and we dated for a month before he left for medical school. For that whole month, we saw each other almost every day and he said he really liked me and I was everything he was looking for and all the stuff guys say in the beginning when they really like a girl. After that month he left for medical school in Nevada (I live in California), making it a long distance relationship.

We tried to keep it together at first, I even flew out there one weekend, but he ended up sending me a long email telling me that he just couldn’t handle a relationship at that time because he had just started medical school and he was dealing with a lot. I didn’t talk to him for about six months after that. For the last two years we have been talking off and on but never actually got back together. Recently, we started talking again, but just as friends. About a month ago he confessed that he’d had a girlfriend for the last 6 months and she just broke up with him and he was really upset.

I gave him advice and I was there for him as a friend, trying to make him feel better, all the while still having feelings for him and wanting him to like me. I finally decided to tell him that I wanted a relationship and nothing else and if he didn’t want the same thing I couldn’t handle being friends with him and to not call me again.

Read on for the rest of this question and our guy’s response! [continue reading…]

There’s this guy at work that was pursuing me since last November. We’re so similar that it is scary. He used to joke that I was his twin who was separated at birth or his future wife.  It started as just a joke and then I think he actually developed feelings for me and started asking me out. I was hesitant because I have dated guys at work before and it’s always gone sour. He told me “Life is what it is and things happen for a reason. You just haven’t met the right person.” Anyway, he kept pursuing me an I finally gave in and we went on out first date in March.

It was lots of fun and I never really felt I connected with someone like this before. I didn’t feel like I had to impress him, I was myself.  We were seeing each other like that for about two months and then we slept together. I made the mistake of asking him if there was a future for us. I wasn’t asking for a relationship, I just wanted to know that there could be because I dated this other guy for two and half years and he never committed. Anyway, this new guy also asked me to do something in the bedroom and I said no.

After that he started to become distant and when I confronted him about it he said that I did two things that turned him off. The first was talking about having relationship too soon and the other was that ‘you never say no in the bedroom.’ I told him that I understand that he felt this way but I am not a mind reader, and you should tell me or tell the person you are with when you are turned off. He told me “it was a no brainer.”

Read on for the rest of this question and our guy’s response after the jump [continue reading…]

As I enter deeper into my twenties, any time I’m around family or friends (that I do not communicate with on the regular), I get the question, “Are you seeing anyone?” And I never really know how to answer. For a while I’ve been “seeing” this guy who is absolutely lovely, but isn’t my boyfriend. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want him to be my boyfriend. We are just friends who get along great and are sexually attracted to each other. I just don’t want a relationship right now and I think he feels the same I like my weekends open to go out with my girlfriends or whatever comes my way.

While I do like this “thing” I have going on, I get the feeling that people look down upon girls who have friends with benefits. Even though I’m not going out and picking up guys every night, I still get the feeling that people think I’m doing something wrong. I don’t really want to give up the deal I have right now, but I don’t want to have to lie to my friends about who I’m going out with. Am I being promiscuous? Am I too old to have a friend with benefits? What do I do?

See our guy’s response after the jump! [continue reading…]

I’ve been seeing someone for about 2 months now, and we have sex often but he won’t call me his girlfriend even though we’ve met each other’s families, spend a lot of time together and act like we are dating. Is telling him I won’t have sex with him anymore because we aren’t dating, and I’m now uncomfortable with it, a bad idea? I think it might help me see if he’s only in it for sex, but I’m not sure.

Read our guy’s response after the jump! [continue reading…]

I met this guy about 3 years ago- he liked me then but I wasn’t so into him at the time. He recently asked me out and I decided to give him a chance and we’ve been seeing each other for about 3 months now. He said he loved me a couple of days into the relationship and would say it often, but sometime during the relationship he completely withdrew for no reason.

He stopped calling or texting and stopped picking up my calls. We eventually made up after I made the standard girl mistake of sending him numerous texts about how much I loved him.

The problem now is he hardly ever calls. Sometimes 3 to 4 days could go by and I’ll get no call from him. We live and work at different ends of town and I know that makes it difficult, but he hardly asks to see me or makes the effort to make time for us.

When I tried to talk to him about it (over the phone) he said he was always busy with work, got upset and hung up. Now he’s withdrawn again and I refuse to be treated the same way again so I haven’t called or texted. Its been almost a week now and no word from him. I don’t know if I’m handling things the wrong way or if he never really loved me in the first place. I need a way forward.

Read our guy’s response after the jump!

[continue reading…]

My boyfriend is still in close contact with his most recent ex in a way which is troubling me. I know he has remained close to a few of his ex’s which doesn’t concern me at all (he has the right to be friends with anyone) but the most recent ex is still extremely needy. She sends him nasty texts saying he is forgetting his friends if he hasn’t seen her for a while, posts catty comments on his Facebook page, yet he still won’t cut her off.

He says it is easier to remain friends with her than not to, but I personally won’t surround myself with people who are so toxic. He lent her a sum of money in the past which I think she still hasn’t paid back which could be a factor.

I feel that by keeping her in his life, he is being slightly disrespectful to me, as she clearly still has some kind of hold over him for him to put up with this. His other friends and parents agree with me, but I can’t get him see it from any other point of view.

Please help before I drive myself mad!!!!!

[continue reading…]

I think I have been reading too many magazine quizzes and too many relationship books for my own good. All of them pretty much say that the woman shouldn’t ever be the one to say “I Love You” first. It is like the “kiss of death.” While I understand the advice of not jumping the gun, as we women are supposed to be “more emotional,” I am in a relationship now where there is a lot of “hinting” around it going on and it is really tempting to “come out
and say it.” What does a guy think about the age old question? If the woman makes this “big move” first, does it make a guy squirm…or run?

Read our guy’s response after the jump!

[continue reading…]

I was seeing a guy for the past 2 months and everything was going really well. He told me how much he liked me, how lucky he felt to be with me and how he really thought this could be something. He also introduced me to his friends about two weeks ago and told me that I’m the first girl in the past two years that he’s introduced them to.

In the past two weeks we’ve only seen each other twice because he went away for a few days and then we both went away for Easter. Although we hadn’t seen that much of each other, I thought everything was fine. Then we saw each other on Saturday and he told me that he has too much work and doesn’t feel he can see me very much and that it isn’t fair to me.

I asked him what he wanted from me and he said he doesn’t know but he thinks that if he liked me enough he would want to cut back on his work and he doesn’t! He also said he hasn’t really missed not seeing me in the last two weeks that we hadn’t seen each other. It basically sounded like he likes me but not enough.

Read the rest of this question and our guy’s response after the jump!

[continue reading…]

My boyfriend and I have been going out for about three months now. We’ve already had sex and I think we took it way too fast.  He says he wants to be with me forever and that he loves me- I mean, could see us being like that but does he really mean it or is he just saying what he thinks I want to hear?

He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, but sometimes he won’t call or text the whole day. It makes me feel unloved but I don’t know how to let him know that without him getting mad. He’s like “Oh yeah, I’ll text you tomorrow.” Then he doesn’t! It makes me angry but I don’t want to be like “Why didn’t you text me?!?”

How do I know if he really means what he’s saying or if he’s full of it? 

[continue reading…]

Last spring, I met a guy through work and we hit it off. We have a lot in common…in fact, a lot of people say that we’re the exact same person! I knew that he had a huge crush on me, but I was dating someone else at the time.

Anyway, we started dating at the end of last summer. Things went well for a few months. He was calling all the time, sending flowers, sending random “thinking about you emails”-he even told me that he really saw us getting married at some point! He goes to school a few hours from where I live, so it was a long-distance relationship.

Around November, things changed. He became more distant, more withdrawn, stressed about school, etc. Right around Christmas time, I suggested taking a break to evaluate things. He didn’t really want it, but I couldn’t deal with how things were going. Needless to say, I found out that he started dating someone else during our break. I was pretty upset and told him I had no desire to be friends with him or have him in my life anymore.

[continue reading…]

“A guy that I used to like and have kissed (years ago) kissed me one day in the midst of a situation we were dealing with. I chalked it up to an episode (random occurence). I saw him two days later and he started to kiss me in the elevator and then later when he was getting out of his car he went to kiss me again. That time, I let him get close, but I pulled back before the deal could be “closed.”

Since that time, I get no response to texts, barely get responses to calls. When he does answer the phone, he is OBVIOUSLY in the midst of something else with other people (it’s like he wants me to know that).

I want to know: 1) Did I reject him when I didn’t kiss him the second time? 2) Is this new behavior/cold shoulder punishment for “rejection” 3) Is there anything else to be said/done about the situation (is it worth a conversation)?

Also, how do I bring up that whole situation… should it be a text, an email, a personal note – it can’t be a convo because he won’t respond… especially with it being 2 months ago.”

See our guy’s response after the jump!

[continue reading…]

I’ve been seeing a guy for a few weeks and he often refers to me as his girlfriend…but refuses to change his facebook status from being single. He is always asking to meet my parents, and introduces me to all his friends so I’m not sure what the problem is?

See our guy’s response after the jump! [continue reading…]

I met a really cute guy at a bar last weekend- we were both a little drunk and ended up making out a bit. I really felt a spark with him and he seemed really into me but I never heard from him! This isn’t the first time something like this has happened either, what’s the deal?

[continue reading…]

“I’ve been seeing this guy for almost 6 months now. Everything is pretty much perfect- we love spending time together, he really cares about me, we spend almost every night together, and we’re pretty much a ‘couple’ in the conventional sense. The only problem is he won’t call me his girlfriend. I’ve tried bringing it up and when I do he almost makes me feel guilty about it and says things like ‘what we have is so special, why do we have to label it?’ I know he had a painful breakup with his girlfriend before me which I think might be a part of this, so I’m trying to be understanding but I don’t think one thing should have anything to do with the other. Sometimes I’m okay with how things are, but other times I get really angry, especially when my friends get on my case about it. Our relationship is starting to suffer now because even though I say I’m fine with how things are, deep down this is really bothering me and I feel really hurt by the fact that even though I am his ‘girlfriend,’ he won’t acknowledge me in that way. Can you please shed some light on what’s going on here?”

Read our guy’s response after the jump.

[continue reading…]

Our reader response to last week’s Ask a Guy feature was really great, so I decided to drill down deeper into one of the areas I discussed, namely neediness.

When I write dating tips and relationship advice for a new mode, I am writing to a female audience. But neediness is not gender-specific – guys make the mistake of being “needy” too! So I want you to know that I am putting this out there to help and inspire everyone to have more dating success, not to point fingers.

I can tell you from a guy’s perspective that when a woman says things like: “Why didn’t you call?” “Why don’t you have time for me?” “Why don’t you ever compliment me?” and pretty much any sentence that begins with ‘why didn’t you,’ it’s like nails on a chalkboard. Those kinds of statements will immediately put a guy on the defensive rather than motivating him to change and he’ll probably withdraw emotionally as a result… at least, for the moment.

[continue reading…]