There is this girl who I am totally in to – lets call her M. She’s super, super hot, hilarious, and awesome all around. We met two-and-a-half years ago and then last year we started hanging out and quickly became good friends. I’ve always had a crush on her, but a crush is all it is cause we are best friends and she is straight.
So, one night a few months ago we hooked up while drunk. We didn’t do anything the next morning, we were back at friend zone. And then she asked me when I was leaving cause the guy she had a thing with was coming over (cold!). So I left and we didn’t really talk about it, but she told me she was cool with it and that it wasn’t just a drunk thing and that she would’ve hooked up with me sober, too. So I was stoked – but also thoroughly confused cause she was still kind of dating this guy. Then a couple days later, I got her off again (we were both sober) and I guess we were just friends who sometimes hooked up.
A few days later I was gonna have her and the guy she had a thing with (we are kind of friends) and our other friend over to chill and drink, but our other friend couldn’t come so it ended up being just me, M and the guy she was kind of seeing. Awkward! I texted her while we were all chilling and drinking and said he was being a total Birkenstock block, and she burst out laughing but also said she 100% agreed and said she wished we were just hooking up. She still dates guys, sometimes hooks up with her ex boyfriend, and sometimes me.
And I just don’t really know what to do about it. Because I don’t know if she is still OK with us hooking up (I’m still totally into her) or where she stands on the whole thing. I flirt with her lots, and she reciprocates pretty well and we made out again since she and the guy broke up. Also, she is horrbile at communicating. So I’m not sure whether or not I should try and clarify (even when I’ve asked about it casually she’s been vague about what she wants from me) or tell her that I’m in to her. So pretty much I’m just asking for advice on how to handle this foxy, cold-hearted b*tch who made me her booty call and has been stringing me along for months. We’re still best friends, and it’s not particularly awkward I just don’t wanna be something to rub up against. So I’m just not sure how to deal with this situation. – Confused
Anna says: Let me first say thank you for spreading the term “Birkenstock Block” in places that exist outside my living room. Let’s make it happen, gals!
Secondly, whoa. I think yours was the longest question I’ve encountered here, and that’s saying something because queer girls in crisis tend to be very verbose. “Maybe it’s all the theory,” says my ex. So forgive me for cutting large chunks of your narrative, especially the shower sex part. And by “sorry,” I mean thank you.
Ahem. Moving on. This chick is all over the place. She doesn’t know what she wants, therefore she’s taking a little bit of everything. Boys, girls, exes, friends, etc. If you don’t want to be her booty call, then don’t be. It’s as simple as that. I certainly wouldn’t hold out for this girl ending up being the love of your life, or anything approximating it. If your situation continues to baffle you, you should definitely try to clarify things with M. First you have to know what you actually want from her. You kinda maybe know this. At least you know what you don’t want, which is to be her rubbing post. Once you’ve clarified your wants to M, if it turns out you aren’t on the same page, then you should stop sleeping with her, and go back to being friends. This is the hard part, I realize. It’s the part where you have to acknowledge that you can’t simply float along in a sea of lust and maybes and flirtation and hope you’ll be led to the shore that makes you happiest.
My reading of the situation is as follows: It sounds like you want to be more than friends with M, and more than friends with benefits. But M wants to date men – lots of them from the looks of it. This straight-gay girl crush predicament, of course, has never happened to any other lesbian in the history of ever!
I kid. But seriously. You say this girl is a “cold-hearted bitch,” and that she’s been stringing you along for months. She kicked you out after your first hook up in order to get with a dude. To use the words a friend recently said to me about a similar straight girl conundrum I faced: How many more red flags do you need?
I’ve been having these dreams lately. In them, I am waiting always for girls I know will never show up. I am frustrated, and increasingly angry, but still I wait. Sometimes I am stood up for a date. Sometimes I am blown off for a husband. The circumstances change, but the sentiment doesn’t. What I’ve gleaned from these rather obvious dreams is that sometimes a glimpse of someone is enough to keep us enthralled. But it doesn’t mean we should stop paying attention to everything else. Since I can’t crawl into your subconscious, this is me telling you to pay attention, Confused. This is me telling you that you don’t have to be frustrated. Pay attention to the awkwardness and confusion, even as it grasps you, but know also that you’re not without choice in the matter. Choose, as the great lesbian poet Adrienne Rich once wrote, not to suffer uselessly. Choose your own well-being and integrity. I promise in the long run it will be more rewarding, even more so than the hottest shower sex imaginable.
My girl and I have been dating for a little over two months. We met on OkCupid, and had the “let’s not date other people” talk a few weeks ago. After that happened, I deleted my account. Hers is still active, but she did change it to “seeing someone.” She says she’s looking for friends, and doesn’t see why she should delete it. Am I being a weird and jealous girlfriend here? Sometimes I look at her profile and see that she’s logging in every few days, but I don’t know if she’s writing or responding to people. I know people can meet for friendship alone, but the fact that it’s a dating site makes me slightly uncomfortable.
Anna says: Well, as I’ve said in the past, I personally think those in committed, monogamous relationships should deactivate their online dating profiles, so as not to confuse and frustrate those of us who are single and not looking to find Words With Friends contenders. That said, however, assuming she hasn’t given you a cause for alarm, I don’t see the harm in her keeping her profile active for friends. You are being a little weird though, especially the part where you’re checking her profile every few days. Cut that out. It’s a bit early in the relationship for you to be having trust issues. Such unfounded negative emotions serve no purpose but to make us crazy. And there’s enough crazy in the world already. Courtney Love and Paula Abdul are occupying about 97% of it, currently.
I will also say that jealousy is totally normal and natural. We all get twinges from time to time, thinking that our partners want someone who is not us. (For the record, they do, and it’s not the end of the world.) I’m sure your girlfriend has or will have those twinges if she hasn’t already. We often try to suppress these feelings instead of airing and sharing them because they’re ugly feelings. Who wants to be the jealous girlfriend? Who wants to admit to feeling needy and insecure? The trouble is the more we deny those feelings, the larger they loom. I remember one instance where I thought my ex was getting a bit too cozy with one of my guy friends. Instead of saying something about it, I let it smolder (because I’m so cool. Nothing touches me!) until one day he gave her a bite of his steak at dinner and I LOST MY S–T. I seriously cried over him sharing his food with her. It was far from my finest moment. So while you should recognize that your fears are unreasonable, don’t let it stop you from talking about it with your girlfriend. She might not change her ways, but at least you’ll have gotten it out in the open, and can then attempt to move on.
We are needy creatures, and sometimes a message from a hot stranger is incredibly validating, even if we don’t plan on doing anything sexy about it. Have some faith, my friend. She chose you. What you can do now is focus on being the rad girlfriend that I know you are.
Hailing from the rough-and-tumble deserts of southern Arizona, where one doesn’t have to bother with such trivialities as “coats” or “daylight savings time,” Anna Pulley is a freelance writer living in San Francisco. Find her at annapulley.com and on Twitter @annapulley. Send her your Hook Up questions at [email protected].
