Broke from calling late night love lines for advice? Looking for the lowdown on the hoedown when it comes to college guys? Real Live College Guy Sean is here to help you pick apart the mind of the average college guy. Whether it’s avoiding that awkward weekend hook-up or full-on relationship advice, Sean is here to save the day!
So I’ve been hooking up on and off with this guy for a year now. When we first started to hook up in the beginning of last summer, he would take me out on dates, I met his family, and we would hang out sober a lot of the time. He was going to be a sophomore in college and I was going to be a freshman at the same school, so at the end of the summer, he said that he wanted to keep things casual, which I was fine with. Once school started, though, especially second semester, we began to hang out a lot and would hook up practically every weekend. However, the dates stopped, the sober hangouts stopped, and whenever we hooked up, we were usually drunk. I don’t really know what changed… it’s like we went backwards. I also became good friends with a lot of his friends so I feel like I can’t really break away from him even if I tried (or wanted to). Some of his friends tell me that he hasn’t been hooking up with anyone else, but we don’t really discuss it ourselves. He once told me (drunkenly) that we just can’t be together right now, but that doesn’t mean later on we can’t be something. Also… I’m a virgin and he knows that. When I finally agreed to have sex (after a year of him suggesting that he wanted to), he got all weird and wouldn’t do it. Now that this summer has started, we haven’t hooked up since around spring break but he still texts me to hang out at parties and with mutual friends. Do you think this guy actually cares about me or has any feelings for me, or could he honestly care less? – Frustrated at FSU
Frustrated,
Your name perfectly reflects how I feel about this. As I’ve said before, the thing about guys is, when we want something, we’ll go and get it (or at least, those of us with backbones will). So when he keeps brushing off the issue of being together, it’s a decent indication that he’s not going to commit anytime soon. Before I go any further, however, there is one sentence you said that I’d like to highlight:
“He once told me (drunkenly) that we just can’t be together right now, but that doesn’t mean later on we can’t be something.”
Forgive me for being straightforward, but when he said that, I have no idea how you didn’t stand up, pour your lukewarm Keystone Ice on his head and then promptly leave/kick him in the groin so hard his future children would feel it. So, kudos for having self-restraint there. (Also, this is why I could never be a woman. I would have beaten him down Kill Bill style, but I digress…)
This guy is exactly what’s wrong with relationships in college. He takes you out, everything is perfect, but when you finally want to define the relationship, or at least figure out what his deal is, he’s like an eel—you just can’t grab onto him. Not only that, but when he said you couldn’t be together “right now,” he lied right to your face. “Right now” is something people fall back on when they don’t have the courage to say, “I’m sorry, I’m just not interested in you like that.” Instead, they resort to not having a spine and saying things that feed you false hope.
Unfortunately, when guys say we want to “keep things casual,” that’s essentially code for, “I’m going to play the field but use you as my girl on reserve if I can’t find anything else.” It’s really an unfair tactic. If you’re fed up with him (as you should be) but are worried about your mutual friends, simply stop hooking up with him. He’s had plenty of chances to make things right between you, and he still hasn’t done it. It’s not like you’ve given him a reason why you shouldn’t date. There are tons of other guys out there who would treat you, at the very least, fairly. In my opinion, it’s really not super difficult to be friendly rather than flirty. It may suck the first time you see him, but just relax and remind yourself that he’s just a friend now. If he comes at you again when he’s drunk and looking for a hook-up (which he probably will), politely remind him that he’s had his chance and you’re tired of waiting for him.
I realize that this may be one of my most blunt RLCG articles yet, but I feel that in cases like this, sometimes it’s necessary to give straight advice, especially when the story involves someone who’s simply been feeding you lies. Find someone who will treat you right and won’t put you on the back burner. You’ve still got three years of school left… why spend them waiting?