The Luv Doc: A Hard Lesson

Dear Luv Doc,

I have been in a sort of friends with benefits relationship with a woman who I am in an organization with for nearly four years. To be totally honest she has always wanted something more serious but my parents got divorced when I was 13 and it soured me on relationships/commitment. I probably haven’t treated her as good as I should have, but I never wanted her to get too attached to me. We would usually hang out a few times a week. Sometimes we would go out to dinner or watch a movie/show. It was pretty chill. About a month ago a new guy started working in her office and she started spending a lot of time with him. She asked me if I was upset about it but I told her it was cool. Yesterday she came over to my apartment and said she needed to end “whatever it is we are doing” because she has gotten serious with the guy at her office. She said she still wants to be really good friends, but I have gotten really attached to her. Is it too late for me to tell her I want a real relationship? Or should I try and fight for her and win her back?

– A Really Good Friend

If I were to sketch out a Venn diagram of where things went wrong, the circle where the “friends with benefits” and the “I’m ready for a serious commitment” intersected was when she asked you if you were upset about her dating that new dude at work. Maybe just a shred of curiosity there might have been appropriate. Perhaps you could have asked her, “Does he look more like James Marsden or James Spader?” I am of course referring to the post-”Robert California” Spader and not the “Steff McKee” Spader from Pretty in Pink who would definitely steal your girlfriend and deflower her in his red Porsche 911 – a feat so acrobatic it will be retold at Sigma Chi frat parties for decades. I am not necessarily saying you should be rooting for James Marsden, but everyone else is. He may look like a Pledge Chairman but he was Prince Edward in Enchanted and he does a really spot-on McConaughey impression. Another impression he gives is that he’s one those guys who knows literally everything there is to know about cunnilingus, so ... yeah ... you might want to spruce up that Tinder profile.

To be unnecessarily blunt: You dropped the ball. Scratch that. You didn’t just drop the ball, you fumbled in your own end zone and it cost you the game. No need to keep rewinding the film. No need to try and “fight to win her back.” The only person you would be fighting is yourself. Think about it this way: If you were her, would you rather bet the rest of your life on a guy you were with(ish) for four years but still seemed wishy-washy, or a guy who may or may not look like James Marsden, but seems really interested? The answer is easy, right?

Look, I get it. I’m not there. I don’t know how things were between you two, but it seems pretty clear where they are now. The nice thing is you don’t have to be one of those guys who always wonders what went wrong. It’s painfully obvious what went wrong, and it’s not because you let yourself go like Robert California. I know this may be hard to accept right now, but her conscious uncoupling is a blessing. Who knows how long you might have floundered through relationships not knowing you were sabotaging them with your inability to commit?

Look at this as an opportunity for self-improvement. Maybe hire an expensive therapist and really dig into the bit about your parents’ divorce affecting your ability to commit. There’s probably some meat on that bone. It also wouldn’t be a bad idea to think about what you night want from a relationship – or if you really want a relationship at all. Maybe you’re one of those people who are happiest flying solo, but if not, you’ve got some work to do. You best get crackin’. You don’t want to waste another four years on a hard lesson.