Dear Luv Doc,
Six months ago, I started seeing a guy that I met at a fundraiser. He was really sweet and funny and we got along really well. We spent almost every day together, but then a few weeks in, he revealed that he had recently been divorced from a woman he’d been married to for seven years and that he didn’t want to get into any long-term commitment situation. At the time, I told him that I didn’t want him to feel pressured by me in any way, so I stopped calling/texting him, thinking it might be better to play hard to get. Unfortunately, he stopped contacting me as well. I think I really screwed up. I think about him constantly. Should I call him and tell him how I feel? I have heard that if someone wants to be with you they will make an effort, so maybe he’s just not that into me.
– Regretful
We have all heard things, Regretful, but that doesn’t necessarily make them true. When I was an adolescent, I heard that if you masturbate too much you grow hair on your palms. I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that as I sit here today, there is not a single, solitary hair on either of my palms. What does that tell you?
If you’re thinking that I am subtly trying to imply that I have lived an overly puritanical life, you would be wrong. I am saying that not everything you hear is true. I have shaken a lot of men’s hands in my life (I don’t really come from a man-hugging family) and I can assure that not a single one of them had hair on it. Does this mean that I have never shaken hands with an excessive masturbator? As comforting as that thought is, I think that at the very least it’s a huge statistical improbability.
I know, I know, we could talk about masturbation all day, but let’s get to your problem: In my humble opinion, it’s never a bad thing to let someone know how you feel – especially if that feeling is a positive one. Yes, I have had more than a few deeply regrettable instances where I should have kept unkind thoughts to myself, but on the whole, telling someone you love them or find them amazing or inspirational is never a bad thing.
That doesn’t mean you aren’t occasionally/regularly going to get your heart ripped out by rejection, it just means you aren’t doing damage to the other person and you’re staying true to yourself. Usually when relationships go tits up it’s because one person or the other stops being honest or stops communicating. I don’t know a lot about love, but I do know one thing: True love is never won by artifice or cunning. It is always won by honesty, sincerity, compassion, and commitment.
So yeah, get on the horn with this dude and tell him how you feel. Tell him that you greatly enjoy the pleasure of his company and want to enjoy it as much as you can, however you can. Then stop, and listen. He will surely give you the answer that I cannot.
This article appears in September 15 • 2017.
