Dear Doctor,
I am a geek girl in need of guidance, so any advice you could give would be much appreciated because to be honest, im a little stumped.
I have been together with my boyfriend now for 2 almost 3 months, he’s sweet, kind and caring and is a geek himself (video games mostly while I spend my time on comics and movies) but he’s extremely serious. I’ve never really heard him tell a joke and it’s rare to see him laugh, occasionally he will but it’s almost like once he catches himself doing it he gets all serious again! He’s in the army which is a pretty high stress job and we don’t get a heck of a lot of time together because of his workload, but when we do I wish he could relax a bit and see the lighter side of life.
As much as I care about him, if he doesn’t lighten up soon I don’t think the relationship will last and that’s not what I want at all. So do you have any advice for me on how to try and bring my boyfriend out of his super serious shell?
Some dudes are just Stoneface McGee types. They’re stoic to the point of making the giant Moai heads at Easter Island look chatty and take everything that comes to them with a certain gravitas and lack of affect.
Other nerds watch Stoneface McGee types in pop culture and try to become them. Maybe they really idolize Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name. Maybe they’ve convinced themselves that a lifetime of not having any expressions whatsoever will leave them with youthful smooth skin well into their 50s.
Or hey, maybe this is how he deals with his shit.
Coming straight out and demanding that he plaster a smile on his face won’t really do anything. You may want to start out subtle; next time you do catch him telling a joke or smiling, pay him a compliment. Tell him he’s got a great laugh or smile and you really wish you could see it more often. Hell, you may try straight up bribery and tell him that his laugh actually kinda turns you on. For an added effect, you may want to blush slightly and look down – as though you were a little embarrassed by this.
(Yes, I routinely complain about how society teaches women to be indirect. Sometimes the indirect approach works best.)
If those don’t work, then it is time to go direct and tell him that you care about him, but you have concerns about how serious he is. And then you’re going to have to decide whether his being so serious is a deal breaker; sometimes that’s just how a person is and there isn’t any changing it.
Ok so this is really complicated but I’ll keep it as simple as I can.
I’m 21 and I have an existent but shitty love life, my longest relationship was lasted three weeks and that was only because I forgot to call her for two weeks. Some people would say this is awesome but I honestly starting to feel as if I will die alone.
Anyway here comes the complicated part: I met this awesome cool chick and she is into me as much as I am into her and she told me she is single. A couple of days later, I find out that she has a boyfriend, but apparently, they are only together because of habit and they don’t have much in common. I thought of confronting her about this but when I texted her and ask her what she is doing she calls this boyfriend ”a friend”, must be an awesome friend cause I’ve seen them making out and she hides me from him as if I was a secret lover (without the fun parts) or something, and I’ve given her plenty of chances for her to come clean but she keeps lying. At first I took this as a sign that she is into me and that felt awesome but then my damn conscience kicks in and I feel bad about being a home wrecker, basically.
So, I ask around about this guy, hoping that he is an asshole that deserves everything bad that comes to him, but Instead I found out that he is gay. But a ”reformed” gay. Now I know that this is just bullshit and that she is basically a beard to him, which explains why she is dissatisfied and looks for someone else.
But that’s the problem see, She is looking for me but at the same time keeping her distance. I want to flirt with her and win her favour or whatever but since my usual filtering technique can be boiled down to ”I want to have sex, care to join me?” I’m afraid I may be coming out to strong or not strong enough or I come out as to desperate or she just wants to be friends and I totally misread it or something. And she wont leave her boyfriend, who she doesn’t know is gay and she doesn’t know I know about, and why should she? I haven’t shown myself as a suitable replacement. Honestly, it hurts me to see them kiss at the distance (we all go to the same college, I failed to mention) and then pretend nothing happened afterwards. I hate this whole stupid cancerous game I feel she is playing, she is only hurting me and herself with this games.
Oh BTW, apparently the gay boyfriend has heard that someone is behind his girl because he started to take her out to diner and sabotaging the few moments a day she is with me, instead of with him.
So in summary, she wants to be with me and I want to be with her but she is not a slut and I must win the right to be with her but I don’t know how, and I must know how so that she leaves her boyfriend who really wants to be with another guy but he wont admit it to himself (and if he did it would make it so much easier for me).
Dude. DUDE. Slow your roll. Let’s take it from the top.
I’m not going to advocate about the morality or immorality of stealing a girl from another guy; some say all is fair in love and war, some say that if she leaves him for you, she’s just going to leave you for another guy. It’s ultimately up to you how you feel about that.
I will say that she doesn’t really have much of a reason to leave her boyfriend. Unless you left something out of your letter, it doesn’t exactly seem as though she’s sending you any indications that she wants to get physical. It does seem as though she’s playing some odd games, telling you she’s single, referring to her boy as her “friend” even when she’s sucking face with him on the regular and treating you like a shameful secret. It sounds to me like she’s getting the flirting and emotional attention she may want out, without having to go through the messy steps of actually dumping her current boyfriend and auditioning a new one. And why should she? You’re providing for all of her emotional needs without her having to do so much as hold your hand.
Whether or not he’s an ex-gay, in the closet or possibly even straight isn’t the issue here. You don’t know any of this for certain unless you’ve actually caught the dude with a dick in his mouth. Hopefully you aren’t planning any sort of wacky romantic-comedy situations that will help him come to terms with his sexuality because there’s nothing that’s just going to end up in an article on Gawker that I’ll share with all of my friends on Facebook.
And I have a lot of Facebook friends.
So what can you do about it? Well, no more of this pining away wishing you could magically break the two of them up so she could dump the zero and get with the hero. If you want her, you’re going to have to man up and lay it out there. It’s ultimatum time. Tell her you love hanging out with her, that you’ve got great chemistry together and that you want to be more than friends but you’re tired of feeling like her dirty little secret. None of this “let’s just be friends” stuff. All or nothing. Balls to the wall.
And be ready for the rejection. Because you know what? She almost certainly already knows how you feel. God knows her boyfriend does, since he’s apparently doing a good job of wedging you out. But at least this way you’ll get some answers to the situation. And then you can take your time to study up on how to flirt and find a new girl.
One who isn’t using you and her maybe-maybe-not gay boyfriend.