boys drool.

Andrea Sanders
Jul 23, 2017 · 4 min read

I’ve been through some real shit over the last year, including a near-death experience, a never-ending recovery from a broken back, and the loss of surfing, one of my greatest joys in life. I feel like I’ve done an okay job at getting through it all with some amount of grace and positive thinking. But when it comes to trivial boy problems my emotions run amuck, out of control.

I’ve only been seeing this boy for several weeks, and already the relationship is turning sour…I think. I don’t even know for sure, but something has changed. It started out so swimmingly. He was adorably into me, telling me I’m gorgeous, talking about how much he liked me, feeling so happy he found me, wishing he had met me sooner, showing me pictures from his childhood. It was thrilling, and it felt like we were getting to know each other on a deeply personal level. It’s been a long time since someone has been so open and expressive about their feelings for me, and I fell hard and quick.

Then something changed. I don’t know why. He stopped texting me good morning and good night. His sweet compliments and confessions of how much he liked me essentially ended. He was less present, more distant. I decided to bring it up to him a week or two after noticing the sudden shift. The conversation actually went better than I expected. At that point I was expecting to find out that he just wasn’t that into me anymore, but instead he said he was sorry for making me feel bad, and insisted that he didn’t like me any less than before. He said he had gotten too comfortable and too uncomfortable at the same time. I’m still unclear on what that means, but I think it had something to do with me being too available, and him getting the commitment jitters. He said that relationships are hard, he’d only gotten out of his last one a few months ago, and it was a rough experience. Not to mention, he’s not looking for anything serious until he’s further along his career path.

Are these truths, or excuses? If true, they’re perfectly reasonable. Still…I can’t help but think that if a guy really likes a girl, he will do everything he can to keep her around and keep her happy.

A few days later, around 2am after a night of heavy partying, I was talking to a random Nigerian guy at a burrito joint about my problems with this boy. The guy said something that made a lot of sense and is terribly depressing for a romantic like me. He explained that all men have metaphorical stoves, and they place their women on different burners. They’ve got the big front burner that’s reserved for the girls they want to commit to, and they’ve got the small back burner for the girls they keep around for sex only. And the others are somewhere in the middle.

As much as I hate this, I get it. Guys love sex above almost anything else, and this is their way of increasing their chances. They need their backups and they’re not going to hang around abstinent while they wait for the perfect girl. But this sucks for the back burner girl who falls for the boy, and it’s really not even fair for the front burner girl, who probably doesn’t even know that the guy is keeping his options open. With this strategy, it’s going to be hard for a guy to fully commit even when the right girl is right there in front of him.

As a one-person-at-a-time type of gal, my own habits are so misaligned with the habits of most guys. This makes dating painful. If I’m spending substantial time with someone, they’re my front and only burner. I focus all of my time, attention, and affection on that person, even if they’re not perfect. Why? Because I love love, and I want a deep, safe, and loyal relationship.

I definitely don’t want to be constantly doubting myself and wondering why I’m not enough. And I guess that’s how I’m feeling right now. It pisses me off how much this is affecting me. How does a romantic like me survive in the cutthroat dating world of San Francisco?

Sometimes I think that if only I still had surfing, I wouldn’t need love. I wouldn’t get so caught up in my feelings for someone. I’d have an outlet for releasing and replacing those feelings with the adrenaline and connectedness that comes along with surfing.

So what do I do? Try to quell my feelings, date other guys, throw myself into getting strong and hopefully fit for surfing again? This seems like a reasonable path. The other option is to cut my losses, end it, and stop the feelings.

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