Dear Anna,
So, I'm a 21-year-old dude and I just had my first one-night stand. Most guys would celebrate, but honestly, I feel like crap about it. See, I've only ever had sex with people I really cared about before. But this time, the girl practically invited herself over and kept pushing for sex. I didn't want to make her feel bad, so I gave in. Now I feel gross about myself and I don't wanna be that kind of guy. Do you think I'll feel better about one-night stands in the future? — Crappy Anecdote Seeding Unlikely Available Loves
Dear CASUAL,
There’s a stereotype that men are always up for sex, or should be, that they’re perpetually salivating horny sex robots who have no off switch — or even want one. But, well, like most stereotypes, it’s not true. Or not entirely true. Or not always true. Or not remotely true! You’re human, with human needs and desires and feelings, not a horny sex robot, and as such you have a right — nay, a privilege — to have sex when you want to and with people you want to.
The reason you feel “like crap” about your one-night stand is likely because you violated your own boundary — the one that said, Hey, I don’t really like one-night stands. I prefer to have sex with people I care about. Whenever we go against who we are, and our core beliefs about ourselves, it feels crappy. That’s lesson one.
Your intentions to not hurt this gal’s feelings were admirable, if misguided. But in not trying to hurt her feelings, you ended up feeling bad about yourself, which isn’t really a great trade-off.
Lesson two is: You’re not responsible for anyone else’s feelings — especially when it goes against your own body’s wishes and wants.
So, now you know this about yourself, which is amazing. And you can use it to course-correct in the future. I won’t go so far as to tell you to never have a one-night stand ever again, because you’re young and you might feel differently about it later, but I will say you should always always always listen to your body. That “gross” feeling? That’s a sign, a blaring sign. Heed it!
That’s lesson three. Let your body be the beacon that guides you as you make other decisions, and not just sexual ones, but that’s a good place to start as any.
It’s good to learn early on what makes us feel gross and what makes us feel like a million bucks (and sometimes even what makes us feel both at once!) because then we have that knowledge in our arsenal and can make informed choices going forward. So don’t beat yourself up about one night of ill-fated sex. You learned something about yourself, and that’s invaluable.
Now you can be the “kind of guy” that’s true to himself and his ideals, which is pretty much the sexiest thing around.
Dear Anna,
I've always been a speedy texter when it comes to dating 'cause I'm low-key anxious about it. But the person I'm seeing takes foreeeeever to reply — we're talking like one to eight hours or even more. And yeah, I know he's into me 'cause he's the one making plans and paying for dates, but I can't help feeling like maybe he's not super invested since he's not the most responsive at replying. Help? — Slow-ass ‘Moji Shakeup
Dear SMS,
I feel you. I also get low-key (and occasionally high-key) anxious when people I’m dating don’t respond to my texts in a timely manner. What are they doing that’s so important that they can’t heart my unlikely animal friend videos? HUSKY AND BABY TIGER, drop everything!
Infuriatingly, there’s no one correct way to text and some people don’t treat texting, or their phones in general, like those ankle bracelets they make people wear on parole. But, that said, you should look at the whole person/situation to determine their interest. In your case, your dude does reply — even if it takes him the same amount of time that you’re stress-binging an entire Netflix series waiting for him to respond. Plus, he’s asking you out on dates, following up on plans and even subsidizing them. Those actions speak far louder about his interest in you than his lackluster emoji habits.
So, take a deep breath, get your text fix from your friend group chats and keep reminding yourself to see the forest for the AI-generated, TikTok-filtered trees.
