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Dear Doc,
I have a specific question. I’m demisexual and sapiosexual, and I dated and then married the only person I’ve ever had sex with. I thought I was a “one-man woman,” that’s how I’ve always described myself before I had the terms to explain how I felt.
I’d never really ever wanted anyone else, and couldn’t understand serial monogamy or polyamory, even though a majority of my friends are in snuggly poly pods. Some have offered for us to join, but that’s just not who I am, so we’ve politely declined.
Enter X. I fell hard, but it turns out they were a nasty narcissist. It took a full three fucking rounds of the feeding cycle to break away for good, and good riddance tobad trash.
I know your advice is to get under someone else, and luckily my husband has always been by my side in this ordeal. But being demi, if I didn’t have them, or if they decided the drama wasn’t worth it and had left me, I’d be royally screwed. I just don’t think that way.
It was really hard. They emotionally ripped us up, and spit us out, and it hurt like hell. Still does.
But one thing really bothers me: I used to have a rich, fulfilling, sex fantasy life. Fall asleep dreaming of a scenario? Sure. Snuggle with my husband, planning what we might do? No problem. Close my eyes and relax with my favorite dildo while husband waits to hop on board at the first sign of the big O? Oh, yeah! Now? It’s all intrusive thoughts of X, and I want them OUT of my fantasies! That piece of crap has no right living rent free in my head! Now every time the hormones rise, even if it’s to relax to get to sleep, it’s like I slide right back to thoughts of them!
Not to mention it’s patently unfair to my husband, who’s gone through this emotional roller coaster shitshow with me.
How do I get that to stop? It’s not like I can watch porn, the demi in me immediately rejects it. I can’t get into my old fantasies anymore, and I can’t seem to make new ones without X intrusion issues. What am I missing?
Sincerely,
I Need a New Script
That sounds deeply uncomfortable, INNS. Having sweaty thoughts about someone you actively dislike – someone who’s done you harm to one degree or another – feels intrusive in a way that’s hard to describe. It’s almost like they left a piece of them behind like a parasite and you’re not fully free of them even though they’re long gone.
The good – or at least, somewhat reassuring, one hopes – news is that this is actually not uncommon. A lot of folks have had shitty, toxic or even abusive exes, crushes and just local asshats pop into their heads at very inconvenient moments… occasionally even just at the point of orgasm. While this may be a useful feature for someone with a ruined orgasm fetish, for you (and others), it’s a big sodden wet blanket on what’re supposed to be sweaty good times.
The reason why this is good (for suitably mixed definitions of “good”) is that the commonality of it means that, as a known problem, there’re ways of dealing with it. And the first step, like with many intrusive thoughts, is to focus on the “why” of it all.
One thing I wish you’d included is how long it’d been since you had to deal with X and how far the relationship with them went. If this is was relatively recent, and it was an involved or intimate relationship… well, there’s going to be a lot of guilt and self-recrimination in there. Even when you know, intellectually, the issue is that they were a malignant narcissist who was preying on your vulnerability, it’s all too easy to blame yourself regardless. One of the perversities of the human experience is that we can see the warning signs in other people’s relationships, but we don’t have the distance and perspective to always track them in our own. It’s part of how toxic and predatory people get in close; they take advantage of that big ol’ blind spot. And because we often know, intellectually, how these things go with others, it’s hard not to look at the situation and say “…but I should’ve known better”.
So part of the reason why they’re lingering is that there may still be a part of you saying “but I should’ve seen it/ been smarter/ kicked them to the curb sooner” and replaying all the times you saw they were a collection of red flags in a trench coat. Those mental or subconscious replays can keep them bubbling to the top of your thoughts. This is especially true at times of heightened stress or emotional arousal… including, well, arousal.
Another issue – and one that may tie in to any lingering feelings of guilt or self-blame – is that you were genuinely attracted to them, and that squicks you out in retrospect. Once again, it’s part of the perversity of the human experience. We’d like to think that their overall desirability was all a trick or a lie and now that we know the truth about this person, the effects of their pelvic sorcery would vanish in a puff of self-actualization. We’d love nothing more than to think that all the feelings they evoked were also a lie, not real or based so firmly on lies that the truth would make it go away. Except… well, it doesn’t.
You can remember what a horrific, shitty person they were, but your body and brain still remember what it felt like when things were good and you didn’t fully grok who and what they were. Memory can have a flattening effect and highlight different parts of the past… even a past that we regret or wish never happened. It’s part of why it’s hard to leave a relationship gone sour, part of why it’s hard to quit a toxic or abusive partner and why it’s really fucking infuriating when you know someone’s horrible and yet there’s still something about them that just flicks a switch for you.
But your limbic system has no morality filter. Your junk, as I’m often saying, isn’t Mjolnir, only responding to The Worthy. It just does what it does, without regard for your higher consciousness. But your higher consciousness, with that whole “pesky self-awareness” thing, gets to freak the fuck out about it because “dude you KNOW what this person did, what the actual shit, yo?!?”
So the first thing I think that needs to be done is simply to forgive yourself – both for falling for his game, but also for the fact that it is lingering. You’re not a bad or dumb person for being won over by a malignant narcissist; that’s literally part of what they’re good at. Nobody is immune to being swayed by shitty people; that’s just something we tell ourselves. Everyone can be conned; it’s just a question of how, why, by whom and for how long. So forgive yourself for having been involved with them, for how you felt, how long it took you to get away, and acknowledge that you’re still dealing with the after effects.
The next part gets tricky, because of when these thoughts come a-callin’. One of the ways of dealing with unpleasant and intrusive thoughts is to confront them, defang them or note and name them and turn your attention elsewhere. That’s… harder to do when you’re having sexy times. Especially with another person. Mindfulness is great, but it’s a lot harder to accomplish while you’re actually having sex… especially if you’re trying not to interrupt the moment. If it’s just you, then it’s a lot less inconvenient, if still frustrating. It may mean that any solo time gets turned into impromptu mindfulness exercises, but making the conscious effort to redirect your fantasy away from X to your husband or someone more acceptable is going to make it easier to let X fade in time.
One thing I’ve personally found helpful, especially when I’ve had racing thoughts that kept me awake, is that consciously focusing on what I wanted to think about – effectively crafting a story for me to focus on as I relax into sleep. That gives my brain something to latch onto without stressing myself in the process or requiring so much effort that it nixes the relaxation aspect. When the racing thoughts try to come back in, it’s easier to say “ok, sure, now back to the show,” rather than trying to pick them apart or shove them away.
Consciously deciding on the fantasy you want to think about and paying attention to that as you drift off (or start to ease into masturbating or what-have-you) will give you something specific for your your brain and bits to chew on, and it’s much less of a chore to return your mind to where you left off as needed. Or, for that matter, to edit in such a way that you can include “get X out of the picture” into it and defang their mental presence. Imagine how frustrating it would be for them to see you having a lovely time ignoring them while they beat impotently on the sound-proof walls of the cell you shoved them into.
Now, please notice very carefully that I say “redirect”, not “push away”. Trying to repress or force the thoughts away rarely work; most of the time it just reinforces them. Avoidance tends to increase anxiety, rather than lessening it, and so it is with these sorts of thoughts or feelings. This is why redirecting your thoughts – saying “oh, ok, that’s the lingering thoughts about X, lets just nudge them out of the way and turn the camera towards my husband” works much better; you’re not forcing this down so much as saying to yourself that you’d rather look at something else.
The third thing is to look into cognitive behavioral therapy. CBT is remarkably good for dealing with intrusive thoughts, whether from obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, and other mental health issues. A lot of people find that they get long-term relief from their intrusive thoughts after a few sessions. Even some self-directed exercises, like the ones from sites like MoodGym are useful at getting a handle on those thoughts and feelings and getting them back under control.
It’s a frustrating, maddening thing to go through, and the way it intrudes on the intimacy and connection of the relationship you want to nurture and maintain can feel like they still have influence over you. But ultimately, this is just you and your brain trying to process what happened to you. They’re just thoughts, random cycles from your brain. They don’t mean anything except what you decide they mean. And if you decide they’re just noise… well, that’s all they’ll be. And noise can be drowned out until it goes away.
It sucks that you’re dealing with it, but I promise it’s temporary. A little self-directed mind control and the shitty X will fade into the ether of oblivion where they belong.
Good luck.
Hi, Doc,
I feel very hard on myself because I have not even dared to approach many women I barely knew for a one night stand. Should the time frame in which I hookup with someone determine how likeable I am? It’s hard not to compare myself to men who have hit it off in the span of hours.
This instantaneous scenario has made me very self-conscious for taking weeks or, even months, instead of pulling it off in hours of knowing someone.
Gotta Go Fast
OK GGF, I am going to preface this by saying that I know this is going to sound dismissive and I promise you it’s not: slow your roll.
This is very much a case of, to mangle The Bard: “there is no good or bad but that thinking makes it so”. The issue here isn’t that you’re doing something wrong or that you’re less desirable or sexy than other people. The issue is that you’re putting unnecessary and pointless pressure on yourself for no reason other than making yourself feel bad. The only person who is judging you on how long it may take for you to hook up with someone is, well, you. And if other people are judging you for it, those are folks whose opinions should be dropped into the nearest available sewer.
What you really need to do is take a second and ask yourself why the length of time matters, and to whom. That is: why are you judging yourself for how long it does or doesn’t take to hook up with a person? What is the actual, tangible benefit of beating a particular time?
OK, that’s a bit of a trick question, because I already know the answer. And so do you, if you’re honest. The reason is ego, pure and simple. This isn’t really about sex or attraction or skill, it’s about trying to prove something to yourself and the critic in your head. You’re trying to prove to yourself that you’re desirable, that you’re attractive and I’m willing to bet cash money it’s also about dealing with feeling like a loser. You are trying to prove to others (mostly yourself and the critics in your head) that you’re better than you were, that you’re not the same person you were back in the days that you feel ashamed of and the time it takes is how you’re keeping score.
Trust me: I know that feeling well. I have been there, done that and I had my own tally sheet that was my own yardstick of “see, I’m NOT the One Who’s Bad With Girls!”. I just focused on numbers more than time.
Funny thing about that? It didn’t me feel better. In fact, it made me feel worse. The “accomplishments” were fleeting when I achieved them, but the self-recrimination I felt when I “failed” was worse. And in my push to rack up numbers, I was training myself not only to be careless with other people and the way I treated them but also to myself. I would focus more on trying to get laid than actually, y’know, finding people I liked. So I’d have hook-ups that left me feeling empty almost as soon as the afterglow faded, nights that left me feeling lower than a snake’s ass in a drainage ditch and the slowly dawning realization that I was being a toxic asshole and it was having a negative effect on other areas of my life and self-esteem.
Giving up the focus on numbers and focusing more on connections helped immensely.
This is why the issue here isn’t that you’re seeking casual sex or NSA hook-ups, it’s the why of it. If you’re someone who prefers casual partners or likes or needs sexual novelty, that’s all good; you do what’s right for you. But you’re treating it more as a form of validation than an expression of your sexuality and that is the problem. Especially when part of it is using other people’s (supposed) success to punch yourself in the balls in the process.
Here’s the thing: seduction isn’t a race, nor is attraction a time trial. You aren’t getting points for getting somebody in bed faster than someone else – whether in the context of a no-strings hook-up or the start of a potential long-term relationship. Focusing on trying to make it happen as quickly as possible is purely about you, in ways that will never be enough to make those feelings go away.
Nor, for that matter, are you in competition with anyone else. This isn’t a matter of numbers. Someone hooking up with a person they met that night at the bar or club doesn’t mean that they’re automatically more attractive or appealing than you, the guy who knew someone for a month or two before you got together. It just means that their circumstances are different than yours.
There’re many things to keep in mind here. First is that attraction and attractiveness isn’t universal. Put five people in a room and you’re going to have six opinions about who’s attractive and who isn’t. I’m sure you can think of women you’ve known who are perfectly lovely, even conventionally hot, but who simply don’t do it for you. That doesn’t mean that there’s anything objectively wrong or lesser about them, it just means that they’re missing the x-factor that gets your motor humming. The same is true for women; just because someone’s not into you doesn’t mean you’re undesirable. It just means you’re not their particular flavor.
It’s also worth remembering that people – guys, gals and non-binary pals – have sex and hook up for a host of reasons that have nothing to do with attraction or the “worthiness” of the other person. Sometimes they’re bored and horny and that person is the least objectionable option to scratch their itch. Sometimes they’re trying to prove a point – to themselves, to their exes or partners, to the universe. Other times, they’re lonely and just want a warm body to make them feel less alone, or there’s something about that person specifically.
If one person hooks up faster than the other, that is, similarly, not a referendum on anything other than the specific confluence of events. It was two specific people, at a specific time and place. And to be sure: there are people who can pull like that at least semi-regularly. But the main reason they can isn’t because they’re inherently hotter or they exude special pheromones or they’re “just that alpha, bro”, it’s that they’re very good at spotting the circumstances aligning and taking advantage of it. That, again, isn’t a value judgement about them, nor does it say anything about you.
All of this is why this is very much a “the call is coming from inside the house” situation. The reason why it’s bothering you is because you’ve made it more important than it actually is, for reasons that are ultimately not great for your overall emotional health. This is why I’d recommend that you stop worrying about speed or numbers or whatever other metric you’re using to “prove” things to yourself and instead focus on quality. While I’m all in favor of folks racking up numbers if that’s what they’re into, I’m also a big believer in “it should be worth it for reasons beyond adding another notch in the bedpost”. Trust someone who’s been there and done that: a few hook-ups with folks who you actually like and can have a good conversation with is far superior to dozens of hook-ups with people whose names you can barely remember the next morning.
The same goes for speed. A couple weeks or months to build the sexual tension and anticipation, connection and feeling of safety leading to a hook-up is going to give you better results than trying to make things happen as fast as possible – and it’ll be much better for you and your various hook-up partners.
Think of it this way: slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Not being worried about speed means you’re better able to do it right and well and mutually enjoyable. Getting that under your belt means that in time, the process becomes easier and more fulfilling… which will also frequently mean it goes more smoothly and effectively and thus quicker.
But do it right? You won’t be worried about the timing, because it’ll happen in its own time. And you won’t be upset by how long it takes because it won’t be about you or proving something to yourself; it’ll be about you and the person you’re hooking up with, and what you do together.
Good luck.
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