Advice Goddess

Q: I met a really great girl before deploying toIraq. We’ve gotten as close as two people can while physicallyseparate, but she is sexually frustrated to the max and wants to havean unemotional hookup. She suggests we each have a “last fling” beforewe start our relationship (when my deployment ends in 60 days). Well,I’m in an all-male unit, and when I’m home, I want to be with her.She’s attending a wedding this weekend (single guys, hotel rooms, openbar, etc.). She says not to worry, but I know how much she wants this.I just fear that any hookup she had might stick in my mind and keep mefrom giving her my very best. How can I encourage her to hang on alittle longer? Barring that, how do I get okay with this?

—Fraught

A: Oh, yay. You, too, are allowed a last fling.And lucky you, you’ve got your pick of a bunch of big, dusty, sweatymen in camouflage pants. There’s no open bar, but there is an opendesert, stocked with a variety of IEDs. Luckily, this doesn’t stopgroups of young single females from wandering past the base, but theold bearded goatherd urging them on with a stick surely frowns oninterspecies hookups. 

Probably many readers’ first thought is, “Jeez, the guy’soff in a war zone. Can’t Miss Ants In Her Panties keep her legs crossedfor another 60 days?” The truth is, maybe not, no matter what you say.The question is, can you deal? It may help to understand why you feelso threatened. Your feelings go way back, and I mean way. Like 1.8million years, to genetic adaptations that helped our male forebearsguard against paternity uncertainty. Today, figuring out who a kid’sdaddy is just takes a DNA test, and birth control can eliminate thequestion entirely. These vintage genes of ours are the problem. We’rewandering around the latter part of 2011 biologically andpsychologically calibrated for life in the Stone Age, and complexcognitive adaptations like “Yo, DNA! In 1951, Carl Djerassi inventedThe Pill!” take hundreds or thousands of generations to get wired in.

It might help to recognize that sex isn’t special —or isn’t necessarily special. Insects have sex, and not because oneparticular bug means more to them than any other, but because the urgeto get it on is just one of many physical urges of living critters,like the urge to eat lunch. Yeah, okay, on a realistic note, you’dprobably feel a lot less hurt and threatened if she were talking aboutsome guy at the wedding slipping her a roast beef sandwich. 

Still, assuming there’s no pregnancy, disease, orcontinued attachment, yesterday’s sex act is no more relevant thanyesterday’s lunch. What gives it relevance is the importance you decideto place on it. Can you see this hookup as something she just needs tocheck off her single-girl bucket list? Or, will you preserve whateverhappens like a fossil in amber, poisoning your potential futuretogether with a never-ending symposium on a tiny bit of her past? Tostart fresh together, it’s probably wise to have a “what happens at thewedding stays at the wedding” policy. This way, you’ll lack the details(if any) to make a dirty little movie you can run on a loop in your head — which may keep you from making the mistake so many jealous men do: turning their woman’s forgettable drunken hookup before they were even a couple into the most unforgettable sex she’s ever had.

Q: Thisgirl I’ve been dating for a couple months really likes me, but I’m notfeeling it. Because we’ve done a lot of texting, I’m thinking ofbreaking up with her by text. It would be a lot less uncomfortable. 

—Departing

A: Getting dumped is bad enough; it’s worse when your soon-to-be-ex not only won’t spare you face-time to doit but stiffs you on vowels. (If your girlfriend doesn’t have unlimitedtext messaging, it could even cost her 20 cents to find out “its ovr.”)Smartphones make life easier, but not everything in life should be.Once you’ve spent more than a few naked hours with somebody, you cantext them to tell them you’re late, but not that you’re never coming back. As for this girl, even though you’re “not feeling it,” breaking up in person will be hardfor you, and she’ll see that, making the experience less dignity-eatingthan if you used your phone as a buffer. In other words, compassion, not cellphone technology, should be driving your breakup behavior. But, if compassion’s not really your thing, at least consider your text messaging limits, and maybe keep your phone in your pocket and program your Roomba to go tell her it’s over.