Q: I’ve been casually hooking up with this girl for about two months, and I’ve made it very clear to her that I don’t want a girlfriend. But she’s a great girl, and I don’t want to hurt her feelings by getting with other girls. How can I maintain my freedom and do what I want without feeling guilty or tied down?
A: It’s almost impossible to walk the line between exclusivity and freedom. If you’re getting with someone on the reg, no matter how many times she says, “It’s cooooool, don’t wooooorry about it, I’m fiiiiiiiiine, I don’t want to be in a relationship eeeeeeither,” she will inevitably be hurt if she hears you’ve been getting your jollies elsewhere. This is of course assuming she’s not the type to be outdoing you at your own game. To be clear, this isn’t necessarily your fault. If you’ve made your intentions clear, you can’t really be blamed for having a wandering eye, or a wandering penis. But just because it isn’t your fault doesn’t mean she wants to know about it. If you guys are strictly not together, I’d say you can get with other people if she’s guaranteed not to find out. If you’re home for Christmas you can get with an old high school fling, but I’d stay away from her roommates and sorority sisters.
If you have more of a guilty conscience than someone of my low moral standards, you’d do best to end things as soon as possible. Relationships that are not relationships can’t really maintain themselves past a couple of weeks. It starts with casually hooking up when it’s convenient and escalates to daily texting and extended cuddling. Before you know it, you’ll be wifed up without even realizing.
If you don’t want a girlfriend and you don’t want to be tied down, it does not serve you to be hooking up with the same girl on such a consistent basis. No, sir, it does not serve you at all; it’s been going on too long and it’s time for you to disaffiliate. When the going gets tough (as in getting with the same person over and over again), the tough (guys who don’t want girlfriends) get going — and I do mean going quite literally.
If you’re worried about the actual ending of it, that should be even more motivation to get it over with. The longer these things last, the harder they are to end. This is actually perfect timing because the semester is almost finished and you have all 15 years of winter break to soften the blow.
You won’t be tempted to send her drunken texts when things at the bars don’t go as planned, and you’ll have some time to acclimate yourself to less available booty. The bottom line is, either accept the fact that you accidentally landed yourself a girlfriend and you’re officially off the meat market or drop that girl like she’s an 8 a.m. women’s studies class.
Esti Frischling is a senior English major. She can be reached at esti at umdbk dot com.
