Chatting with your girlfriends might not always be the best when you’re seeking the advice you need. Sometimes a guy’s perspective is just what you are looking for! Asking your guy friends may be a bit embarrassing, so we’ve taken the next step for you. Her Campus JMU is proud to introduce our first ever Real Live College Guy: JMU student, Aaron McMichael! Aaron will be answering your questions and giving you advice on topics you send in. Check out his first installment!
Anonymous: Dear Aaron, Over the past two months, I have developed a really good friendship with a guy – lets call him Steve. We have been to mixers between both of our organizations, we’ve had many Starbucks hangouts, he helped me with my application to my major, etc. Safe to say, we are really close. The problem is he has a girlfriend. Yes, I do like him, but I would never want to be the “other woman.” However, their relationship is rocky right now and he is texting me all the time – morning, day, and night. I love the attention but I’m not sure what I’m doing. Do I have a chance with this guy? Or is he just trying to make up for what’s lacking in his own relationship?
Aaron: Let me start by saying that I love how you do not want to be the “other woman,” because odds are that is not how he views you. The same way you want a guy to help you with guy problems, he probably wants a girl to help with girl problems. Who would be better than a close friend? Now, it is possible for a girl to fall in the “friend zone” but I am not sure that means you have no chance with him. If you do want to be with him here is my advice: Do not use texting as a gauge or scale to determine how close you two are. Instead try to spend as much time talking with him as possible, preferably in person. There is no guarantee that you are the person he is texting most frequently, and if you are, it is still possible that he is simply as addicted to his phone as the rest of us. Be a good friend first. I would hate for him to break up with his girlfriend and turn to you as a rebound girl; please believe me when I say most guys are looking to take their minds off their ex-es after a break up, not replace them. So the danger here is if they break up, and if he turns to you, it might not be what you want.
The next possibility here is he and his girlfriend patching things up and going back to being happy. In that case you are probably SOL . . . Sorry. But there is value in being a good friend. I do not think he is trying to make up for anything. It is mostly likely that he is looking to his friends that are girls for his girlfriend issues.
Hey, there is no problem with you trying to meet someone new right now to maybe take your mind off the situation. Then maybe you can turn to him with guy issues; see how he reacts when the situation is reversed. I wish you the best of luck and really hope this helped.
Anonymous: Dear Aaron, Why are guys so afraid of being with a virgin? I am currently a junior, still a virgin, and honestly just looking to have fun. I’ve been on several dates this semester and have had many sleepovers with these guys that I find attractive or that I like spending time with. Safe to say, with some of them, we have done everything in bed except having sex. I’m not looking for anything serious, I don’t want a committed relationship, so I don’t get why men are still so hesitant about taking away someone’s virginity. I’ve never explicitly come out and announced the fact but two men have definitely guessed it out of me. I’m not ashamed of it, so it’s silly to deny it, but the trend seems to be that guys don’t want to hear that. Is there some reasoning behind behind this? What should I do? Also, do men expect women to have condoms with them?
Aaron: I hate to open with a movie reference, but have you ever seen Wedding Crashers? Remember the scene where Vince Vaughn hooks up with Isla Fisher on the beach? Vince comes back and says that he has a “stage 5 virgin clinger.” For simplicity’s sake, let’s assume that most guys are afraid of a situation like the one from that scene. In other words, most guys are afraid that taking a girl’s virginity will result in the girl becoming, for lack of a better word, clingy.
Do you remember your first crush? First kiss? Do you remember them in detail? I would say sex is the same but it really is in a league of its own. You are going to remember everything about your first time; time, location, the person(s) involved. Everything. I know this will make me sound like a broken record, but you should try to make it as good a first time as possible, not make it come more quickly.If you are adamant about having sex, and you have found that guys typically do not want to hook up with a virgin, then I would tell you to just not to bring it up. If you are going to go home with a guy, or bring him home with you, just let things flow naturally and it might be easier for you. You said you have already had sleepovers and done everything but sex. The next step is to take the next step. If the topic of experience (or lack of in your case) does come up try expressing that you are looking for fun and not commitment.
A couple of side recommendations: Be sober. You are going to remember everything about it, or at least want to. Inebriation will not help. Next, if a sleepover situation happens again try just saying at some point that you want to have sex, and do not even bring up past experiences. But you will need to find the medium between forward and pushy when it comes to wording.
Do men expect women to have condoms? No. But what if the man is not expecting to have sex and the woman is? Should the woman have condoms ready? Sure, why not? Men usually supply the condoms, but if I am coming back to your place and do not have one and you want to have sex then we are left with an ultimatum: unprotected sex or none at all. And this is a situation a lot of people are going to want to avoid. I know I may not need to say this, but what if you have a latex allergy? Then you may need to use a different brand, in which case it would be best if you were the one with the condom.
Anonymous: Dear Aaron, I’m newly single and just got out of a relationship that began in high school. It’s safe to say that being single in college is different than being single in high school. My question for you is, where is an appropriate place to meet somebody? I always go out to parties and I’ve met men that I’m interested in, yet I have found that they just want to mess around at the end of the night. Is it foolish to give them my number, expecting a text or call and have it eventually develop something more? I understand that the JMU party culture is externally about hooking up, but what if I’m looking for a relationship?
Aaron: Do not go to a party with the intention of meeting someone with whom you would like to start relationship. Sorry to be blunt but that has to be the first thing said. It’s not just JMU; a lot of parties at a lot of schools are full of people (guys and girls) that want to hook up at the end of the night, that being said, I would not call it foolish to expect a guy to contact you in the days after a party. But I can tell you from experience that I have never gone to a party with the intent of leaving with a girlfriend. I have had way too many friends meet their significant others at parties just to break up a few months later because they have nothing in common other than drinking/partying.
Where to meet a guy is tough. Attraction cannot be scripted, nor can the setting where an attraction may occur. A good place to start would be guys in your major classes. Meeting someone in your major is good because you will at least have a few of the same interests or at least conversation starters. On that note, continue to pursue your interests first, that way you can determine the pool where (or, from which?) you can find guys. If meeting someone is still hard try joining a club. Again, I would start with where your interests lie, but if that doesn’t work you may just want to try a social club/organization like a sorority.
Other ideas could include a more old-school approach. Try starting a conversation with someone in line for coffee; what better an icebreaker than, “Oh you like the White Chocolate Mocha too?” I can’t tell you how ecstatic I would be if a stranger to just introduced herself to me in public, just ‘cause. I did that very thing the second day of the semester with a girl and now we have coffee twice a week together. No, we are not in a relationship, but a little friendship never hurt anyone.
Thank you for your questions and I hope you found my responses helpful. Always feel free to Ask Aaron! To submit your questions, email the Her Campus JMU Campus Correspondent, Chantal Johnson, at chantaljohnson@hercampus.com with the subject heading: Ask Aaron. You can also tweet @HerCampusJMU with your #AskAaron Questions.