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Dear Wendy: Guy Wants His Girlfriend To Get A Landing Strip

Wendy AtterberryApril 21, 2010 //

Wendy is stuck at jury duty this week and will hopefully—knock on wood!—be back ~~tomorrow or Thursday~~ next week. Until then, here’s one of her best Dear Wendy columns.

I’ve recently started dating a super smart, weird, quirky, cute, funny and beautiful girl. I never like anyone, but I like her. There’s one minor (hairy) issue. She doesn’t keep things very trimmed down there. Now, before you get angry, let me preface this by saying that I really don’t need a Brazilian on my girl (or even anything really from the South American continent, for that matter)– just a nice landing strip. Is that too much to ask for? Those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, so I do keep my things regularly trimmed. We’ve only been dating for a month or so, but we’ve spent a lot of time together (it’s a long distance thing, so we’ve basically spent the past few weekends totally together = relationship time warp), so I feel as if this isn’t jumping the gun or anything to think about long term personal grooming habits. am I being a superficial douche? Isn’t it fair to ask for some quid pro quo trimming? I think yes. If you agree, my ultimate question is: how do I broach the trimming subject with my long distance girl? What strategies do you have? — Hair Hater

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Dear Wendy: Do Beautiful People Only Date Beautiful People?

Wendy AtterberryApril 20, 2010 //

Wendy is stuck at jury duty this week and will hopefully — knock on wood! — be back tomorrow or Thursday. Until then, here’s one of her best Dear Wendy columns.

I acknowledge and accept that I’m not a perfect 10. But what drives me nuts is that people keep telling me I’ve got no chance of finding love with someone who is hot or hotter than me. Why can’t I go for it? Why does someone like me have to settle for less? Only beautiful people can be with beautiful people? If you’re not perfect in looks, you don’t deserve anything hot? I tell people what I want and I’ve had enough experiences to say I’ve earned the right to know what I want and be selective instead of the whole “as long as they’re alive” approach. So, please, in your opinion, do you think the beautiful people can only be with the beautiful people? — Not a 10

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Dear Wendy: “Should I Reclaim My Virginity?”

Wendy AtterberryApril 19, 2010 //

Until recently, I was a 24 year-old virgin. In high school I thought I wanted to wait until marriage to have sex, but over time I decided to simply wait for the right guy to come along who I trusted. Several months ago I started dating Chris, whom I’d had a crush on for awhile. I fell hard for Chris and decided he was the guy I wanted to introduce me to sex. Unfortunately, by the time I did sleep with him (after three months), our relationship had already started to deteriorate, and as a result, our sex life started out in a bad context. We only had sex maybe a dozen times before we broke up and he really broke my heart by doing so. Now I feel conflicted about sex. I’ve always been a very sexual person (abstinence was difficult for me, and I’d been doing things like oral sex in my previous relationships), and I enjoyed having a sexual relationship with a man. But I feel like with Chris I never got to experience sex in a loving context with a guy who cared about me, and I’m starting to regret losing my virginity to him. Maybe I should reclaim my “second chance” virginity and wait until I’m engaged or married to have sex again so that I don’t go through the heartbreak of being intimate with a guy who’s just going to morph into a douchebag. Or, do you think the problem is just that I slept with the wrong guy too soon, and that I should keep trying to have a satisfying sex life with boyfriends in the future? — Leery

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Dear Wendy: “She Thinks I’m A Stalker”

Wendy AtterberryApril 16, 2010 //

“Shortcuts” is a new feature of “Dear Wendy” in which I answer readers’ letters in two sentences or less because sometimes the answer to a person’s question is so obvious and the need to hear it so great, being as clear and frank as possible is simply the best way to go. Here we go with round four … Keep reading »

Dear Wendy: “My Girlfriend Refuses To Take My Name If We Marry”

Wendy AtterberryApril 15, 2010 //

I’m 26 and my girlfriend is 28 and we’ve been dating for a little over seven months. We both want the same things in life — marriage, kids, close ties to family on both sides, prosperous careers and a house in the ‘burbs. Things have been terrific, the best relationship either of us has been in, we love each other very much and recently moved in together. The thing is, my girlfriend has made it clear that if we marry, she feels like she would be losing a part of herself if she took my last name. It’s very important to me that a family unit share the same last name, though. I’m not a hard line traditionalist and certainly not a macho, domineering type — but I feel like something would be missing, or like I would not be totally and completely loved if my wife rejected that part of me. Likewise, hyphenated names do not sit well with me. We’ve discussed this and I’ve made it clear I will not marry or start a family with someone who will not accept my last name (which, by the way, isn’t something odd or off-putting like, say, “Latrine”). I did not deliver this to her as an ultimatum, rather, as part of a well-mannered conversation in which I also made it clear I would stay with her forever without marriage. I worry, though, that this difference has set an expiration date for our relationship. Am I being unreasonable? — Name Withheld

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Dear Wendy: “My Boyfriend Spends Too Much Money On Me”

Wendy AtterberryApril 14, 2010 //

My boyfriend spends too much money on presents for me. If he were wealthy, I might be able to get over feeling guilty and just enjoy being spoiled, but he isn’t. He makes significantly less than I do (but works way harder!), and he pays a hefty amount of child support on top of that. We live together, and I pay a larger portion of the rent because I can afford more. Despite his modest income, he has saved up and bought me diamond jewelry for a couple of occasions during the year and a half that we’ve been together. The gifts came with loving, heartfelt words and emotions that moved me more profoundly than expensive objects ever could. My jewelry is beautiful, but when I look at it, I think about how he could have put that money away in savings, or bought something useful for his kids with it. I have tried to tell him that I prefer that he doesn’t spend so much money on gifts for me, that a meaningful gift does not have to be expensive, but I always end up hurting his feelings. We see marriage in our future, and I know he’s been eyeballing engagement rings that are, in my opinion, way out of his price range. I don’t even think a ring is necessary, and although I respect that he does, I’d hate for him to put all his hard-earned money into a really fancy one, or worse, finance it. Can you suggest a tactful and sensitive way to encourage him to express his love in ways that don’t involve lots of money in the future? — The Breadwinner

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Dear Wendy: “I Moved Too Slowly And Lost The Girl”

Wendy AtterberryApril 13, 2010 //

I’m 18 and have made the mistake of taking Mr. Nice Guy too far. Like so many men, I use my manners, and my charm, even my flair for romantic gestures (I write poetry and love sending flowers), as a shield. Actually, it takes me a long time to open up at all to people and, get this, I can’t go anywhere physically (even a simple kiss) with someone I don’t trust. I take things slow, and eventually they work out … usually. But my most recent relationship just fell apart. We’d been seeing each other for 5-6 months, and I felt we were really starting to get somewhere. We haven’t even kissed yet though, and her friends were beginning to wonder if we were really seeing each other. So, I called a “Talk” to really open up, let her know that there was a reason for things going “slowly,” and that I really wanted to take things to a more tangible level with her. She then informed me it wasn’t going anywhere in her opinion, we were just friends and ought to stay that way. That set me back into polite mode, and I told her that would be fine and I was okay with that. Then I cried for hours after she left. True to her word, we’re still friends, but the feelings I worked six months to feel are still here and our conversations are as intimate as they’ve ever been. More, she seems sadder than ever, and some of her friends have hinted that breaking up wasn’t what she wanted to do. Worse, my newly dawning sexuality says it rather wants to get closer to her in every way. Do I take the plunge and just kiss her? A lot of me wants to show her how I feel, but I’m so afraid. — Shy Guy

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Dear Wendy: “No One Wants To Go Out With Me”

Wendy AtterberryApril 12, 2010 //

I haven’t had a boyfriend in almost a year and I’d really like one. Since my last relationship, I’ve had a handful of dates that went nowhere along with a few make-out sessions with inappropriate people like my ex’s best friend and a guy who lives 3,000 miles away and was only in town for the weekend. I am sick of being the only single person I know (truly, I don’t know one other single person) and my friends have begun uninviting me from things because of my single nature, which makes me feel like a pariah. And I get the impression they have given up hope on me ever getting a boyfriend because they aren’t willing to go out of their way to be my “wingman” or set me up with any of their single relatives/co-workers/friends. They are not helping the situation but I try not to let them get me down. I am rounding the corner on 30 this fall, and I know there is nothing wrong with being single and 30, but I want a family and a husband and someone to grow old with. Right now it’s pretty bleak. Maybe I am destined to be a spinster, and that thought makes me want to hurl myself off the nearest bridge. I am fairly certain I am attractive. I take good care of myself inside and out, and I am really mindful about how I present myself to the world. I am outgoing but not overly so, and I put myself in positions to meet new people all the time by taking classes, volunteering, venturing out of my comfort zone. But I am just not meeting people who want to go out with me. I can’t figure out what I can do differently and I could use some objective advice. — Sorry Single

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Dear Wendy: “My Boyfriend’s Never There For Me”

Wendy AtterberryApril 9, 2010 //

Dear Wendy: “Should I Move For My Boyfriend?

Wendy AtterberryApril 8, 2010 //

My boyfriend and I have been dating for two years now. We are both 25 and have lots of love and respect for one another. I am currently working in L.A. at a job I really like. He’s graduating soon with his Ph.D. in Economics and is deciding to go back to school again for a second Ph.D. at Columbia where he just got accepted. Although I think it’s great that my boyfriend is so academic and ambitious, I am struggling with the idea that he is moving 3000 miles away! He says that when he goes, he would like me to quit my job, get married and move there with him. My issue is that I’m afraid if I do move to New York with him, I’ll regret quitting my job if it doesn’t work out but I’m also afraid that if I don’t go with him, I might miss out on a future with him. I’m not too fond of long distance relationships so this is really putting a strain on me because either way I feel as though I have to give something up in order for this relationship to continue. We have discussed options of him finding a job and staying in California, but since the job market has been extremely tough this year he believes that going back to school will put him ahead of the pack once the economy picks back up. What should I do? Any advice would help! — Torn

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