Dear Miss Lonelyhearts,
When I was home over winter break, a good friend of mine introduced me to two friends of hers whom she’d brought home with her from college. The three of us hit it off — well, we did much more than hit it off. I ended up having sex with both of them. At the same time. By the way, none of us had really planned on a threesome, and I’m not usually the kind of person to be so sexually exploratory. It was equal parts exhilarating and extremely stressful. But anyway, it turns out that the person who I did most but not all of the sexual stuff with had been a virgin, and this was their first sexual experience. Fast forward four months, and this person has a summer internship in Seattle! They messaged me to let me know that they were coming to the PNW, and asked if I wanted to hang out. Since our relationship up to now has been purely sexual, I’d be kind of interested in having some kind of a summer hookup. But I have no idea what they want! Is this so that we can become friends? Is this for sex? Something more complicated? What should I do?
— Sexy in Seattle
Dear Sexy,
It’s kind of exciting and scary to reconnect with a one night stand in the real world, isn’t it? On the one hand, you shared a totally intimate moment together – possibly made even more intimate by a first sexual encounter – but on the other hand, you barely know each other.
Before you hang out with this person, no matter if you want to have more sex with them or not (even though it sounds like you’d like to have more sex with them), you have to let go of any expectation that this meeting will lead directly to the bedroom. Assuming that hanging out is just a precursor for sex is one of the most asshole-ish things that a person can do. Not only does it tell the other person loud and clear: “I only care about you because of the things your body can do for me,” it puts undue pressure on that person to agree to sex that they’re not 100% on board with. I feel like I shouldn’t have to say this, but pressuring someone else into sex is never ok. It doesn’t matter if you’ve already slept with them, even if you both had a great time doing it. Each new interaction with a partner is a blank slate, waiting to be filled up with exciting conversation and enthusiastic consent.
That being said, it’s totally ok for you to think about the kinds of relationships you’d be interested in having with this person. Would you be interested in hooking up with this person regularly? Are you thinking about dating them? I know this might sound like it’s contradicting what I just said, but there’s a huge difference between only seeing this person as your ticket to sexytown and thinking out what you’d like your relationship to be in the longer term. The second option takes into consideration the whole person that you’re going to be hanging out with and the way that you’d like to interact with them – not just their sexy bits. Having a sense of where you’d like this whole thing to go might make you feel better about seeing this person again, and it will allow you to ask (in a nice, non-pressuring way) what they want from your relationship. “Hey, is this a date?” might be a good place to start. Or: “I had a really good time when we hooked up a few months ago. Is that something you’d be interested in doing again?” As long as you’re honestly open to any response that you get to these questions (they might say no, after all!), they’re both reasonable ways to figure out each other’s intentions.
Finally, try and relax. This is basically your reverse first date: you’re finding out if you’re really interested in this person and are getting to know them to see if you’re compatible. The only difference here is that you already know what each other’s orgasm faces look like. That might be a positive or a negative — take it as you will.
Out for coffee,
Miss Lonelyhearts