Question?! Answer. Ask TuffyLuv@collegecandy.com.

Confidential to Almost Sexually Active Band Geek: WAIT. He doesn’t mind. If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen later–when things work out.

Dear Tuffy Luv,
I have been hooking up with a long time friend recently but we have never been anything official. He acts like he likes me, takes me out, says he thinks he is falling in love with me and says how he thinks we should be together. He has quite the playboy/bad boy reputation and for a long time and I couldn’t let myself be anything more than friends with benefits, so I have denied his requests that I be his girlfriend in fear of getting hurt.

I had a change of heart about 2 weeks ago and we had a conversation where we both decided to try and make a relationship work. Nothing really changed, we just gave it a label. However last week, only a few days after we became official, he slept with my best friend. Now things are beyond awkward between said friend and I and my “boyfriend” thinks I am making a big deal about nothing.

Dear Dude,

With summer quickly approaching I started to think about what has happened in my love life over the past year and realized something major… I keep hooking up with my guy friends. I’ve always been the “single” girl in my group of friends and have no issues with that. Also, I’ve always been a “guy’s girl,” I just get along better with boys. But last summer (after graduating high school) I ended up hooking up (ranging anywhere from just making out to the full monty) with seven guys. SEVEN. Some of these boys I have known since elementary school! I though that this pattern would end after the summer, but it didn’t. I have seen them on breaks and even visited some of them at their own schools, and every single time, even if I am not planning on it, we end up fooling around!

What I want to know is why. Why did they suddenly start wanting to make out with me instead of just hanging out? Is it because they trust me?

I’m so confused about this and need to know why. I love my boys, I really do, but I really am looking for a man who is willing to commit to me. I don’t really want a romantic relationship with any of them, I want to find someone new, outside of our group of friends who I connect with. But how can I do that while they still want to be my friend with benefits?

Help!
– Can We Just Be Friends? Read More »

[Got a Dude itch you just can’t scratch? Sick of trying to come up with a not-totally-crazy-girl way to bring it up to your guy friends and get their take on things? Totally over over-analyzing the cryptic messages he leave on your Facebook Wall?  We got your back, girlfriend. Send your question over to askthedude@collegecandy.com. The Dude won’t sugarcoat it, beat around the bush, or any other weird cliche that means lie to you. Like a nice, juicy hot dog, he’ll be 100% real beef, 100% of the time. So bring. it. on.]

Hey Dude,
This is my freshman year of college and before I was really nieve. I’ve hooked up with plenty of guys here, but I had a really fun night a few months ago and the guy and I started talking on a regular basis. He always texted me first and invited me to do things with him or him and his group of friends. I was really excited because he was my ideal guy and I (now regrettably) kept on telling myself he was better than me.

We were hooking up for five or six weeks and I went further with him than I ever have with anyone (not all the way). Talking during the weekdays became really sparse because he was getting “busier” with sports and classes. I was totally okay with it but after one night we spent together we ended up not talking at all for over a week and a half.

I texted him to go get coffee and when we met we talked about how we both were getting busy and we better end this because A. it’s not the right time for a relationship and B. we didn’t want it to get messy as FWBs. I was fine with it being over, but now over a week later I can’t stop thinking about him and how much fun we had together. I really want to see him again and ask if we could give it a shot.

I have no experience with relationships or guy thoughts in general, but I was wondering if it sounds like he’s totally checked out or if maybe there’s still a chance. What’s the best way to approach this? Let it go or ask if we can try again?

Sincerely,
Missing What We Had Read More »

You got a question? Tuffy got the answer. Come get it. TuffyLuv@collegecandy.com

Dear Tuffy Luv,

I was stupid. I know I was stupid. I slept with the guy I’ve liked for a couple months in a casual hook-up sort of way. It may have happened more than once. I was sober (so was he). Yeah… not sure why I thought this was a semi-OK-ish idea either.

In case there’s a part of your brain going “eh, doesn’t sound all that bad…” I’ll give some background details. I’ve done FWB without issue. I’m fairly certain the only reason my friend even approached me about this was because he knows that. He caught me leaving to go meet up with my booty call… yeah, not too many reasons to be leaving the dorm at 2am alone and fully dressed and made up with a bag… so I basically told him where I was going. He was intrigued and we joked about it later, but I didn’t think he actually wanted to hook up with me. He did. I went along with it cause I figured it was as good as I would get with him. Only problem is that after I would feel like a whore and freak out internally cause I knew that this wasn’t how I wanted it to be with him. We were still friends in the normal sense – texting, hanging out; it didn’t get awkward or anything.

So I told him. I actually manned up (pardon the expression) and told him that I couldn’t do casual anymore with him because I like him. And I got told (after a long wait period – guys are really evasive I’ve noticed…) that he just wants to be friends. Understandable, though depressing. Only now he’s initiating 95% of our convos over Facebook and text and is doing so more often… I mean I just told him I like him, he basically says that he doesn’t feel the same way… so he’s going to talk to me more? What? I know the idiotic part of my brain doesn’t want to get over him, but how am I supposed to when now even he’s not letting me?!

-Boys need to start making sense

Dear BNTSMS,

First of all: What the hell do you think you’re doing walking around by yourself at 2:00 in the morning?!?!?!! GIRL. This is SO NOT smart behavior. Why the hell are you putting yourself at risk like that?! Women get raped all the time, sweetheart, and you need to at least TRY to protect yourself. If a booty call guy wants you to come over for The Sex, then he can damn well come over and escort you to his place.

Read More »

If there’s one way to complicate a friendship, it would be to add sex to the mix. This “hook-up culture,” as it has been so nicely labeled by middle-agers, seems to be the norm on college campuses everywhere. Students are much more likely to have a few drinks and go home with a friend, than go on a “real” dinner-and-a-movie date.

In a way, it kind of makes sense. There aren’t many people that we trust more than our friends, and when you spend a lot of time with a person of the opposite sex, it’s easy to let the hormones kick in and go with the sexy flow. It’s easy to have sex with a friend – someone who may have even picked up on your likes and dislikes from your previous trysts.

With a friend, sex kind of feels natural — something that was “a long time coming.”  And this is the part where I make the blatant statement that everyone with a FWB doesn’t want to admit – believe it or not, having sex with someone on a regular basis, even when you don’t put a “label” on it, is still a relationship.

Maybe not the kind of relationship in which you call each other late and night just to say “I love you,” or the kind where you bring them home to your parents  — but it’s something. You’re still single when you have a FWB, of course, but if sex is happening on a regular basis, your partner deserves the exact same courtesies that a boyfriend or girlfriend would.

I have a rule, and not to push my beliefs onto others, but it’s something that I feel pretty strongly that all people should follow: if you’re having sex with someone, they deserve to know if you start f**king someone else. Read More »

Regardless of what some of my readers might think of me, I don’t’ have a lot of experience with one-night stands. That’s a lie; I don’t have any experience with one-night stands. I don’t look down upon people who choose to do it (obviously, I write a frickin’ sex column), it’s just not something I’ve done myself.  But I’m a single lady with needs and like most other people my age, I have had an experience or two in dealing with the whole friends-with-benefits arrangement. Regardless of what people may say happens to women who have sex with people they aren’t dating, thus far I’ve come out unscathed and generally happy. Believe it or not, no-strings-attached sex doesn’t have to be emotionally damaging and self-image ruining. But that make or break point all comes down to one thing: respect.

A good rule of thumb is that whoever you’re having sex with — be it a boyfriend or a friend of yours, constantly ensure there’s a certain level of mutual respect. In following that rule myself, I’ve avoided a lot of really awkward situations and a lot of hurt feelings. But I’ve seen so many ladies in my life (and so many ladies that write for CC) both treat others and be treated like garbage after giving it up. And I gotta stand up and say that it ain’t right!

So many people point fingers at sexual activity as the reason for low self-esteem, but it’s not quite that simple. Even doin’ it, putting your clothes back on, and leaving right after can be a positive experience. It’s not about the sex, per se, it’s about how we feel we’ve been treated during the whole interaction.

As easy as the whole hook-up thing seems, once you’re in it, it turns out it’s pretty murky water to navigate through.  The NSA scene that’s been showing up everywhere horny young adults tend to congregate seems to have killed the part of college culture that encourages us to treat our sex partners with respect. Read More »

Careful friend, he's got herpes.

…Or at least that’s what CNN is saying in a recent article entitled “The Downside of ‘Friends With Benefits.’” If reading about FWBs on CNN isn’t disturbing enough, perhaps this will make you WTF:

“When Jennifer Nicholas sees television shows or movies where characters “hook up” or have sex with “friends with benefits,” she cringes, because that’s how she got herpes.”

Seems to me like Ms. Jennifer is just hanging out with the wrong crowd.

I agree there are many downsides to the FWB – awkward mornings, awkward silences, generally awkward encounters – but I’m fairly certain there is no direct relation between drunkenly doin’ it with your former BFF and needing a prescription for Valtrex.

Poor Jennifer, though. Girlfriend needs some new friends.

[Got a Dude itch you just can’t scratch? Sick of getting the pity-eyes as you sift through the Self-Help section at your campus bookstore? Over wondering what those boys are thinking?  We got your back, girlfriend. Send your question over to askthedude@collegecandy.com. The Dude won’t sugarcoat it, beat around the bush, or any other weird cliche that means lie to you. Like a nice, juicy hot dog, he’ll be 100% real beef, 100% of the time.  So bring it on, ladies.]

Hey there,

So. First semester last year this kid and I were kind of “what are you doing tonight” kind of friends, but I always got the feeling that he liked me. Second semester last year, I had drunken sex with him, which I felt bad about, because I had liked him and I felt like I ruined my chances. We continued hooking up that semester. At the end of the year he told me he liked me, but I didn’t take it seriously because he was drunk.

Last semester we were both abroad and didn’t talk. This semester he texted me for a few weeks trying to hang out, but I assumed that he just wanted to hook up. Then we ended up hanging out the other weekend- the first night we just talked for hours catching up and made out, he slept in my room and kissed me before he left the next morning. The next night we hung out too, and I told him I didn’t want to have sex, but otherwise it would have gone there. He told me he liked me again, but I didn’t really take it too seriously this time either because it could have been a “try to change her mind” kind of move. I awkwardly responded I liked him last year, and that I guess I still like him this year. I also told him that I don’t want to do the random hookup thing anymore.

The following week he texted me on Tuesday asking me to hang out for Thursday, which I said yes to. On Thursday, he asked me what I was doing, and told me that he was going to a party at someone’s apartment with friends. That’s it. Saturday night he told me to come pregame with him and his friends, but I had plans. He called me late that night and I didn’t answer. Read More »

This is a ticking time bomb. Get out. Fast!

Question for La Tuff?! Email her at TuffyLuv@collegecandy.com for a chance at getting your just desserts.

Dear Tuffy Luv,

Here’s my problem: when I first started college back in summer of 2007, I met this awesome guy at a party, though we were both drunk (and at the time I was a virgin). After making out we decided to stay friends. That arrangement has worked out great for both of us in the past (we both dated other people, we both broke up with said people, but we always had each other to “vent” to….and occasionally play kissy-face with).

After I lost the v-card in a relationship that then went sour, we then turned into friends with benefits and everything was working just fine. Recently however (as in last month), he has said that he loves me, and yes in the form, ” *name* I love you!” The problem is, I don’t love him back. He’s said to me that even though he loves me, if I find someone I want to date then he would be okay with that and still be my friend. But last summer when I dated a guy, he went bat-sh*t bonkers stalker crazy calling my cell, my house, and he even found my mom’s cell.

Here’s the biggest problem: there’s a new guy in the picture I want to date (who has asked me out officially). I don’t know what to tell my ‘friend’ and I don’t know a way to tell him I don’t want to sleep with him anymore (since a lot of the time he guilted me into doing it).

Tuffy Luv, I really need your help please.

–A Confused Sunshine State Girl Read More »

Not friends.

“Tonight let’s be lovers…and tomorrow we’ll go back to being friends.”

Sorry Dave. While I fancy your rock band and appreciate the length you went to in order to solicit platonic sex from your besties, I simply cannot endorse these lyrics. (Sorry, male friends.) But I just do not think it is wise to play Mario Kart with your guy pal one night and doctor the next, unless you want your nipples handled like joysticks and a guaranteed disappointment.

If you’re loose with your definition of “friend,” say “I love you” to each of your hall mates, and blast mass text messages like it’s your job, then you will undoubtedly disagree. After all, what’s wrong with a little hanky panky from your drinking buddy next door? However, to me “friend” has a very sacred and categorical meaning. The fuzzy area surrounding is reserved for titles like “acquaintance” “buddy” or “pal.” Not “late night booty partner.” Therefore, to hook up with a friend by my definition is inherently incongruous and somewhat fraudulent. A truly, strictly platonic relationship never goes temporarily sexual. The beauty of friendship is that it is pure, transparent and resolute. To take things carnal is not only unnatural and um, awkward, but potentially blasphemous.

For those “friends with benefits” enthusiasts ready to Tonya Harding my cankles, relax. I am not judging you for giving your dude friend a ride to Pleasuretown. I’m just saying real friends don’t let each other shack up at the Howard Johnson…. or in your lofted twin XL. Read More »