I tried lingerie. I tried talking dirty. I even offered him anything he wanted in bed. My boyfriend kept playing his video games, and I was left wondering what else I was supposed to try.
I’m 28, he’s 30, and we’ve been together for about five years. I love having sex with him. I was his first sexual partner, so there’s a lot of shared history behind what might otherwise sound like a simple question about getting a man’s attention. This is someone I’ve been close to for years, and lately I can barely get him into bed.
The attempts haven’t all looked the same. Some have been obvious invitations, like the lingerie and dirty talk. Others have been more personal. I shaved and used a nice body scrub because I know he likes my skin soft. It was a small detail I remembered about what he enjoys, something I could do with him in mind. He was still sitting there playing.
That part is hard to describe without making it sound as if I think a body scrub should guarantee sex. I don’t. But putting effort into something because I think he’ll like it leaves me feeling exposed when nothing happens. I’m not just offering an activity. I’m showing him that I want him, and hoping to feel wanted back.
I have tried talking to him, too. His answer is that he doesn’t feel like it. That tells me he doesn’t want sex at that moment. It doesn’t tell me much about the change I’m feeling between us, or why the things I’ve been trying no longer seem to reach him. I don’t have a fuller explanation from him, and I can’t supply one on his behalf.
Meanwhile, I hear stories about men who want sex all the time. Against that background, being the girlfriend trying to start it feels strangely lonely. Those stories make constant male desire sound like the easy part, the one thing a woman won’t have to wonder about. Here I am, wanting my own boyfriend and wondering whether I’m somehow getting it wrong.
The question I keep coming back to is how to seduce him better. It gives me something to work on: a different approach, another way of showing interest. But I’ve already moved from clothes to words to offering whatever he might enjoy. There’s something unsettling about the offer getting broader while his response stays the same. I’m starting to look at myself as the thing that needs changing, even though I don’t know that I’m the reason.
I still want sex with him. I want the familiar person I’ve spent these years with to want me, too. For now, when I ask, he says he doesn’t feel like it. I have his answer about sex, and no answer yet to the part I’m quietly asking about myself.
