“You’re not normally my type” is a sentence with the manners of a compliment and the faint chill of a performance review. It appears to praise the person in front of you while quietly introducing a comparison with everyone who came before. The trouble is that the comparison may be…
Relationships & Desire
I Don’t Feel the Spark on Cue
I’m 45, never married, and I don’t have children. I haven’t been in a relationship for almost ten years. Put like that, it can sound as though I’ve been waiting around for something to happen. I haven’t been. I’ve simply never been especially good at making attraction arrive on schedule….
Relationships & Desire
When His Ex-Wife Keeps Entering Your Dates
After about ten dates with a man she likes, a woman finds herself sharing every romantic possibility with someone who is not there: his ex-wife. The references come up in almost every interaction. Then, almost immediately after their first proper kiss, his former marriage enters the conversation again. Her attraction…
Playful Escapades
The Skincare Interview
They had agreed the coffee date would be brief: a preliminary meeting, with dinner that weekend to follow if they both wanted it. It was a sensible arrangement. Nobody had to commit to a whole evening before finding out whether conversation could survive a drink. Conversation, as it happened, was…
Confessions & Secrets
When an Open Marriage Stopped Feeling Mutual
They had been together since college, married for three years, and, by her account, doing well. At 26, she shared a home, a dog, and a job at her husband’s father’s business with her 28-year-old husband. They had weekly dates, divided chores, watched movies together, and still wanted children someday—just…
Relationships & Desire
Rain on the Pool, Stars in the Sauna
The autumn rain was falling while the housework went on. He and his wife, both in their early forties, spent the day at home with chores. When she urged him to go with her to a public thermal bath, he was reluctant. He went anyway. The first Aufguss came at…
Bedroom Talk
The Future Date and the Gray Walls
At 45, a few years after her divorce, she is thinking about dating again. The complication is not what to wear or where to go. It is the small, old rental she lives in: dated interiors, grayish walls, and little room to make substantial changes. She keeps it clean and…
Playful Escapades
The Poodle Had Better Plans
He was in his forties, on a first date, walking with a woman and her poodle. He had brought freeze-dried beef-liver treats for the dog, which is a thoughtful way to make a strong first impression with at least one member of the party. They walked and talked for about…
Relationships & Desire
Read Me the Bit You Liked
A romantic novel arrives in a relationship looking like leisure. It may have been recruited for something rather more specific. In one new long-term relationship after divorce, the man was sweet, willing to read together, and apparently a little short on imagination. The search was on for a book that…
Bedroom Talk
We Still Have Sex. I Miss Being Kissed.
She remembered a time when kissing him had been easy. They had dated for three years before spending four more apart, in a long-distance relationship. There had been making out, playful sex, the feeling that wanting each other did not need much explaining. During the years apart, he became a…
Playful Escapades
My Gym Crush and I Are Very Serious About Nodding
For about six months, she had been seeing a man at the gym. Seeing him was going very well. Speaking to him remained a separate project. They nodded. They waved. There was recognition, continuity, a certain reliability. In another setting, this might have counted as a working relationship. She was…
Bedroom Talk
Why Does He Produce So Much Pre-Cum? What the Amount Can Tell You
Some men notice a little clear fluid during arousal; others notice enough to wonder whether something unusual is happening. More fluid does not give…