Question: I have an unusual situation here...a guy I served with in the military back in my twenties (we are in our mid 40's now), found me on Facebook two years ago (I was married then). He often sent me texts: jokes, political things, discussions about our kids (we both have teenaged boys, he's divorced). We discovered that we had crushes on each other back then but were unaware of it. Several months after our initial contact, my husband of sixteen years passed away unexpectedly. Since his death, this guy has kept contact with me daily via text and phone calls to see how I'm doing. He is almost always the initiator. We have become very close and discuss virtually everything. Lately our discussions have become romantic and he has told me that after a full year has passed after my husband's death, he'd like for us to meet. He thinks the year is necessary for both me and my kids to be ready for me to begin dating. My son insists that this guy must want a relationship with me to work because guys don't wait a year to date a woman they don't care much about, nor do they bother texting girls just to be friends or just to get a piece of ass that's far away (he lives on the other side of the country). The year is a month away from being completed and I am excited and nervous about finally seeing him. I am convinced that my son is right, but want another opinion – so what do you think? ...Yvonne  

Answer: I have to agree with your son.  Although it is clear that this guy has been interested in you for more than two decades, he is still willing to take things "slowly" out of respect for you, your children, and your late husband.  That shows a tremendous amount of discipline and restraint, even if all he is seeking is a good time.  And though one can never know what exactly is in the heart of another, it does appear that he honestly has deep feelings for you, and at the very least wants to explore the romantic possibilities of a relationship.  While it is certain that he is partially motivated by his desire to finally be intimate with you after waiting all these years, mere sexual desire cannot be his sole motivation.  And given that the only impediment to the two of you "getting physical" (for it seems like you've already shared emotional intimacy) is his desire to allow you to be in a place that is conducive to a relationship built on a solid foundation, one must ascertain that his intent is serious.

Obviously, anything can happen when two people get together after many years of separation.  Anticipation is understandably high, and often the reality is somewhat less satisfying than a long-held fantasy.  However, just as often, the actual contact will exceed expectations, leaving both of you wondering why you waited so long to experience this fulfillment.  And whether you are pleasantly surprised or sadly disappointed, at least you made the effort to pursue happiness, and that is frequently satisfying in its own way.

If this has reached you somewhat "after-the-fact," I do hope that you decided to "go for it" with him, and that things worked out well.  If, however, you have yet to make the leap, I encourage you to do so, for if you don't, I fear you will always wonder what might have been.  Remember: When we look back on our lives, it is usually not the things we did that we regret most, it's the things we didn't do, the words we didn't say, the path we didn't take.  Carpe diem!    

If you have any questions about men, relationships, dating or a related topic, please feel free to email them to me at: david@EveryManSeesYouNaked.com. I will try to answer as many as I possibly can here in my column. If you are interested in a more comprehensive compendium of musings on the male mind, check out David's Every Man Sees You Naked: An Insider's Guide to How Men Think. 

© 2012 David M. Matthews.  All rights reserved.

Question: My boyfriend and I have been together for a year. When he gets angry with someone other than me, he usually twists it around and focuses his anger on me. Then after he calms down, he apologizes sincerely. He says he doesn't know why he does it - he just gets mad and blacks out and unloads on me. He is talking to a counselor about his anger issues, but it doesn't seem to be helping. I would just like to know why he does it, and what I can do to deal with it. Any ideas? ...Erica  

Answer: Anger is a funny thing.  Often we focus it on those who have nothing to do with the source of our discontentment.  In many cases, those closest to us are the unwitting and innocent victims of our misplaced agitation.  Their mere proximity when we are venting, causes us to "take it out" on loved ones whose only crime is being near when we "blow."  

You see, most of us feel most comfortable "being ourselves" when we are around someone we feel an emotional closeness with.  Unfortunately, because we realize they are "safe," we tend to unload our emotional baggage on them, without regard for how this might actually impact them. It's a classic example of "you always hurt the one you love." And while it is understandable that one's anger might cause one to lash out at anyone who is within earshot, that does not mean it's acceptable behavior, regardless of how upset one may be.

I am glad to hear that your boyfriend is seeking help with his anger issues.  At least it shows awareness on his part of this ongoing problem.  It also indicates a real desire to deal with the issue.  That does not, however, excuse him from his volatile behavior.  On the contrary, now that he knows he has a problem, he must make every effort to not repeat past inappropriate behavior, and instead focus on dealing with his anger in a constructive way.  If his counseling sessions are not yielding results, then it's probably time to re-evaluate his commitment to "getting better" and/or seek out a new therapist who specializes in curbing such behavior and who has a proven track record of success.  This is wise because, for whatever reason, not all therapists have similar success with all patients.  There needs to be a certain chemistry between counselor and patient, and when this does not exist, a change of therapist may be indicated.

In the meantime, do not let yourself be victimized by his verbal abuse.  When he lashes out at you because of his anger with himself or someone else, don’t engage.  Simply tell him that you care about his feelings, but will no longer subject yourself to his tirades.  Then leave his presence and don’t return until he’s regained controlled.  This is absolutely necessary to avoid potential further abuse.  You are sending a firm message that the job description for being his girlfriend does not include being his verbal punching bag.  And if you don’t, won’t, or can’t draw the line now, it is foreseeable that his misplaced anger will ultimately cause irreparable damage to your relationship - something that I suspect neither of you want.

If you have any questions about men, relationships, dating or a related topic, please feel free to email them to me at: david@EveryManSeesYouNaked.com. I will try to answer as many as I possibly can here in my column. If you are interested in a more comprehensive compendium of musings on the male mind, check out David's Every Man Sees You Naked: An Insider's Guide to How Men Think. 

© 2011 David M. Matthews.  All rights reserved.

Question: I am fairly young, 23, and I've been hooking up with this guy for 7 months now. When we started hooking up he stated that he didn't want a girlfriend...and he still feels the same way. Recently I told him that I was developing feelings for him. To protect me from getting hurt he decided that we should end things, saying that he didn't want to hurt me in the long run (which he believed he would). Knowing that he said that and that he was capable of doing such a hurtful thing, I asked if maybe he just wasn't interested in me. He never gave me an answer, but a couple days later he was back trying to get with me. I'm a bit confused. Could it just be that he's being guarded? ...Briana  

Answer: It appears that you have a classic "friends-with-benefits" relationship, and that's the way he wants to keep it. It seems he started to feel a little bad when you expressed that your feelings were beginning to deepen for him (since obviously his feelings for you had not changed), and he broke it off so as not to mislead you...and to relieve himself of any associated guilt. The trouble is, he liked having sex with you, and doesn't want to give that up.  This is typical behavior for a young guy in this situation, and is in no way reflective of anything except his desire to have sex with you without any commitment or exclusivity imposed.  As to whether or not he's being guarded - yes, I believe he is.   He's guarding his freedom - the freedom to have sex with you...and anybody else who's willing.

While this undoubtedly works for him, it sounds like it’s less satisfying for you, particularly because you’ve developed deeper feelings for him, and (I’m guessing) would like to move this relationship into a more romantic boyfriend/girlfriend arrangement.  As long as his feelings for you have not changed, however, it is likely this imbalance of emotional interest will lead you to feel frustrated and sad.  Thus, I think you have three reasonable choices: 1) Stay in this situation, knowing that his feelings do not match yours - and continue to be unhappy; 2) Stay in this situation, but resolve that you‘re only in it for the sex, and meanwhile keep your eyes open for another, more satisfying relationship; and 3) End this relationship now, then actively search for one that more effectively meets your needs.

Remember: You are the one in charge of protecting your heart from being injured. If any relationship brings you more pain than pleasure (and you're not a masochist), do your heart a favor - and end it.  The longer you put that off, the more painful the eventual break-up will be.

If you have any questions about men, relationships, dating or a related topic, please feel free to email them to me at: david@EveryManSeesYouNaked.com. I will try to answer as many as I possibly can here in my column. If you are interested in a more comprehensive compendium of musings on the male mind, check out David's Every Man Sees You Naked: An Insider's Guide to How Men Think. 

(c) 2011 David M. Matthews.  All rights reserved.

Question: I have a question about men being interested in watching transsexuals on a porn site and then having sexual dreams about penises. My boyfriend who is straight had a relationship with a tranny about six years ago and still keeps in contact by phone. This issue has come up as it's interrupting our sex life since he'd rather watch she-male porn on the internet and jerk-off than have sex with me. I'm attractive and have done porn in my past but nothing with trannies. I'm highly sexual, but having a threesome with one of these people just isn't in me. I want nothing to do with it. I'm just not sure if my boyfriend is bi or gay...and just hasn't come to terms with it. He's 41, so by now you'd think he'd know his sexual preference. He has late night conversations with this person, and I recently found out that they are always initiated by my boyfriend. We love each other, but I'm to the point where this just isn't working. Limited sex and all the jerking off and secretive phone calls. Ahhhhhhhh! What are your thoughts on this? Any help would be greatly appreciated!! ...Lindsey

Answer: Okay, first we have to clarify something: When you say your boyfriend had a relationship with a transsexual, I'm assuming you mean a sexual relationship. And based on your other comments, it sounds like this was a "pre-op" transsexual - meaning he still had his penis, making him a member of a group sometimes referred to in porn circles as "chicks with dicks." Let's start there: In general, straight men are only interested in being intimate with one penis - their own. No matter how hot a woman is, if she's "sporting wood" of her own, our sexual interest in her quickly departs. But apparently that's not the case with your boyfriend.  Not only did he have sex with someone else who had a penis, he also continues to fantasize about and masturbates to images of others who are similarly endowed.  I don't think, therefore, it would be much of a stretch to deduce that given this evidence, it is highly-likely that your beau is bi, or even possibly gay and living in denial.

Another issue you should look at is that your boyfriend continues to maintain an ongoing relationship with an old flame.  It also appears that he's the one who's doing the pursuing.  To me, it sounds like he's still involved in that relationship, if not sexually, then emotionally.  At the very least, this emotional umbilical cord to his past does not bode well for his relationship with you in the long run.  If he cannot disconnect from this previous liaison, ultimately it will doom any future the two of you might have together.

That said, do you really want a future with a guy who prefers fantasy women with penises over you with your decidedly more traditional feminine parts?  It seems to me that you deserve a man who actually desires to be intimate with you, and doesn't just occasionally "throw you one" to keep you hanging in there with him.  Perhaps it's time for both of you to take an honest look at your relationship, since it seems that neither of you are particularly satisfied with your situation.  Though you may truly love each other, it may still be necessary for you to go your separate ways so that you might both be free to openly pursue the male, female, or she-male of your respective dreams.

If you have any questions about men, relationships, dating or a related topic, please feel free to email them to me at: david@EveryManSeesYouNaked.com. I will try to answer as many as I possibly can here in my column. If you are interested in a more comprehensive compendium of musings on the male mind, check out David's Every Man Sees You Naked: An Insider's Guide to How Men Think. 

(C) 2011 David M. Matthews.  All Rights Reserved.

As you are well-aware, men's love affair with the female breast goes back centuries, perhaps to the beginning of time (before chomping on the apple, Adam may not have known the significance of Eve's frontal accoutrements, but he knew what he liked).  Guys go out of their way to get a glimpse of them at every opportunity, and spend obscene amounts of hard-earned cash just to watch nubile hotties bare their bounteous assets in seedy, sweaty, prurient palaces, ironically referred to as, "gentlemen's clubs."  Such is our complete infatuation with your blessed bosom.  

But why this udder devotion?  And what specifically draws us to your mellifluous mammaries?   Read on as I try to offer a little insight into mans' magnificent obsession.

1) We like how your breasts look:  Contrary to what you may think, regardless of size, we find your boobs fascinating.  Whether they're large and luxurious or small and sporty, we're hot for your hooters.  And while individual men may have a preference for a particular size or shape, overwhelmingly we're enticed by your charms, be they pendulous or pert, pouty or protuberant.

2) We like how they feel:  It's hard to say specifically why they feel so nice, but nonetheless they do.  Touch them and feel for yourself.  There's nothing else quite like them.  That's why, given the opportunity, we can't resist putting our hands (or other body parts) on them (with your consent, of course) whenever they happen to be in the neighborhood.

3) We like to watch them dance:  Almost as much as seeing and touching them, we like to watch them in motion.  The way they shake when you move, bobble when you walk, or bounce when you jump, commands our attention almost as much as a half-court shot at the buzzer (and you know how we love our basketball).  And women jumping on trampolines... well, that just reaffirms our belief in Heaven.

4) We like how they work as a team:  Some things are just meant to come in pairs:  Socks, shoes, fang marks from your favorite Twilight hunk.  And your "girls" are a member of this wonderfully co-dependent group.  While they are individually lovely, together they create one of nature's most awesome vistas - cleavage.  

5) We like them as a pillow:  Life is tough.  And at the end of a day in the trenches of adulthood, nothing is as comforting a resting place for our weary heads, as the cushion of your bosom.  Cradled in the calming warmth of your natural upholstery, we can relax and regroup, ready to face the world anew, our spirit magically restored.

6) We like them as a handle:  Face it; there are some sexual positions where your breasts are perfectly placed to help us hold on as things heat up.  And though we often don't absolutely need to hold onto them to prevent us from falling off the bed, or worse, losing our rhythm, why leave them out of our love-play?  After all, they're a treasured part of your anatomy, and we don't want them to feel lonely, neglected or ignored.  Men are extraordinarily considerate that way.

7) We like them as an information system:  Now, to your nipples.  How we love them.  Not only for their inherent beauty - perfectly accessorizing your fashionable frontage - but also for their incredible communication skills.  When you're clothed and we see them, they tell us you're bra-less (or at least wearing a very sheer, sexy bra).  When they stand erect they tell us either you're experiencing a chill or are very happy to see us (or someone else), or both. And one thing's for sure: when they talk, we listen!  

8) We like their mystery:  From the time we first become aware of them, breasts fascinate us - not only what we see - but what we don't. Untold numbers of hours are spent imagining what those beautifully mysterious mounds under your clothing actually look like. And when we finally do get to behold them "in the flesh," we are rarely disappointed. And afterward, though the particular mystery of what your breasts look like has been solved, there are billions more as-yet-unseen breasts for us to ponder and speculate about.  Ahh, sweet mystery of life.

9) We like their curviness:  Ideally anyway, men are angular, hard and defined.  Our shape (when we're "in shape," that is) is not given to graceful curves or comforting cushiness.  Women, on the other hand, are naturally more curvaceous - something we greatly appreciate.  And the soft swell of your breasts perfectly enhance the rest of the feminine figure.  In other words, you're curvy where we're flat...and viva la difference!

10) We like how they just plain make us feel better:  I'm sure you're aware of studies that have shown definitively that people who have pets live longer, healthier lives.  What you may not know is that recent findings indicate that looking at breasts for as little as fifteen minutes a day actually has a similar, healthy and longevity-enhancing impact on men. Now, I'm certainly not comparing women's breasts to our furry family friends - although we do like when either are nuzzled up against us or available for petting. But it's exciting to learn that it is now scientifically proven that just beholding your up-top attributes on a daily basis can add years to our lives... in addition to adding a spring to our step.  You just gotta love science!

Well, if you had any doubts about how strongly guys feel about your breasts, I hope I've eliminated them.  We love 'em, cherish 'em, can't get enough of 'em.  And luckily for us, they're attached to one of the few things in this world that we love, value and desire even more than them - you.

If you have any questions about men, relationships, dating or a related topic, please feel free to email them to me at: david@EveryManSeesYouNaked.com. I will try to answer as many as I possibly can here in my column. If you are interested in a more comprehensive compendium of musings on the male mind, check out David's Every Man Sees You Naked: An Insider's Guide to How Men Think. 

(C) 2011 David M. Matthews.  All Rights Reserved.

Guys are inherently goal-oriented in almost every aspect of their lives, and vacations are no exception.  The vacation itself is the goal, and everything else - the tedious and annoying but necessary obstacles that must be overcome in order to reach our objective (chilling in some exotic locale, surrounded by our favorite things: sun, surf, frosty beverages, and scantily-clad you). Guys tend to be more interested in the big picture than all the details. We generally perceive the minutiae of how we achieve our nirvana as a nuisance. You want to go on a vacation? Just tell me when, for how long, and if I need snowshoes or flip-flops. You want to get married? Just tell me where, when, and if we're having an open bar. You want to have sex? No plans necessary... zip.  

But for you, much of the pleasure is actually in the details. You love the researching, planning, and organizing...sometimes more than the event itself. And that baffles us, because it's so not what we enjoy.  Thus we are thrilled to leave all the particulars in your happy, capable hands.  

So how can you get us to participate in the planning and get us to enjoy it as much as say...a frosty beverage?  Ah, there's the challenge, to be sure.  But I'll take a crack at it.  

1. Do your homework and be prepared.  Since we have a limited threshold and short attention span when it comes to this, don't give us too many choices about anything.  Three is optimal.  More than six...we're praying for the arrival of the Apocalypse.  

2. Once we've given you our opinion, accept it graciously and don't debate the merits of our point-of-view.  Doing so frustrates us and causes us to question why you asked us in the first place (and reinforces all our negative feelings about being involved in the planning of anything).

3. Once we agree on something, don't offer up additional options.  We made a decision - good. Reconsidering a choice we already agonized over – very bad.

4. Never, ever, offer us an option that you are not already completely behind.  Again, this is where careful planning comes in.  If you're not excited about going body surfing in shark-infested waters, best not to list that as a possible excursion.

5. Only ask us to engage in planning-related discussion when we're not focused on something else important to us (ESPN, sex, sleeping).  You want our full attention and you want us to give it willingly...and consciously.

6. Be upbeat about the whole process.  Your mood is contagious.  If you're stressing about making arrangements, we'll pick up on the negative energy and use that as an excuse to immediately end the discussion and go re-grout the bathtub (a detail-oriented task that we find oddly satisfying).

7. Don't stretch out the planning over an extended period of time.  Guys like to see results and we become impatient and uneasy if the process becomes a seemingly endless procedure.  If we can accomplish the whole thing in one sitting - beautiful.  Afterward we can celebrate with sex...and a frosty beverage.

So you see, you can get guys into the spirit of "getting ready for vacations."  It just takes a little strategizing, preparation and, well... planning.  So I guess for you, it's "win-win."  Now that's a plan!

If you have any questions about men, relationships, dating or a related topic, please feel free to email them to me at: david@EveryManSeesYouNaked.com. I will try to answer as many as I possibly can here in my column. If you are interested in a more comprehensive compendium of musings on the male mind, check out David's Every Man Sees You Naked: An Insider's Guide to How Men Think. 

(C) 2011 David M. Matthews.  All Rights Reserved.