When to Have Sex With a Guy

Many years ago, a guy friend said something that completely changed the way I viewed sex and relationships. He said: “Before a girl sleeps with a guy, she has all the power. Afterward, he has all the power.” I’ve told this to countless friends, both male and female, over the years and have been met with a resounding: “That is so true!.” You can choose to agree or disagree, but there’s no denying that sleeping with a guy has a significant impact on the relationship and can either deepen it or turn it into a physical thing without an emotional leg to stand on.

Most men want sex and most women want a commitment. That’s not to say men don’t want commitment, they do, it’s just not the driving force behind their behavior, getting a lot of sex is. You can blame it on biology and a man’s innate need to spread his seed, or on today’s culture which deems men who sleep with lots of women studs (and women who sleep with lots of men sluts), but it’s just the way it is. As such, women have control when it comes to sex and can decide whether to give in or not, while men have the control when it comes to commitment. 

There will be some women who will argue with this fact, and counter by saying they know tons of women who enjoy casual sex and lots of men who are yearning for commitment. Yes, there are people like this, but I’m speaking about the rule, not the exceptions. You don’t often see a woman plotting ways to sleep with many men and wiggle out of any

sort of commitment, or a man trying to figure out how to get a girl to just commit and want only him. Just as there is a stigma against women who sleep with a lot of men, there is a stigma against men who are super into commitment and invest way too soon. I’ve dated guys like that, the ones who were ready to marry me on the first date, and I wasn’t flattered…I was freaked out.

The truth is, deciding when to sleep with a guy is important and will have an impact on your relationship. And it’s your decision to make. No girl has ever lost interest in a guy because he slept with her on the first date while guys lose interest in girls all the time for giving it up too soon.

A close friend of mine recently met an amazing guy on an online dating site. He was smart, successful, and a dead ringer for Bradley Cooper. Things got off to a promising start. They exchanged a few flirty messages and he asked her to go out on a Saturday night. They had an amazing time on the date, they continued to message, and he asked her out for the following Saturday early in the week. Another nice date with pleasant conversation and enjoying each other’s company (and some passionate making out) and he again reserved her for the following Saturday night.

Before the date she told me she was a little unsure about this guy. She thought he was great on paper and all but she didn’t really feel like they had so much to talk about, she mostly just thought he was really hot. She decided she was gonna sleep with him after their third date and I didn’t really offer much in the way of advice since it didn’t seem like she was interested in having a real relationship

with him.

So they had a passionate night together and continued to text one another but something had shifted… 

My friend told me that she was waiting for him to ask her out for that Saturday night because she had purchased tickets to a booze cruise and thought that would make a fun date. He usually asked her out for Saturday night no later th

an Wednesday and when he still hadn’t asked her out by Thursday she started to panic.

They were still in contact; he would still text her messages full of sexual innuendos. But sometimes he didn’t text for days at a time, or would just drop off mid-convo when she asked him about something non sex-related.

Suddenly, their relationship went from elegant Saturday night dates to random 2 am hookups. He never texted her earlier than 11pm and while he was nice and sweet and all that when they hung out, all he wanted was to fool around (and sometimes order in food and fool around).

I stood silently as the whole thing started to unravel. I make it a policy not to give my friends relationship advice unless they explicitly ask for it (and a lot of the time they won’t because they know I’ll hit them with the truth and they would rather stay in denial-ville). Also, my friends sometimes get mad at me for not giving them the answers they want so in order to keep the peace, I will stay mum until things get dire.

And when they did, my friend finally called me up and said: “I don’t get this, I really, really like him. What did I do wrong?

I first pointed out the fact that she didn’t start really, really liking him until he stopped acting that way toward her. But even still, I told her flat out that she slept with him too soon. It was a pretty open and shut case, probably one of the easiest relationship questions brought to me.

“What do you mean?” She countered. “I waited until the third date! Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?”

I tried to stifle my laughter at the absurdity of her statement. “Okay, well tell me this. What did you actually know about this guy? What do you know about him that you couldn’t find out from his online dating profile or Facebook page?”

“Ummm…… Well he would show me pictures of his nieces and nephews and talk about them!”

“Doesn’t count. Anyone on Facebook could see the pictures and I’m sure he talks about them to his friends and co-workers. Do you know what his ultimate goals are? His fears? What makes him happy? What his weak points are?”

“Well no…”

And therein lies the problem. She slept with him before they developed any sort of a real connection. They were still in the casual getting to know one another phase. He hadn’t shown any level of investment (I know going on three Saturday night dates in a row with a guy can feel like he’s investing, but it’s not so). They didn’t really know each other, all they knew were the superficial details that anyone else can be privy to.

When it comes to sleeping with a guy, the quantity of dates is an arbitrary measure of the state of your relationship. What matters is the quality of the time you spend together on these dates. A girl who sleeps with a guy on the first date after an evening of intense, meaningful conversation that fosters a bond is much more likely to have a lasting relationship than a girl who sleeps with a guy she hasn’t really formed a connection with on the fifth date.

MORE: Ask a Guy – Is Sex on the First Date A Relationship-Killer?

The guy my friend was dating never really invested in her. Yeah, he was attracted and somewhat interested, but after sex was in the mix, he lost interest in pursuing things further. Why should he take her out on nice dates and wine and dine her when he can call her at 1 am when he’s feeling horny and get his needs met? When sex comes before a real emotional connection has been established, it’s hard to rewind the clock.

 

The right time to sleep with a guy is when he has shown a level of investment in you. Period.

This doesn’t necessarily mean he calls you his girlfriend or said he loves you. It means you both are able to drop your masks and be real when you’re together. It means he shares things with you he doesn’t share with other people in his life (and vice versa). It means he cares about you and respects you as a person.

As women, we’ve been told all our lives that we need to make a guy wait for sex, like it’s some carrot to dangle in front of him in order to get what we want out of him. I get where the idea comes from, and there is a grain of truth in there, but it’s not the entire picture. The fact is, men don’t value what they perceive is readily and easily available to all other men. 

When you sleep with a guy before you really know him, it’s easy for him to assume that any other guy could have done it. When you sleep with him after getting to know who he truly is, he believes that you slept with him because of how amazing he is and you wouldn’t have given in so easily if it were any other guy. See the distinction?

Any article you read on this subject will tell you to wait before sleeping with a guy, the longer the better. But no one really tells you what you’re supposed to be doing while you’re making him wait and that is establishing a real connection! Making him wait as a way to gain leverage or to make him chase you is just silly and won’t get you the relationship you want.

Guys appreciate women who are genuine and authentic and you’d be surprised how easily they can distinguish between a woman holding out as a means of manipulating him into feeling what she wants him to feel and a woman who holds out because she respects herself and is still trying to decide if this man is worth investing in any further.

Sex and relationships are two entirely different things for men and they don’t necessarily see sex as a measure of the depth of the relationship like most women do, for guys sex is more of a reward for being in the relationship. Having sex with a guy is not enough to make him want to commit. Men do not get into relationships purely based on physical attraction and a man wanting to sleep with you is not a measure of his actual feelings for you.

Before sleeping with him you have to really realize that having sex with him will not guarantee a relationship or any sort of commitment. If that’s what you’re hoping for then you’re setting yourself up to be greatly disappointed. It seems obvious, and yet, so many women get tripped up in this area. Before sleeping with a guy you have to determine if he’s interested in you or interested in having sex with you. The trouble is,  it’s not always easy to distinguish between these two vastly different things.

The decision of when to sleep with a guy is unique to every person and every relationship. You create some three-date rule and apply it to every situation. Only you know when the time is right, sometimes this knowledge will be obvious and other times you’ll have to really dig deep to make sure you aren’t deluding yourself.

If you genuinely care for him and know with your heart that he feels the same about you (and as we’ve said many times, when a guy likes you, it’s obvious) and you want to express your feelings in a physical way, then go for it. If you are unsure of how he feels, but are afraid he’ll leave you if you don’t put out, then please trust your gut instinct and make sure you’re putting yourself and your needs first.

Remember, when you sleep with a guy it will cause the release of certain chemicals in you that will cause you to feel even more close and connected. If you’re relationship isn’t established then you might have a hard time distinguishing between what happened in the bedroom and what actually exists between you, this just opens the doors wide for hurt and disappointment.

MORE: Why Women Get More Attached After Sex

As with all relationship issues, the best advice is to love yourself and work constantly on being the best version of yourself, on being someone who loves herself and knows her worth. When you place a high value on yourself, the world will follow suit. And when you work on yourself, you will really get to know yourself and will be more clear on your needs and desires. When you have this, then you will have the strength and clarity to get what it is you truly want.

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