I’m a 34-year-old woman, dating a 27-year-old guy for three months. We have a great time together, but he’s balking at making an official commitment, meaning he doesn’t want to call us boyfriend and girlfriend. He says he feels we have long-term potential and doesn’t want to date anyone else, but needs time to be sure about us so he doesn’t get hurt again (as he did by his last girlfriend, whom he felt sure was “the one”). That makes sense, but the other day, he told me he loves me. How can he feel that way and still not consider us boyfriend/girlfriend? I’m in my 30s, and my friends are getting married, and I get down on myself sometimes for being single. Am I selling myself short by waiting? 

— On Hold

An impulsive relationship is something to have with a pack of mini-cupcakes in the supermarket checkout line. If they aren’t all they seemed to be, you’ll probably complain a little — that you wasted 79 cents, not the “best years of your life” and the last of your viable eggs. 

Okay, it’s a little weird that a guy who blurts out “I love you” is squeamish about the B- and G-words, but keep in mind that the last woman he gave his heart to slammed it in the hurt locker. Also, people hate to fail and resist having their failures formalized. If he doesn’t call you his girlfriend, maybe those won’t be real tears you’ll cry if you break up, and he won’t have screwed up another relationship; he’ll just have dated somebody awhile and moved on. But, even if he is driven by fear, his insistence on taking it slow is a good thing: It suggests he learns from his mistakes (an important quality to have in a B-word) and means he won’t be that guy who calls you his girlfriend pronto and then treats you more and more like some woman he passed on his way to the men’s room at the corner bar. 

Because you can’t know how long his holding-back period will last until he stops holding back, you can start to think the worst — that he’s just toying with you or, even worse, that you’ll have a mortgage and three kids together and he’ll still be introducing you as “my lady friend.” To allay your fears, mark a deadline in your head — perhaps two or three months from now — to see whether the relationship’s progressed to a point you’re more comfortable with and to bail if it hasn’t.

During that time, try not to be so goal-focused that you forget to look critically at how compatible you two actually are and explore your own motivations. For any “official commitment” to last, you have to want him, specifically. It can’t just be that he’s your last chance to experience having everyone turn and gasp as you walk down the aisle — that is, unless you’re in such a rush to get to church one Sunday that you put on stockings but forget to follow up by putting on pants.

Life in fastened-to-her lane 

Every woman I’ve ever had a relationship with has freaked over my friendships with other women. Even a relationship with someone I really loved ended because she couldn’t stand my talking to and occasionally meeting up with female friends. There’s nothing romantic going on with any of these friends, nor do I have any interest in anything ever happening, but explaining that is always hopeless. 

— Maligned

“Love is all you need,” lied the Beatles. Sure, it might start out seeming that way. You meet that special someone, butterflies whirl, Disney woodland animals break into song, and you fall into bed and see no one but each other for three to six months. Eventually, however, you start to long for contact with other humans — not because your scruples are on the blink but because you’ve heard all of each other’s most hilarious stories at least twice. 

Most couples keep sexytime activities on the restricted list, but there will be many other interests you share with friends and not each other. Hanging with these friends doesn’t threaten your relationship; it enhances it, making you more interesting to each other because you aren’t each other’s sole mental, social, and emotional watering hole. It takes a secure woman to understand this — one who needs you because she loves you and not because she skipped over building a self and is using you to cover up the empty slot. A secure woman accepts that there’s always a risk you’ll leave her but understands that the best way to guarantee you will is to make you feel bonded to her — like a fly writhing out its last remaining hours on a strip of flypaper.

Curb feelings 

Does approaching a woman on the street and asking her out ever work? 

— On The Prowl

Sites with dating tips for men encourage them to approach women on the street: “Just walk up and say hello! All you have to do is be confident!”

That second part is very good advice, because then you’ll look less like you’re dying inside when the woman treats you like you just walked up and said, “Hi, my name is Rapist!” 

Instead, use what social scientists call the “foot-in-the-door technique.” Various studies show that when you get a person to agree to a trivial first request (like signing a petition), they’re more likely to say yes to a more substantial request that follows (like donating money to the cause).

In France, psychologist Nicolas Gueguen sent three men, ages 19-21, out on the street to approach 360 women, about the same age, and ask them out for a drink. When the men asked straight-out for a date, only 3.3 percent of the women said yes. When they first asked women for a light (for a cigarette) or directions and then the drink, 15 percent and 15.8 percent, respectively, agreed to go for a drink.

Researchers are unsure why this works, but it seems that preoccupying a woman with helping you at least gives you a shot at distracting her from the directions you really want: “Could you tell me the best route into your pants?”

When horndog met Sally

A male friend just tried to booty call me (texting after midnight that he was horny). I’m angry and revolted. I’ve known he’s liked me, thanks to his constant icky comments all over my Facebook photos, even while I was in a serious relationship. I deleted most, thinking he’d get the hint, and after my relationship ended, I hinted further by posting about how in love I still was with my ex. Yet, when I’d call this guy about volunteering we both do, he’d say things like, “I was hoping you wanted a date.” He scheduled a meeting, presumably with other volunteers, but I found myself across a restaurant table from him, alone. My body language conveys my distaste for any involvement with him — crossed arms, jutting chin, etc. I’m upset that he’s never cared that I’m not interested, and I’m ready to end our friendship. Unfortunately, we share work and social circles, so any tension would be noticed right away. Am I being rash?

— Disrespected

The guy’s style of romancing is right out of “Sleeping Beauty”: “Hi…oh, sorry…you sound tired…anyway, I was wondering, would it be okay if I stopped over and we had sex?”

And how rude that he has yet to accept how uninterested in him you are when you’ve not only left numerous obtuse hints about it on Facebook but used body language to make it perfectly clear. I mean, why would a woman ever cross her arms but to say, “I’m days away from filing a restraining order against you”?

And regarding how physically revolting you find him, your chin must have told him so at least six times. 

The truth is, men are predisposed to not get it, thanks to what evolutionary psychologist Dr. David Buss, in “The Evolution of Desire,” calls “cognitive biases in sexual mind reading.” This maybe calls to mind a confused psychic in a sex den but actually describes men’s evolved predisposition to make the least costly mating error  — which would be overestimating women’s interest (from ambiguous signals like a smile or friendliness) rather than underestimating it. 

Overestimating it might lead to some embarrassment; underestimating it could mean that generations upon generations of a man’s potential descendants meet their end in an old sock (or whatever men used before there were socks).

Women tend to think kindness and bluntness are mutually exclusive. They’re not. 

The kindest thing you could’ve done — and the least socially awkward — would’ve been telling this guy, clearly and firmly, from the start, that the tone and quantity of his Facebook comments were a problem. 

Then, if inappropriate remarks and behavior kept flying, you’d tell him explicitly: “Friendship. Period.” Tell him so now — in the least embarrassing way, in writing. Explain that the text made you feel really upset and disrespected, and add, “I’m going to forget this happened (and hope you will, too).”

To stop feeling angry, remind yourself that he most likely didn’t get the message because it wasn’t sent in a way he could understand — which kept him marching clueless doofus-style toward that ever-so-charming “Can’t a friend drop by at midnight for a quickie?”

The gift that keeps on giving you the creeps

For my birthday, my 26-year-old girlfriend (of five weeks) gave me an “Alice In Wonderland” decorative plate. I’m a 33-year-old man, and I couldn’t fathom why she thought I’d like it. I simply did NOT want to display that thing but knew she’d expect to see it whenever she came over. Feeling trapped, I gently confessed that it was more her taste than mine and suggested we keep it at her place. She immediately broke up with me. What happened here? 

— Sad But Unrepentant

A gift for a romantic partner is a way to tell them, “I get who you are.”

Apparently, you’re a 78-year-old lady with room in your curio cabinet next to your hatpin collection. Nothing against white rabbits with pocket watches and hookah-smoking caterpillars, but what woman buys this for any man who does not moonlight as a gay British country decorator with a love of whimsy?

She may just be wildly clueless, but giving somebody an aggressively wrong gift can be an aggressive act. (Was this some twisted test —- maybe to see how moldable you are?) Whatever her reason, this didn’t need to end with the Queen of Hearts yelling, “Off with his head!” (although you’re probably ultimately lucky it did).

Gifting gone wrong, like other relationship misfires, is an opportunity to get a better sense of who your partner is and what) is right for them.

And an emotionally balanced woman could see it that way — bad as she might feel that she’s gotten you a gift that begs for you to reciprocate on her birthday with a Tiffany’s box containing a Peyton Manning bobblehead. 

Her suction cup runneth over 

My girlfriend of two years is the bomb but is becoming a little needy. We live together and both have office jobs, and I’m cool not talking to her until I get home, but she’ll text me several times a day. If I don’t respond, she texts me a sad face or some statement about how busy I must be. If I’m hanging with friends in the evening, she gets upset if I don’t call her at least once. I really love her but feel indulging her need for more contact will only cause her to be more demanding.

— Tugged On

Affection is not a gateway drug. Texting your girlfriend a few extra “luv u babe”s or “thinkn of u”s during the workweek isn’t the first step to carrying her everywhere with you in a giant BabyBjorn.

 It might even help her stop treating that device in your pocket like an “Angry Birds”-enabled wireless leash. Consider “the dependency paradox,” researcher Dr. Brooke C. Feeney’s finding that, in a committed relationship, the more a person felt they could count on their partner to be responsive to their calls for comforting and support, the more autonomous and self-sufficient the person would be.

Ask your girlfriend to try a monthlong experiment in managing your mismatched need for closeness: You’ll commit to giving her more frequent verbal reassurance that you love her and are there for her and to dashing off a few sweet texts to her at slow points during your workday. She, in turn, needs to respect some boundaries, meaning not going all funeralface when you don’t respond to every workday text and not expecting to hear from you when you’re out with your friends unless you end the evening in a ditch or in jail. After 30 days, take stock. I’m guessing you’ll find your girlfriend feeling -- and acting -- much less like the sort of woman who’s about two unreturned texts from sobbing to a packed restaurant, “He’s decided to take a break from the relationship!” (Translation: “He’s in the men’s room.”)

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