Rules of Attraction

“OK, this is nice. Just don’t come any closer.”

This story is from Kendall, a 23-year-old assistant fashion buyer in NYC, as told to Raz.

Andrew and I were friends. And I thought I was fine with that. One night, we were talking and joking about past relationships, and I was honestly shocked how jealous I got when he told me he was going out with two women he’d met online later that week. I decided that after his dates, I would tell him that I wanted more.

The next Saturday night, I was out with some friends and he texted to see if we could meet up. When he did, the two of us took a walk. A little tipsy, I confessed that I wouldn’t mind being more than just friends. He asked if he could kiss me. I was blown away. We started kissing and I got pretty in to it. Suddenly, he was pushing me away.

“I don’t like it like that.” he said

“Like what?”

“You were kissing me hard, and I only like to be kissed soft,” he said.

Ok…

We started kissing again, but this time he had his hand in the middle of my chest, keeping me at a distance as we kissed

This was weird, but I was too excited that we’d turned this corner in our relationship to care. I told him that my feet hurt too badly to keep walking, but he was invited to come hang out at my place. He agreed, and we hopped in a cab.

Back at my apartment, he told me that he really wanted to take things slowly. That was fine by me, and I told him so.

“So if I called you tomorrow and asked you to come hang out with me in the park, and we were in the park, just hanging out, and I leaned over and kissed you, what would you do?” he asked.

Was he testing me? What was the right answer? I was so confused.

I somehow dodged the question, and we got back to kissing. He kept telling me how hot I was but still stopped the make out multiple times to make sure I was still OK going slowly. Now this was just getting annoying.

We moved things to the bed, but I was still making a concerted effort to not kiss him too hard. I straddled him, and he got upset. “Put your legs back over there,” he said. This was getting ridiculous.

When the awkward, slow kissing ended, we were still fully clothed and I was very confused. I was also exhausted, and he was too, so I told him he could stay. Just as I was drifting off, Andrew cupped my crotch with his hand. His hand was just chilling on my vagina, and, once again, I was confused.

“I like to sleep like this when I’m with women,” he explained in reaction to my what-the-fuck-do-you-think-you’re-doing glare. Was he for real? He doesn’t touch me below my shoulders all night and now he wants to snuggle with my vagina as he sleeps? I was too tired to put up a fight.

The craziest part is that after following all his stupid rules about how fast and hard we could kiss, where I could keep my legs, and his uncomfortable sleeping preferences, he didn’t even call me the next day—or over the next couple weeks. Sometimes, it’s definitely better to just stay friends.