You kind of fucked up telling her you didn't mind if she wanted to kiss another boy. She may well have interpreted that as meaning that you want your relationship to be more open and that you'd like to experiment with women that aren't her. More likely she thinks that you just don't really care how she behaves with other men because you have no real emotional investment in her. 99% of people don't suggest being more sexually open to their partners after considering the nature of freedom. She's not overeating by not interrupting your offer as she did, not too much at least.

What you say about feeling yourself and being free is important, but for most people, and women especially, this means choosing to be with someone you're compatible with: Someone that doesn't suffocate you or you feel you have to act in any way but naturally around. You voluntarily want to spend the rest of your life, for the time being, with that person.


What to say to her depends on her herself. You know her best, if you think she'll understand the truth when she's calm go for the truth. There's no harm modifying the truth a little if you think your actual motivations will go over her head, something like:

'I don't know, I thought it was what you wanted for some reason and I didn't really want to loose you or have you feel uncomfortable over something so small.'

Would work fine and isn't a lie. Actually writing up to here I just though, did you just blurt this out like an autist? Please tell me this arose naturally in conversation. Well anyway, actions speak louder than words, if you want to make this go away quickly perform a gesture that shows her how much you care about her and where her affection is directed.

By the way, I'm curious, would it really not bother you if your girlfriend went and kissed another guy? I'd hate that. Update me something happens brah; I wanna see how this pans out.

If I were on the receiving end of what you told your girlfriend, my thought process would be "well, he's OK with me kissing other people. That must mean he is OK with kissing other people himself. He didn't discuss with me whether I was comfortable with that kind of openness in a relationship, he just told me, like it was all his decision. Is he out flirting and making out with other girls? Does he think it's no big deal?"

Pretty disrespectful to assume that you are the one who controls the whole dynamic. What you are doing is unilaterally setting the groundrules of the relationship. Instead of talking to her about what is or is not OK in the relationship, you are telling her what is or is not OK in the relationship. A relationship is a partnership, you don't get to decide whether it's OK to kiss other people, you and her decide together what both of you are comfortable with, what the rules and boundaries of the relationship are.

I understand that you were just stating your perspective, being clear about your realism regarding feelings of attraction, and being clear about your lack of jealousy. But you should have approached this way differently. You set it up like it was your decision to make regarding where the boundaries of appropriate behavior are in the relationship. But that's not your singular decision. That is the decision of the two of you together.

What the hell is your logic here?

Your girlfriend has a male friend about whom you have absolutely nothing to say other than that he's of no consequence.

As such, you decide to tell her that if and when she meets someone that isn't so uninteresting as this one, she should feel free to go flirt with him if she likes.

Further, you say, she's free to get a little interested in someone else, even to kiss them if she likes, yet you'll rule out her getting involved with anyone outside of the confines of your relationship physically.

Let me clarify: "Hey, if you meet someone cool who isn't me, you're totally good to go make out with them whenever."

How does that follow? And what's the point of telling her that apropos of nothing whatsoever?

Now why the hell would you follow up that bit, which you state,

> she misunderstood

and now she

> probably thinks that I don't care about her
and that you are hopefully intelligent enough to have considered its potential emotional impact before saying it, with a further explanation that:

- you're telling her this because we're all ultimately going to be alone; and
- that nobody should feel like they're being "contained,"

which you could also safely assume could and perhaps would be parsed as another implication of generic disinterest?

You did do the math beforehand, right?

So reduce that load of drivel down to something concise and correct and precise and accurate, something like, "Hey, listen. Here's what I meant to say: I don't want you to feel like you can't be socially friendly with people because of our relationship. I don't want you to go run off and kiss other people, just for you to know that if you kiss someone else some time, I won't be angry at you, and I would like it if you didn't hide it from me. Being able to be ourselves is important to me, and I don't want you to ever feel like you have to ignore who you are just on my account."

Feel free to load up a few compliments here, about how much you care about her and some filler about how important you think it is that communication be open in a relationship. It needs to be genuine, though, and not rambling about free souls and how alone we all are. Say what you mean to say, don't dance around it and try to make grand metaphors. This isn't literature class, this is a person you ostensibly care about. If you care, you will figure out how to tell her what you mean. If you can't, maybe you don't care after all, and have subconsciously phrased your attempt at communication as an attempt to sever a relationship preemptively—because you know damn well that you made it sound a hell of a lot like such an attempt.

Both boys and girls unconsciously ask themselves things along the lines of:


Am I good enough?
Will he like me?
Will she want me?
Do my feelings matter?
Am I safe?
Will I be attacked?
Will I be hurt?
Will I be laughed at or humiliated?
Is it safe to ask?

She may feel the first couple on the list are jeapordised while you're making her secure with the last couple on the list. You gotta work within HER construct of the relationship rather than your own if you want to win her over and ideally she will do the same.

There are billions of people out there, and within each person there are conceptions entailing a world with billions of people out there, and within those....