
DEAR KEN & ARIEL: I think my girlfriend may be cheating on me. We've been dating for a couple of months, and the sex was great, but then it came to a screeching halt for about three weeks. She had excuses: stress, sour stomach, etc. She tells me that she's tired of hearing about it and when we do have sex, she turns her head when I try to kiss her. The last couple weekends there were stretches of eight to ten hours when I didn't hear from her and her cell phone was shut off. She had excuses for all of this though. On top of that, she has two male friends in her life who buy her things, loan her a vehicle when hers is broke down, give her gifts, flowers and stuff like that. What do you think?
KEN SAYS: You think she may be cheating on you? Dude, that's like Jackie Kennedy turning to the driver of JFK's motorcade car and saying, "I think something might be wrong with the President." Or looking at Shaquille O'Neal and surmising that, yeah, this guy could probably handle the large fries.
But I digress. Let me use an example from my own sordid past to illustrate. Because, like most strapping young men, I think about sex pretty much every waking moment of the day, I sometimes find myself projecting my obsessions on to the women I date. Whenever they're out of my sight, I assume that they're in some other dude's apartment, modeling their fishnets, pouting suggestively as they loosen a few blouse buttons, and explaining how much better life has been since they switched to crotchless undergarments, etc. Likewise, whenever they'd give me a "not in the mood" story, my mind would start buzzing with outlandish scenarios involving Johnny Depp, a football team, twenty gallons of tequila and a fully-loaded caulking gun.
Yet, as real as these things seemed to me [particularly the whole caulking gun thing], they were, quite simply, figments of my own ribald imagination. I never once thought to ask these women what was really bringing them down, be it my attitude, my taste in clothing, or just an overwhelming desire to be fucking someone who wasn't me. That said, don't let the ladies fool ya... they love screwing as much as we do. Possibly more, as they're equipped to go for hours whereas guys are... well, orgasms are like turkey on Thanksgiving. They release that chemical that pats us on the back and says, "Good one, Tiger. Now, let's have a nap!" If she's not fucking you, there's a good chance it's because she's getting her skirts martinized somewhere else. Just pray god it's not someone named "Doug." Nobody wants to lose a girl to a guy named Doug. Jesus.
As a paranoid fellow by trade, I think you have ample reason to be concerned. A real red flag is the "turning her head when you try to kiss her" thing, a move that traditionally stands as shorthand for a knee to the balls. But before you start paying guys named Clive and Rocco to trail your girl around town, ask her straight up what the deal is. You may not like what she has to say, but it will spare you the de humanizing, pluck-each-hair-out-of-your-nutsack torment that traditionally accompanies suspicion.
ARIEL SAYS: I ain't no fortune teller and I ain't no mind reader (although I do have the uncanny ability of detecting free samples at the supermarket within 6 seconds) but somethin' fishy is goin' on. I presume you're both young, horny, consenting adults with no history of sexual dysfunction. That means you should be bonking like rabbits, five times a day, for the first three months. Then, after the "honeymoon period" is over, you're still attracted to each other but would rather watch reruns of Major Dad than screw, at least on week nights. You've only been dating "a couple of months," so the energizer bunny thang should still be going strong. Now I'm not saying you need to freak out on her, but y'all need to sit down and find out what the hell is going on. Be gentle, be sensitive, ask her what's on her mind and tell her you just want to make her happy, in EVERY way. Explain in a soothing voice how orgasms can actually stimulate the release of serotonin, a friggin' awesome chemical that can help reduce stress and possibly stop global warming. Turn on Al Green. Turn off Grand Theft Auto. If that fails, she won't tell you what's going on, she keeps turning off her cell phone, then it's time to do your own disappearing act.