Pearl Nash
Several months ago I met a charming and handsome guy through a mutual friend. We hit it off right from the start, and the physical attraction was blindingly clear to both of us.
I have a traditional streak, and I wanted to take things slow. If there was something there between us, I wanted to let it grow and see what became of it naturally, without introducing physical intimacy too soon.
We started spending more time together and really getting to know each other. I was starting to feel quite a connection, especially when we kissed.
Then it became more physical and we slept together. The sex was rather exquisite, I won’t lie. The next morning I was honestly feeling fairly OK with my decision to get intimate with him.
But what happened next has me second-guessing everything that happened between us.
Because he literally stopped texting me after we slept together.
I wish I was exaggerating, but sadly I’m not. Is this what dating has become in our day and age? An exciting chase followed by … nothing?
And now I’m in a position where I’ve faced down my worst demons, gender role stereotypes, and personal decision-making process in order to decide why this happened and what I can do about it.
“He stopped texting after we slept together” – 8 tips if this is you
1) Do not blame yourself
Following our night together and the ensuing cut-off of communications, I blamed myself.
I dug into my motivations, conversations and insecurities and found that I seemed to be completely to blame.
Why hadn’t I been more communicative with him that I was looking for a relationship?
Why had I accepted his vague compliments towards me that, in retrospect, were just standard player bullsh*t with a high-class veneer (he’s a professor, or he said he was).
Yes, he brought over a decent bottle of wine. But in the end he was just looking to cork me.
I felt like an idiot, an object, a loser.
I still do.
But looking back I’ve realized that blaming myself is exactly the wrong thing to be doing!
I didn’t play with someone’s feelings in order to get a roll in the hay, and I’d never do that.
2) Take a look at the morning after
Part of the reason that I blamed myself so much following our night together is because of what happened the morning after we slept together.
I woke up, put on coffee and turned on the news.
When he got out of bed about an hour later, we started chatting before he had to head to work.
I went in for a kiss and he kind of turned away as if his breath was bad or he was too much of a mess. I think a man looks sexy in the morning, myself, but I respected him on that.
However we soon got into a bit of a talk about his job and future plans. From there I hinted at looking for something more serious in a relationship and how my job plans were up in the air.
I think it freaked him out, looking back.
But frankly, a guy who’d be that easily scared off by me talking about my life after sleeping with me isn’t who I’m looking for anyway.
Still, it hurts.
3) Getting inside his head
My professor crush is a fascinating and genuine guy, or at least I thought he was.
A week after we slept together I was checking obituaries to see if I’d misjudged him and he was actually dead or something.
I realize that sounds a little dramatic, but the thing is that I really didn’t expect this type of juvenile behavior from a man in his early 40s who I’d met through a trusted friend.
At the same time, I didn’t want to pry around with my friends and for him to get word that I was insecurely asking around about him.
Fine, he’d made no commitments to me, and we were two consenting adults…
And there would be an inevitable endless list of potential reasons he hadn’t called or texted if I did break through to him. He’d been busy, I’m sure.
Why force it?
So instead I went about trying to get inside his head by asking my mutual friend what she knew about him discreetly.
I asked her to please keep it just between us.
4) He wasn’t dead
So it turns out he wasn’t dead. That’s a relief, in a way.
The problem was what I had thought at first. Mr. Professor was playing the field, and had been seeing another woman “off and on” for the same few months he’d been getting to know me.
My friend said that it seemed like he was fairly into her and she thought they were becoming quite serious (they’d posted an Instagram picture a few days after he slept with me).
Awesome…
I filled in the blanks, and it’s illustrative for the purposes of this article for us to look at.
My sleeping with him wasn’t what had made him shut off and discontinue contact with me, it was more like the straw that broke the camel’s back.
He’d already had someone else he was more into, and he was just stringing me along. Once he got a sample of the goods he doubled back to be with the woman he was already more into.
So what did that make me? A plaything?
5) Have some self-respect
I’ve had my share of self-esteem issues, but coming to the realization that this guy had treated me like a bite of dessert f*cking pissed me off.
I’m sure he has all sorts of fancy explanations and it’s “nothing personal” and all of that. Yes, I’ve heard that before.
But if this kind of thing is happening to you, then I urge you to please have some self-respect.
A man who does this could have all sorts of perfect explanations about why he did what he did, but when you take an honest look at his timing, you’ll usually find he was either two-timing you or worse.
I can’t act like I was cheated on. We weren’t even in a relationship.
But what hurts is that I had started developing feelings for this tweed bastard, and I felt the cockles of my heart warming up.
Then he used me and didn’t even text a simple explanation that he’d met someone else.
Frankly, he can go to hell.
6) Taking a look at the sex
As I said earlier, the sexual attraction was evident from the start with me and this academic fellow who ghosted me.
He had the kind of jawline that makes me swoon and greenish hazel eyes that made my brain shut off.
When we finally did have sex, I found it amazing. I think he found it average at best. He seemed to climax half-heartedly and immediately roll over and sleep.
But perhaps that was just my impression?
The thing with judging the quality of sex is that you only really have your side of the equation. You can judge your partner’s reactions, pleasurable exclamations, and “testimony,” but you can’t really be certain 100% how they felt.
That’s something that ultimately only they know.
This humbled me enormously to reflect on because I realized that my experience of stellar sex was just average sex for him. Thinking about this also brought to mind that old saying that it takes two to tango.
I would have liked to take this guy for a spin a lot more times and maybe even win his heart.
But the idea of having a lover or partner who wasn’t really into it also really turns me off. So be it.
7) How compatible were we, really?
The months leading up to us sleeping together were fun. We’d bonded over some shared interests and spent a few nice afternoons together.
He even made dinner for me one evening.
The sex happened like some kind of natural bubbling over of our attraction, and I now realize there was no real grounds for me to believe it meant anything more than a physical union.
Looking back, I’ve come to see our time together in a new light.
If you slept with a guy and he didn’t text you after that, I encourage you to ask yourself the following questions with full honesty as well.
- If you weren’t physically attracted to this guy, how much would you be in love with his personality?
- How well do you really know him? Where did he grow up and what’s his most unique interest?
- Did you ever fight? If not, how can you know what would have happened in a relationship when the honeymoon phase was over?
This is really just a start.
The truth is that many of us overestimate how compatible we are with someone in the early stages of getting to know them.
Our impressions of them become saturated in dopamine and positive feedback, and we make excuses for their annoying qualities, tics and shortcomings.
Looking back honestly may reveal to you that this guy was a lot less compatible long-term than you formerly thought.
8) What’s your situation?
I’ve spoken a lot in this article about my specific situation, disappointments and the issues that occurred as a result of my short-lived romance.
Now is the time to open up the floor and take a look at your situation.
Men cut off contact after sex for a number of reasons, and I would like to go through them in some detail in order to explain a bit more about the psychology behind it.
In my view, every person is motivated by certain core evolutionary and psychological factors.
Some of us may be more pure at heart or “integrated,” but we’re all ultimately subject to some shared fears, hopes, and desires.
With that in mind, here is a list of…
The top five reasons why men sex and split
1) He just wanted sex
The idea that all men just want sex is false. Many men, like many women, seek out fulfilling and long-term connections.
But that doesn’t mean all men do.
And sometimes a man really does just want sex.
Even if he found you stunning and the sex mindblowing, he’s not interested in staying in touch because he’s already out there on the town having more erotic adventures.
If he led you on for months like my guy then you have a right to be angry about this kind of offensive and objectifying behavior.
But let me warn you in advance that your anger won’t change the reality:
Some men are sex-obsessed bloodhounds, and you’ve got to watch out not to give them your heart.
Because even if you do they’ll only use it to get to an entirely different part of your anatomy for a short-term party.
2) He’s emotionally immature
“He stopped texting after we slept together” is the kind of thing you hate to hear.
It’s happened to other friends of mine, too. Come on…This is 2022 we are talking about here, and it’s no secret that dating has become a huge sh*tshow these days.
There’s not always some deep motivation for a guy who does this.
Sometimes he’s just very immature and stuck in a high school mindset where you “score” with a woman and then high five your misogynistic buddies behind the gym.
It’s ridiculous and kind of gross to think of sleeping someone with that mindset, but you’d be surprised at the kind of outwardly successful and mature men who still indulge in it.
They “get a piece” and then move on. They delete you from their contacts and forget you ever existed.
You were a few minutes of pleasure for them, and now you’re in the past.
It’s a Mcdonald’s mindset, and it has never been the way I think of sex or dating, but it’s unfortuantely quite common among emotionally immature men who aren’t ready for any kind of real relationship or connection.
3) He has intimacy issues
Intimacy issues sound like a fake thing that people make up so they can sleep with a lot of people.
But if you’ve ever seen the vacant look in the eyes of a lifelong playboy then you start to give it a little more credence.
Endless sex without meaning is kind of ridiculous if you think about it. I mean, it’s sad. So you put your body parts together with lots of people? And then what?
Oh, right, nothing… Just a see you later and a few unanswered calls.
Intimacy issues are real. And they’re sad.
For whatever roots going back to childhood or abusive and negligent situations, some men (and women) develop huge problems around committing.
They run as fast as they can when the first sign of anything serious comes up.
And it’s easy for you to become another casualty of that lifelong lonely battle they’re waging.
The best and most disturbing film I’ve seen about the issue of sexual addiction in men who can’t commit is the 2011 movie Shame.
Fair warning: this film is not for the faint of heart and is an extremely disturbing portrait of a sex addict trying to drown his problems in the arms of strangers.
4) He’s dating someone else
In my situation, this was exactly what was wrong.
I’m not saying my professor didn’t have other issues and motivations as well. And Lord knows what he’s up to now with his new lady.
But he was (and is) dating someone else.
He took me to bed in full knowledge that he had a real romance brewing with someone else.
That’s just plain sh*tty behavior.
And knowing that he did that kind of thing has, ironically, helped me kill off the remaining feelings of attraction I had for him after our time together.
5) He feels no connection with you
This ties into the first point about just wanting sex.
If he feels no connection with you then why is he having sex with you?
Well, usually because of one of the various reasons on this list.
If he wasn’t sure how he feels about you and the sex makes him sure he feels nothing for you, there’s an oceanfront property I’d love to sell you in Nevada.
Face it:
He was into the chase and the sex, and now he’s bailing even though he already knew he wasn’t that interested.
It’s awful, but it’s usually the truth!
Garbage belongs in the trash
I wish my handsome professor all the best of success.
If he calls or texts me again, I’m not picking up. Garbage belongs in the trash, and at this point, I only pity the new woman he ended up with for what he’ll likely do to her in the future.
When someone shows you who they are, believe them.
Dr. Normajean Cefarelli, Ph. D. is a psychotherapist, life coach, and Jin Shin Do practitioner.
Her words about the kind of men who cut off contact after sex without explaining why have comforted me because I know they are true.
“When there is an intimate encounter and then no follow-up communication afterward, it is deemed adolescent, disrespectful and unkind behavior,” says Dr. Cefarelli.
“This type of behavior is usually displayed by a person who is emotionally and psychologically unavailable.”
