Dear Cary,
I'm in my early 20s, a bisexual male, and so is my boyfriend of a couple of months. Things have been going pretty well with the guy -- I suppose we're still in the honeymoon phase, but I've been through enough to deal with that. There's just been one thing worrying me recently: He's gonna move into a new apartment with a friend of his pretty soon, this girl he's known for a couple of years now. The pre-furnished apartment's got just one bedroom they plan to share, which was irrelevant to the larger scheme of things until I found out that it's got only one bed -- that they both intend to sleep in. When I asked my boyfriend if he thought the idea was somewhat strange, he brushed away the issue (not meanly, though) by saying it's a large bed and the girl's friendzoned and generally implying continued fidelity.
We live in a pretty warm part of the world so the fact that there's an air conditioner in the bedroom is apparently a plus. I've known my boyfriend for years and I know he wouldn't cheat, but the matter still bugs me at a very deep level. If this was my girlfriend, there's no way in hell I'd be OK with her sharing a bed -- king-size or otherwise -- with a dude. Yet to make something like this an issue, so early on in the relationship, and the added factor of additional costs in modifying the already furnished apartment AND the air conditioner issue (it's really, really hot here) makes me feel like I'm overreacting. How do I deal with this?
Sleeping Alone
Dear Sleeping Alone,
First, before I offer you my advice, I want to introduce the word "friendzoned" to readers who may not yet have heard the word.
"Friendzoned!"
This word fills me with joy. I want to break a bottle of Champagne across its bow and wish it a long and happy voyage across the English language. Unlike some neologisms that elbow out better words without bringing anything superior to the language, this one crystallizes a phenomenon that has long deserved its own word. It also doesn't hurt that it sounds faintly Germanic.
Now, as to solving your problem: Let's list the possible negative outcomes.
Your boyfriend could fall in love with her and leave you. They could start a casual sexual relationship and keep it secret from you. They could have sex just once but keep it secret, creating a lingering secret between you and your boyfriend. Or they might have sex just once and tell you.
Now let's think about the best things that could happen. One best thing would be that the three of you become great and lasting friends. Another is that everything will go fine and nothing will happen. Another might be that you do some strategic rezoning and have a threesome.
If we look at the bad things and the good things, we see that the bad things involve keeping secrets and the good things involve communication.
So I suggest you tell your boyfriend that no matter what happens you just want him to be honest with you. Tell him you realize that even if they did happen to have sex on this bed your life would not end, it would just be something that happened, and you might feel jealous and hurt at first but you would handle it because you're an adult and you have the ability to put things in perspective. Tell him you just want to rest easy knowing that probably nothing will happen but if something did happen he would tell you.
And then get a good night's sleep, alone, in your own bed, which you are lucky to have all to yourself.
Shares