Dear Rosemary,

In the past few months, I started dating a guy friend of mine who I had always known had a bit of a crush on me. I totally adore him: he’s smart, sweet and sensitive and amazing to spend time with. There’s just one big problem: he never wants to have sex. We’ve been dating for about 2 months and had sex maybe four times. I’m a pretty sexual gal, so I’ve tried talking to him about what the problem is, but he says he just doesn’t like to be touched all that much. He doesn’t like making out or massages, or hand-holding on the street. All in all, it doesn’t seem like much has changed from when we were just friends, except that I’m totally sexually frustrated. Can he really just not like to be touched, or is this a problem with us?

Sincerely,

Celibate

Dear Celibate,

Yikes! Firstly, I’m mentally stroking you right now (platonically, of course) because yes, kitten, there is a problem here. But don’t let newfound coupledom brainwash you into us; if this is a problem for you—as “total sexual frustration” usually is—then yes, you have a problem.

More bad news: This could be just about anything on the foreign male front. Best case scenario is he’s simply shy—though I doubt it, as you’re already friends and you’ve already hooked up (successfully, I assume). And on that note, a martini-warranting question here: so, uh, how was it? If painfully uncomfortable or over in a commercial break, then you may have jinxed your shagability for a while. If it’s not back soon, you must consider the ever-looming possibility that your status as ‘best friend’ has been elevated to ‘beard.’ Or maybe the transition from friends-to-more-than-friends isn’t as easy or exciting as he’d hope, and dude’s gone awkward as hell. Maybe he wants to go back to the good old days and, as so many men do, is waiting for you to do his dirty work (Like a band-aid, girlfriend, like a band-aid.) And there’s always the worst case of the psychobabbles: he could be a trendy Asexual (lucky!) and incapable of sexual attraction. He could suffer from the extremely rare Haphephobia, the fear of being touched, and that breathless, sweaty animal “sex” was more actually a full-blown anxiety attack.

My sincere sympathies in all the above bummer situations, but buck up and look at the facts: Both verbally and non, your boyfriend has clearly articulated that he doesn’t want to be touched by you. Whether he’s just shy or a complete headcase or your ladyparts disgust him, situation as it stands is you’re not sexually compatible. But not all’s lost; you can still talk about things and have amazing times while not holding hands. In fact, they have a name for that: just friends.

Rosemary