Dear Dategirl,
My roommate and her partner have been dating for three years. We’ll call them Sara and Tom. One night after Tom worked 16 hours straight so that she could stay home and be lazy, he decided to have a few beers. He came home drunk around 3 a.m. For hours before that, I heard Sara storming around the house, furious that he was late. Tom arrived and they had loud sex, so naturally I assumed all was well.
A few days later, Sara informed me that the night she was so mad at him she’d scrubbed her vaginal area with his toothbrush while she was in the middle of an outbreak. He also performed oral on her. He now has a raging case of herpes, and she is elated. I’m pissed beyond belief.
I think Tom is a cool dude who deserves better. I packed up my shit and moved out a week later. So what is my moral obligation to Tom?
Grossed Out & Pissed Off
Have you ever read Cary Tennis’ advice column on Salon.com? For some reason, this question has me in a Cary Tennis state of mind. If I were him, I’d rhapsodize about moral dilemmas and muse on the many ways human beings can do each other wrong, and by the time I’d finished you’d have no clue what my answer was because you would’ve fallen asleep about one paragraph in. So I shall resist.
Here’s my answer in a nutshell: Sure, tell Tom if you want. But first know that he probably got the herp from going down on and then screwing her during an outbreak. Though it’s fucking disgusting that she rubbed his toothbrush all over her scabby crotch, the virus can only live outside the body for about an hour at most. So unless he brushed his teeth less than an hour after she did that, it’s unlikely that he caught it that way. Which absolves her psycho ass not even one bit.
Who knows if he knew she had the virus? If he did and still went there unprotected, well, that’s the chance you take. If he was too drunk to notice or take precautions, she’s even more of a pig than we’d thought.
I just finished reading your Oct. 15 column, “Cling Rap,” and felt compelled to write. I just completed my 10th season on a coed senior softball team. Perhaps because I was the team’s lone bachelor this year, I was targeted for attention by one very attractive, new, capable, dependable 50+ woman. While I had not made passes at any other female players in prior years, I found myself treated like a Hollywood star, though I’m not handsome and certainly not wealthy or glamorous. Could it be that single women are becoming the new romantic “seekers?” Needless to say I now have an exceptional new girlfriend. Of course with time this friendship may well falter. But this 78-year-old player will be in there “pitching” until the very end.
A Very Unconfirmed Bachelor
Like AVUB, I’ve been thinking about that 28-year-old guy who wrote me, desperately afraid he’ll never meet anyone. A lot of people commented that he was far too young to have such worries, but I understood him. I think I’ve felt that way since I was a teenager.
My dad was in his late 50s when my mom died. He dated a lot, but didn’t meet Ms. Right for six years—after starting a widow-and-widowers group at his church. Like AVUB, he was the only dude in the room, but hey, he made his own luck, and boy did he get lucky. My dad and his lovely bride just celebrated 10 years together, and I’m so happy he never gave up.
