Does sleeping with him early really ruin the relationship?

Will sleeping with a man too early make him lose interest and run away? It’s an age-old debate with no concrete answer. I’ve been writing about relationships for ten years now and I still get this question constantly on my TikTok. I can’t even tell you how many emails or DMs I get from women freaking out that they slept with a man too early and now he’s acting a little weird and what if he’s gone forever?

The good news is that unless he’s a flirt who sleeps with women for fun, a man won’t lose interest just because you slept with him too soon. However, this topic isn’t that simple, so let me explain.

A close friend recently met a wonderful man on an online dating site. He was smart, successful, and looked a lot like Bradley Cooper. The beginning of her relationship was promising.

They exchanged a few flirty messages and he asked her out that Saturday night. They had a great time on the date, they continued to text each other and he asked her out the following Saturday early in the week. Another nice date with nice conversation and company (and passionate kissing) and he booked her again for the following Saturday night.

Before the date, she told me she wasn’t really sure about this guy. She thought he was great on paper, but she didn’t really feel like they had much to talk about; she just found him really sexy. She decided she was going to sleep with him after their third date, and I didn’t really give her any advice because she didn’t seem to want to have a real relationship with him anyway.

So they spent a passionate night together and continued to text each other in the days that followed, but something had changed…

My friend told me that she was waiting for him to ask her out on Saturday night because she had bought tickets for a cruise and thought it would be a fun date. He usually asked her out on Saturday nights by Wednesday at the latest, and when he still hadn’t asked her out by Thursday, she started to panic.

They were still in touch; he was still sending her messages full of sexual innuendos. But sometimes he wouldn’t send her a message or he would hang up when she asked him a question that wasn’t sexual.

Suddenly, their relationship went from a classy Saturday night date to impromptu 2 a.m. hookups. He never texted her before 11 p.m., and while he was sweet and adorable when they were hanging out, all he wanted to do was have fun (and sometimes order food and have fun).

I stayed silent as everything began to unravel. I have a rule of not giving relationship advice to my friends unless they explicitly ask for it (and most of the time, they won’t because they know I’ll tell them the truth and they’ll prefer to stay in denial!). Also, my friends sometimes get mad at me for not giving them the answers they want, so to keep the peace, I stay silent until things get dire.

And when they did, my friend finally called me and said, “I don’t understand. I really don’t understand.” Really like him. What did I do wrong?

I first pointed out that it didn’t really start, Really I loved him until he stopped acting that way towards her. But still, I told him point blank that she slept with him too soon. It was a pretty cut and dried affair, probably one of the easiest relationship questions to ask.

“What do you mean?” she replied. “I waited until the third date! Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?”

I tried to suppress my laughter at the absurdity of his statement. “Okay, well, tell me this. What did you really know about this guy? What did you know about him that you couldn’t find out from his online dating profile or his Facebook page?”

“Um… Well, he was showing me pictures of his nieces and nephews and talking about them!”

“That doesn’t matter. Anyone on Facebook could have seen the pictures, and I’m sure they’re telling their friends and colleagues about them. Do you know what his ultimate goals are? His fears? What makes him happy? What are his weaknesses?”

“Well no…”

And therein lies the problem. She slept with him before they had developed any real connection. They were still in the casual discovery phase of each other. He hadn’t shown any level of investment (I know going out with a guy three Saturday nights in a row can make him seem invested, but he’s not). They didn’t really know each other; all they knew were superficial details that anyone else could know.

When it comes to sleeping with a guy, the number of dates is an arbitrary measure of the state of your relationship. What matters is the quality of the time you spend together. A girl who sleeps with a guy on the first date after an evening of intense, meaningful conversation that fosters a connection is much more likely to have a lasting relationship than a girl who sleeps with a guy she hasn’t really connected with by the fifth date.

The guy my friend was dating was never really invested in her. Yes, he was attracted and somewhat interested, but once sex entered the mix, he lost the desire to take it further. Why should he take her on fun dates and wine and dine her when he can call her at 1am when he’s feeling horny and satisfy her needs? When sex comes before a real emotional connection has been made, it’s hard to go back.

The right time to sleep with a guy is when he has shown that he is invested in you. Period. (I assume you want a relationship with him. If you want a friend with benefits or a regular hookup, then sleep with him whenever you want – be careful!)

This doesn’t necessarily mean that he calls you his girlfriend or that he’s told you he loves you. It means that you’re both able to let go of your masks and be real when you’re together. It means that he shares things with you that he doesn’t share with other people in his life (and vice versa). It means that he cares about you and respects you as a person.

As women, we’ve always been told that we should make a man wait before having sex, as if it’s a bargaining chip to dangle in front of him to get what we want from him. I understand where this idea comes from, and there’s some truth to it, but it misses the point and leaves too much room for interpretation. Most women assume that the longer she waits to have sex with him, the more he’ll pursue her and the more invested he’ll be in the relationship. Maybe it works, but it usually doesn’t and the man will see right through you.

The problem isn’t how long you wait – a man who truly loves you won’t be mad at you if you sleep with him too soon. The problem is that men don’t value what they perceive as being easily and quickly available to all other men.

When you sleep with a man before you really know him, it’s easy for him to assume that any other man could have done it. When you sleep with him after you really get to know him, he thinks you slept with him because he’s amazing and you wouldn’t have given in so easily if it had been any other man. See the difference?

As for my friend, I tried to help her get back on track, but their relationship had fallen too far into the booty call zone and couldn’t be resurrected. She tried not to see him unless it was on a date (and he found ways to dodge that and was only free when he could come over for sex and was always too busy when she suggested an activity), she wouldn’t respond to his sextingand she tried to learn more about him, but nothing worked and eventually he disappeared into the abyss.