ASK ROSIE: All your relationship questions answered.

Welcome to ‘Ask Rosie’, the space on Mamamia where you can contact me with all of your love and relationship dilemmas (including but not limited to eyebrow crabs).

I’m 28 whole years of age, so I’m fairly certain I know everything and will be able to give you ridiculously useful advice.

Consider it my selfless Oprah-style gift to humanity. Cliche cliche etc etc sassy advice cliche. You’re welcome.

Let’s get into it:

Hi Rosie,

I recently (and very stupidly) was seeing a man that I work with. After a few *special* visits over several months, contact from him slowed. When he cancelled on plans for the fourth time in a row, I was fairly disappointed and hurt. I told him that it was pretty shitty, that he was stuffing me around and not to ask me out again unless he actually planned to turn up.

At first I felt empowered, but now I just feel a bit sad about it and I miss chatting to him. He barely looks at me at work. Any advice on how we can get back to being office friends at least? I feel like he wasn’t expecting to be pulled up on shitty behaviour. And I kind of miss slaying his peen.

Anon.

Oh Anon. Anon, Anon, Anon. I wish there was some way I could put this delicately for you. I wish I could take what I’m about to tell you and wrap it in a pretty pink bow – just like I once did to a boyfriend’s penis. But no matter how I dress up what I’m about to tell you, you’re probably going to end up disturbed and disappointed – just like my boyfriend when I put the pretty pink bow on his penis.

Okay. Here we go:

He doesn’t like you.

Your office lover DOES NOT LIKE YOU. You need to let it go, my friend. If he was into you, he’d want to see you. If he was into you, he’d want to keep having sex with you. If he was into you, he wouldn’t have stopped talking to you.

And don’t give me this crap about just wanting to be his friend. If you miss slaying his peen, you are not looking for a friendship with this guy. You are looking for a Peenship. And, as sad as it is, this guy does not want a Peenship with you.

Now, it was great that you pulled him on his crap. If someone is treating you like shit, you should say something. But do want to know why you felt empowered at first and now you don’t?

BECAUSE YOU WERE BLUFFING. And he totally called your bluff.

If you really meant it when you told him not to contact you unless he was prepared to stop being a knobcloud, you would not have given it a second thought if you never heard from him again. But you’re sad now because you were secretly hoping that your ultimatum would scare him into shape.

You were secretly hoping that he would turn around and say: “You know what? I have been a total knobcloud, but you are worth keeping, and I won’t treat you badly anymore because I’m crazy in love with you and I want to do all the sex things to you and please be mine forever and ever and you don’t have to wax and I’ll do all the cooking.”

You can’t lie to me, Anon. You were bluffing, and the bluff didn’t work. And I get it! We’ve all been there. Once, when a guy I was in bed with said he wanted to ’69’ with me, put on my sexiest voice and said something along the lines of: “Let’s definitely do that sex thing you just said. I’m so great at all the sex things.”

I had no fucking clue what 69-ing was, but I was hoping against hope that I would just close my eyes, lunge forward, and fall into whatever it was I needed to fall into. I figured it must have something to do with something lasting for 69 seconds, so in the end I just put my hand on his penis and counted to 69 in my head.

Needless to say, my bluff was officially called.

And now yours has been as well. But you’ve also learned a valuable lesson, Anon: Don’t give someone an ultimatum unless you’re prepared to back it up. And don’t pretend like you know how to do an exotic sex thing before googling it.

I’m sorry if this advice has been harsh, Anon. But really, at the end of the day, you need to think of it like this:

You gave him two options. Stop treating you like crap, or stop seeing you altogether. He chose to stop seeing you altogether, which means he wasn’t prepared to stop treating you like crap.

And why would you want to be with someone who didn’t want to stop treating you like crap?

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Do you want Rosie’s brilliant advice on a love and/or relationship problem? Email her at rosie@mamamia.com.au and put ‘Ask Rosie’ in the subject line.

Want to read more of Rosie’s invaluable advice? Check out past ‘Ask Rosie’columns here:

On Peen Slaying and Furbies.

On how to get over 30 women #dirtystreetpie

On going after love and making out with dolls.

On unfriending parents on Facebook

On eyebrow crabs. (Don’t pretend like you don’t want to click on this one the most.)