I Had Sex With a New, Older Man. Then I Saw Something Online That Stopped Me in My Tracks.

How to Do It Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by John David Escobar/Getty Images Plus. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Jessica and Rich here. It’s anonymous! Dear How to Do It, Something awful happened, and I don’t know how to explain it to a friend. I’m active on the sex club scene. Last weekend, I was at one of the clubs I frequent and hooked up with a nice, older man. The trouble is that I just learned he’s the dad of a new friend! I realized it when I saw a picture of her at a family gathering on her social media. Her parents are divorced, so at least there’s no cheating involved, but to say this is awkward is an understatement. I’m not sure if I would ever have an occasion where I’d meet her dad officially, but how should I handle this? —Daddy Issues Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don‘t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication. Rich Juzwiak: I think if it’s awkward as it is right now, it could only get more awkward as the information spreads. So if you want to keep this at minimum levels of awkwardness, don’t say anything. Jessica Stoya: I can imagine off the top of my head about eight different kinds of reasons that this might feel awkward to various imaginary folks. So I think it’s useful for the writer to look a little deeper. Why is it awful for you? What is awkward about it for you? And then that can help them figure out what to do next. Because the question is not just: How do I handle this if I meet her dad socially? It’s: Does the writer go back to that club ever again? If they see this man at a different club, do they bail and run and cross that one off the list as well? I’m also wondering: Is the writer interested in dating the new friend? If so, then maybe you do have to bring that up at some point. Rich: That’s a good point. Otherwise, these worlds can be very siloed even if we’re talking about hookups outside of the sex club scene. I can relate to meeting someone in one context, and then running into them again in another context where maybe it’s less appropriate to be open about the fact that you’ve hooked up with this person before. In my case, it’s a gay thing, and everybody knows that everybody’s fucking… But some dinner parties are more genteel than others. So there might be that kind of living with that layer of knowledge that you then put to the back and say, “OK. We’re going to relate to each other in this context differently.” But I feel like that’s all doable. Jessica: It usually is. People vary, right? I had a hunch that you were going to bring up the very relaxed nature toward this kind of stuff in the gay male world. Regarding parent and adult child relationships, I know people who don’t know the gory details. They might know that their parents were polyamorous, or swingers, and they wouldn’t be phased by this. It would be funny for a lot of them. So I also suspect that this letter was dashed off five minutes after seeing the picture on social media. Maybe they’ve had time to come to these answers already. But why does it feel like an awful thing that happened? And then you also have to check those against assumptions they’ve made about the new friend, and the dad, and what might be awkward for them. Rich: Exactly. I think it’s probably decent practice at the very least, if this writer considers themselves active on the sex club scene. If you’re going to continue to be that way, it’s only a matter of time before you cross paths with someone. If you’re doing it in the town that you live in, even if it’s a giant town like New York, eventually, you’re going to see a friend of a friend, or your dentist, or something like that. I hear stories like that all the time. Jessica: You go from Philadelphia to Florida to a party, and you’re like, “Oh, good to see you.” People fly in. Rich: Yes, so get to the root cause of this and work it out now. Nobody’s going to die. This is, yes, maybe a little bit awkward, and it feels kind of like you’re falling when you’re in the situation, but you’ll survive it, you’ll get through it, and then it’ll be really good practice for next time, inevitably, if something like this happens again. Jessica: Or it might inform certain choices, presuming they’re in a city where there are lots of different options for sex clubs to go to. Maybe they decide I’m only going to attend parties that have an upper age limit of 34. If they’re like, I can handle seeing my dentist or someone I know, but I can’t handle seeing my friend’s parents, then that’s a great reason to choose the ones that focus on young people as far as attendees. But it all comes from exactly what is so bothersome. Then they can maneuver to avoid recurrence because otherwise it will recur. Rich: Absolutely. So basically our advice is to do some internal work. If the real concern is that this is so awkward, and I feel like I’m going to jump out of my skin as a result of this, spreading that information and making it a thing will only make it more awkward if that’s your concern. Jessica: I know these are sort of extremely cartoonish hypotheticals, but if the new friend had already mentioned in passing, “I would be so mortified to ever think of either of my parents as sexual creatures,” then do not say a word ever. Rich: Right. You don’t want to mortify your friend. It’s almost like a triage situation. You’re freaked out. You can contain that. Don’t let everybody else get freaked out because then it could be chaos. Jessica: Also, I’m a little concerned that they might potentially bail on the new friend because they’re so mortified on the part of other people, and that’s why I suggest sussing that out a bit better. Because it could be that this is a hilarious anecdote to them and nothing more. More Advice From Slate I have a rather uncomfortable situation that developed a few weeks ago. I was outside early one morning with my dog in my own backyard. It was well before sunlight and about 3:45 a.m. to 4 a.m. The dog is older and often wanders around the yard aimlessly while I sit on our back patio, which is surrounded by a fence… Never miss new Slate Advice columns Get the latest from Prudie and our columnists in your inbox each weekday, plus special bonus letters on Saturdays. Advice Sex