Okay so you had a one night stand. We’ve all been there before. In the grand scheme of things, it’s no biggie. Or maybe you went on a few dates with someone and you sealed the deal. But now you have a million and one questions running through your head.

Did I sleep with him too soon?

Will he call me back?

Will this turn into something more?

Is he my future boyfriend?

Could he be the one?

But worst of all...does he still respect me?

This question could dominate your mind for days after the sex. It could literally drive you crazy wondering what the guy thinks of your relationship now that you’ve slept together. You may check out male YouTube love life experts like Mat Boggs and Matthew Hussey to try to get a man’s opinion on your third date sex dilemma. But they will tell you the same thing I’m about to tell you: you’re asking the wrong questions.

If you are asking whether a guy still respects you after sex, I would submit that you were not completely sure about whether you wanted to have sex in the first place. The question should not be “does he respect me?” but rather, “did/do I respect myself?”

Once you reverse the wording of that initial question, the other buzzing and distracting questions fade away. Because if the answer to the question about your self-respect is “yes, I did respect myself and I still do, even after the sex,” then your concern is no longer about whether a guy thinks you gave it up too easily.

Your self-respect should not be dependent on how a guy views you post sex. If you have the self-respect, esteem, and confidence to express your sexuality and it is apparent before, during, and after the sex, there is no reason to doubt your self-worth the day after sex. If it was “too soon” (there’s no such thing, you’re ready when you’re ready) then he would not have had sex with you.

But if you truly feel that it was too soon, then next time, before you get caught up in the heat of the moment, you need to have a conversation with yourself about what it takes for you to be ready to have sex with someone and feel comfortable with it so that your self-respect is not diminished.

Whether you choose to have sex on the first date or you’re holding out until marriage, the timing does not matter. What matters is not when a guy loses respect for you, but when you lose respect for yourself. When you don’t get a call the next day from a guy you just slept with, it’s not necessarily because he already got it in and that’s all he was after. Guys can pick up on whether or not you feel comfortable with your decision to have sex. Guys are more intuitive about sex than we give them credit for. If you are not the type of girl who is comfortable with second date sex, guess what, he can tell.

So if you do have sex with him on the second date, the reason he’s probably not texting you for a third date is that you lowered your standards for him and it shows. Men do not base their desire for long-term commitment with you by which date you had sex on, whether it was the first, the fourth or the 50th. A man wants to be with a self-respecting woman. That’s really all there is to it.

So if you respect yourself on the first night and you end up having sex, his respect for you is not automatically gone (unless he’s immature). There are plenty of stories of one night stands turning into relationships or even turning into marriages. There’s no mathematical equation that proves that the longer you wait to have sex, the more respect a man will have for you. Guys don’t view sex on a timeline the way women do. This imaginary timeline that’s keeping you up at night is just adding unnecessary stress to the situation. Let’s abolish this idea that respect is awarded to you by extending the length of time before you have sex for the first time.

If you are regretting your decision to have sex with a guy, chances are, you were not ready. If you felt pressured, then you were not with the right guy and he didn’t respect you, regardless of the sex. Gaining a guy’s respect begins with respecting yourself. Respect yourself, respect your body, everything else will fall into place.