One of my FWBs was an issue because he basically wanted a girlfriend, except when he didn't. He would call to talk about his day, pay for dinner, make me breakfast, cuddle, etc. But then when he felt like having sex with someone else, he did and fell back on the "we're just friends with benefits". I was confused because I thought he wanted our relationship to change with all of the boyfriend behavior, while he thought that we had a defined FWB relationship so he could do what he wanted.
This! I've seen this a lot. Even worse, I've seen the dude get mad when she said she had a date!
Most of mine have been friends that occasionally I'd want to get horizontal with someone and liked and trusted them just fine, so I did. Only once has that ever become an S.O. and then we got married.
Maybe I'm just cynical, but it seems like the kind of understanding that works in theory, but in practice odds are one side or the other will change to (or entered with unvoiced) expectations of a monogamous relationship.
For me anyway, FWB requires a good hunk of honesty, 'cause by nature it is a bit fraught. If I'm the person you're cheating with and I don't know that this is Un Cool.
And, yeah, expectations can change and you need to be honest about that too.
Maybe I'm just cynical, but it seems like the kind of understanding that works in theory, but in practice odds are one side or the other will change to (or entered with unvoiced) expectations of a monogamous relationship.
That much is true. I think they're very much a point in time kind of thing. That time can be a night or a year, or longer concievably, especially if you don't actually see each other often. But I suspect as soon as you start to consider the timeline you're on the downslope.
Cheating is a whole 'nother thing. Right now I can't be rational about it because I have a couple of friends who are in a messy situation and it didn't have to be like this if the dude had just talked to his wife about what I'd think are perfectly normal feelings about surviving cancer twice.
Oh! I did have a ...well, less FWB and more fuckbuddy once. Cause, we really weren't friends, much. :). But part of the beauty was that (a) I was leaving town in a couple months and (b) she was a very young wanna be playa. So she was looking for the ...experience, and I was looking for the ...experience. Ahem. But we both had no plans for it to go longer, and both had other things going on. It did end rather badly, in the end, but that was because she was a moron who tried to have her cake and eat it too, and realized altogether too late that it doesn't work that way, and it was easier to make me be the one screwed over (and, because young immature moron, slightly shadily lied to).
I don't see how someone is a jackass because their agreed-upon, out in the open expectations of a non-romantic relationship conflict with the unvoiced expectations of the other party.
You're right, Matt, but the sitch is more complex than I made it sound. Because I didn't think everyone was really interested in my BFF's love life. Although it seems to have sparked a discussion.
because he basically wanted a girlfriend, except when he didn't. He would call to talk about his day, pay for dinner, make me breakfast, cuddle, etc. But then when he felt like having sex with someone else, he did
Vortex pretty much summed it up. J. acts like he wants G. to be his girlfriend and do girlfriend things (which she does), but he says he doesn't want to be her boyfriend, even though he acts like a boyfriend, doing all the boyfriend things, as well as, he doesn't sleep with anyone else but G. until he suddenly decides "ooh! I want HER!" and goes off to sleep exclusively with the other girl. He's done this thrice now. And, he continues to act like G.'s boyfriend even while dating the other girl (and reportedly telling the other girl how much better G. is in bed) (jackass). Then he gets tired of the other girl and comes bouncing back to G., who's starting to feel like she's his back-up fuck, to make sure he never has a dry spell. And that is why he is a jackass, not because he stopped the B part of the F.
Even worse, I've seen the dude get mad when she said she had a date!
Exactly.
My sistah in the weeds. It's dry and dusty out here.
achoo. I'm starting to forget what a love life is like. Except for the misery. Haven't forgot that part.
Joe Niekro, one of the best knuckleball pitchers of all time (though not as good as his brother Phil) taught a young neighbor how to throw the knuckler before he died.
That is awesome. (And I'm still annoyed about the time when I was in eleventh grade and we had to write a paper explaining the physics behind some everyday thing, and I wrote a great paper explaining how curve balls and knuckle balls work, and the teacher took points off for each place that I wrote "knuckle ball," because he said it should be hyphenated.)
