Real friends with benefits are a rarity

[Guest]

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[ladyasym]

I've had a couple FWB-type arrangements - it's definitely interesting. I'm curious to see how my current one goes, as it's the first one I've had where I'm aware of my Aro-ness, and can express that, and clearly outline my needs to my FWB. We're at the 'getting to know each other stage' but so far he's been really responsive and open to doing non-sexual things with me, which is great. 

 

In a previous FWB arrangement (years ago) we actually became decent friends, but to be fair, it was built on sex and was just ambiguous in general (because he had come out of a relationship and wanted to 'play the field' so didn't want to say/do anything that could be misinterpreted by me) and eventually we just stopped talking because I was feeling frustrated by the surface friendship and couldn't really express what I was thinking/feeling except in romantic attraction terms, which wasn't right for either of us and it was just way too much emotional investment for me at the time. It was fun though, and overall a good learning experience. 

 

I've never really felt slut-shamed, just a bit self conscious at times - and like I need to hide this aspect of my life from my family, because they can be a little judgey about casual sex. 

 

I would definitely agree that building a friendship that isn't centered around sex is difficult, and definitely requires someone to be very aware of what they want/need and open, honest conversation between both parties. But I think that it can be done, even with an alloro partner - it might just take a bit of time.

[James White]

@ladyasym Congratulations on your current arrangement!

 

I'd like to hear more about how that goes. 

[IceHurricane]

I had a fwb (legit, we hung out more than we had sex) for about a month before it turned into romance and I had to leave. He caught feelings and treated me like his girlfriend instead of a friend/sex partner. It was fun while it lasted. I miss him and it sucks we had to end things. 

[James White]

@IceHurricane The phrase "caught feelings" is awesome.

 

Those two words imply more than they say outright.

[IceHurricane]

I was listening to 'I Don't Wanna Be Your Friend' by Scotty McCreery and it got me thinking of this post.

 

 

Basically like, that's not what they're there for. They already have friends. They want you for other things.

 

This is mostly about heterosexual people and stereotypes. I guess it could also mix with the discussion of whether or not males and females can actually be friends. I know it's possible, gender has nothing to do with who you have as friends. But stereotypically, males and females have vastly different interests. I, personally, don't have any male friends. All my friends are females. I'd like to have male friends, but I find we're just too different. (I just haven't met the right guys, I know). I'm too stereotypically 'girly'. I've tried hanging out with guys my whole life. My brother, guys from school, male coworkers. But no one wanted a girl in the group. They already had friends. And the social pressure that's put on men who hang out with women can take a lot out of guys. Not wanting to be seen doing 'girly' things, having your other guy friends on your back about whether or not you're banging yet, and criticizing you if you're not. 

 

I guess my point is, it's stuff like this that makes it hard to find real friends with benefits. 

[Tagor]

On 12/9/2017 at 8:23 AM, IceHurricane said:

This is mostly about heterosexual people and stereotypes. I guess it could also mix with the discussion of whether or not males and females can actually be friends. I know it's possible, gender has nothing to do with who you have as friends. But stereotypically, males and females have vastly different interests. I, personally, don't have any male friends. All my friends are females. I'd like to have male friends, but I find we're just too different. (I just haven't met the right guys, I know). I'm too stereotypically 'girly'.

 

For me, it's the same from the other side. I'd like to be friends with some girls, but I'm interested in math, computers and physics which doesn't make it easy to find someone to really have a conversation with as I'm even worse at finding a topic everybodys interested in than at starting conversations (at which I'm pretty bad).

[NullVector]

14 hours ago, Tagor said:

For me, it's the same from the other side. I'd like to be friends with some girls, but I'm interested in math, computers and physics which doesn't make it easy to find someone to really have a conversation with

Yeah, same. Ideally I would:

1. make friends with girl(s) based upon shared interests
2. gently broach possibility of 'benefits' (lol)

In practice, I always end up with waaay more male friends as my interests are stereotypically 'male'. Did physics at uni and my course was 90%+ male. Now work with computers and my colleagues are 90%+ male. So I'm 'playing' with crappy odds - and that's without even factoring in all the problems around romantic assumptions ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[mycopup]

my current qpp & i were originally fwb's and there's still a p strong sexual component to our relationship. still, we talk every day for most of our shared waking hours and we def would still enjoy each others company if sex never came up at all. wrt the last few posts, the two of us actually dont have too many interests in common - they're a mathematics major, im literally dyscalculic; i spend all day watching beauty vids and working on illustrations, they use their free time to plan for their weekly DnD sessions or play video games - but we have a nice kind of... mutual interest in each other as people that keeps things from being boring or w/e. once they let me rant at them about different species of mushrooms for 6 hours - and the next day i listened to them talk about the evolutionary history of playable WoW races.
our arrangement is def not the norm for whats considered fwb-type situations at all, tho, which i think is super unfortunate because having a genuine platonic bond / love between us that yeah, includes sexuality, but neither of us are gonna try to make it romo is super great, tbqh.

[NullVector]

On 10/23/2018 at 5:38 AM, mycopup said:

wrt the last few posts, the two of us actually dont have too many interests in common

So, how did you get to know one another?

[StarSplit]

Yeah, I am in complete agreement with OP? The friendship is the part that endures - like sexual attraction almost never really persists forever, but why does that mean the relationship is falling apart? Why can't the friendship still stay even if the sexual component needs to stop for some reason? And I mean that's the way I see it. And I HAD a FWB that I thought was able to see it that way. And then romo brain drugs hit and suddenly, I mean the sex stopped and that had been previously discussed, but the rest of the friendship just...suddenly all the things we both thought mattered in the friendship didn't matter to them. And that just...it's really sucked. Because as soon as there was a romo relationship in the picture, nothing else mattered. And they both kept making me feel like I was overreacting and that I couldn't expect my friends to be as close now that they're in a relationship. And just. The whole situation is absolute shit. It was something that felt like it was going so well and the friendship felt so solid and then it just...suddenly nothing mattered.