Kinds & Degrees (of relationship)

[River]

To begin with, I seem to share some (certainly not all!) of the characteristics of the so-called "demisexual". https://www.bustle.com/articles/155...e-6-signs-that-you-may-identify-as-demisexual But I'm definitely not resonating with the part which goes "Demisexuality is just one of many shades on the scale of asexuality." I'm far from being asexual. And I do occasionally experience some level or kind of sexual *attraction* to people I've not formed a close ("emotional") relationship with.

The Bustle article linked above has the words " ... it's the difficulty in feeling sexual attraction to someone you're not friends with first." That's not my problem. What I have difficulty with is finding (or being found by) folks who are able and willing to connect in a way which involves both sexual / erotic energy and the sort of intimacy you'd share with a close friend -- so-called "emotional intimacy".

In other words, what seems mostly to be available in my neck of the woods are what are known as "hookups" ... and other variants on casual sex in which the term "casual" (and "no strings attached") mean simply that the parties involved will barely talk to one another at all, much less form an ongoing connection and friendship. This is especially true of gay and bi men here. As for my openness and interest in women, that hasn't ever gotten anywhere... I suspect mainly because I'm in a long term relationship with a man.

Things being as they are where I live, I've been willing to set my sights lower, opening myself up to the possibility of a FWB -- a Friend With Benefits. But my sense of the FWB category of relationship is that the term generally refers to a relationship without much feeling / connection / bond.... But -- like the demisexual -- my erotic experience (pleasure) depends very significantly on there being mutual feelings of affection, connection and bonding.

Is FWB an entirely wrong label and category for what I'm wanting and needing, then? Is there no shorthand term for what I'm wanting and needing -- and willing to explore? Or can the FWB term be stretched to include folks like me?

I don't need my lover and I to have a full blown "romance," for her or him to be my "boyfriend" or "girlfriend" as those terms are conventionally used. (I wish the conventions were looser and broader, but the whole point of them seems to be to make a very sturdy and strong distinction with a "hard line" dividing one category from the other.)

I suppose we might need a descriptive shorthand term for relationships of the sort I'm imagining(?). "Relationship light" sounds horrid!

I'm sure pretty much all I have said involves what may be called an "artifact" of a culture which has long demanded and expected monogamy, and which has enforced that paradigm quite forcefully and rigidly. Right?

 

[River]

Less wordy version

Less wordy version:

Do FWB's sometimes become real, intimate, close friends? Is warmth and affection strictly unwelcome within a FWB situation? What is the boundary of the term? And -- if so -- what distinguishes these from "boyfriend" and "girlfriend"?

 

[lunabunny]

Less wordy version:

Do FWB's sometimes become real, intimate, close friends? Is warmth and affection strictly unwelcome within a FWB situation? What is the boundary of the term? And -- if so -- what distinguishes these from "boyfriend" and "girlfriend"?

Being borderline demisexual myself, I have never had a FWB.

However, my current partners - Jester(M) and Boho(F) - used to be involved with each other before I was with either of them, and their relationship was very much the "close intimate friends with occasional sex thrown in". There was, and still is, a degree of love between them. This "love" I speak of is definitely of the filial/familial kind, not romantic (although Boho was once in romantic love with Jester). They are both monogamous with me, however they will very very occasionally "play" together if I am involved.

I've known other people who've maintained long-term, close FWB situations. My ex-husband's male best friend has an on-going friends with benefits relationship with HIS female best friend. They have sex when the mood strikes when they're not involved with other people (they're not "poly").

So yes, it IS possible to have what you seek.

It's my understand that what you describe is the essence of a FWB deal, although "FWB" seems to be on a kind of spectrum i.e. some people place greater or lesser importance on a deep emotional connection than others who tend to view these things in a more casual light.

 

[River]

It's my understand that what you describe is the essence of a FWB deal, although "FWB" seems to be on a kind of spectrum i.e. some people place greater or lesser importance on a deep emotional connection than others who tend to view these things in a more casual light.

Thanks Lunabunny.

I think I've had a few FWB situations when I was much younger, though I didn't call them that -- or think of them this way -- at the time. In every case there was some emotional connection and bonding, at least on my side.

It took me a while in life to fully get it that some folks can have sex without having ANY feelings for the person they are with. I still find this odd and almost unimaginable, but I know it's true. In fact, it's really extremely common!

I didn't need to spend a very long time with a person, back in the day, before being willing to get naked and 'naughty' with 'em. But I always had to have a basic level of trust, comfort, attraction ... and attraction for me has never been entirely about physical attributes. It always had to do with stuff you can't see in a photograph -- a person's invisible qualities. I had to actually LIKE them, and I'm still this way.

This is significant because most of my opportunities for getting naked and 'naughty' with another person (besides my very long term partner), these days, are with gay or bi men, and most of those who are 'available' in the naked and naughty way are decidedly not interested in forming a capital R Relationship. Many -- most -- aren't even interested in feelings at all -- except the kind they can feel between their legs. So most aren't even available for a FWB of the kind where the F part will be taken as important to me.

I can literally go years and never get naked and naughty with anyone other than my partner. And I really am of the Variety Is The Spice Of Life kind of guy. At least SOME variety works for me best. Too long between experiences of 'variety' and I start to lose something, and it isn't good....

Aside: Apparently, most bi men have just about zero 'romantic' type feelings toward men. They like being sexual with men, but don't have those kinds of feelings for them at all. ....

And just as I'm typing about that it occurs to me that what I mean by 'romantic' in this context may be quite different than what the reader here may assume. By 'romantic' I don't necessarily refer to feelings which center on the notion of forming a permanent bond, or a bond that may lead to cohabitation.... I guess I mean a certain quality of affection, without all the rest being implied. It's the kind of affection where you want to know and be known, where you want to see one another with some level of frequency, where kissing would almost certainly be included.... But it isn't (necessarily) the type of 'romantic' fablized by 20th century Hollywood and Halmark Cards. I think what I'm basically alluding to is eros! Eros includes something which isn't found in purely sexual relationships (of whatever duration). It includes a certain kind of feeling / emotional bond, which has traditionally been called "love". But this erotic love can manifest, and be real, in many more diverse ways than our culture's Story of Love allows for or recognizes, so we end up talking about it in places like this. Just to carve out a little space of meaning not dominated by Hollywood or Halmark Cards ... or the twentieth century.

 

[River]

It just occurred to me why the topic of FWBs is of such interest to me.

It's not just that I want or need a label -- for myself --, a bit of linguistic handle to grasp a thing with. No. It's that as I explore finding such a friend we're probably going to need such a label between us -- at least as a crucial starting place for discovering what each of us would like to have and would be capable of, and etc.

If it were bicycling, or gardening, or hiking, or swimming we were talking about it would not be so freaking ambiguous -- nor so complicated to talk about. Sigh.

 

[Tinwen]

Less wordy version:

Do FWB's sometimes become real, intimate, close friends? Is warmth and affection strictly unwelcome within a FWB situation? What is the boundary of the term? And -- if so -- what distinguishes these from "boyfriend" and "girlfriend"?

I've just had the other "problem" of trying to introduce intimacy into a long-term friendship. Actually the second try in two years. The first one went quite badly as the person tried to apply this 'no stringst attached, it's just fun' approach to intimacy even within the friendship, which led to a total breakdown to communication. With the other person I have the opposite problem of falling into love after just one encounter.
FWB seems not easy to me.

 

[River]

I've just had the other "problem" of trying to introduce intimacy into a long-term friendship. Actually the second try in two years. The first one went quite badly as the person tried to apply this 'no strings attached, it's just fun' approach to intimacy even within the friendship, which led to a total breakdown to communication.

Sorry that that happened to you.

Ultimately, I think, labels are far less important than the unique particular understandings and agreements which folks can discuss with one another in their fine grained particulars -- which will always exceed the parameters of a simple label. That said, labels can prove most useful. Even necessary at times.

Some here may read what I've written and simply conclude that what I'm wanting isn't a FWB but, rather, a "secondary" love partner. But the word "secondary" has always rubbed me the wrong way, 'cause it implies (at least) a value-ranking. And I don't want to rank my lovers at all. I simply want us all to have clarity about what we're doing together.

Also, I want my lover to be a Friend (the first letter in FWB), because the idea of having sex with someone who is not my friend just doesn't feel right / good.

But the word "friend" -- as a stand-alone word -- implies platonic.

But the term FWB is often used to mean, essentially, "NFA" -- or No Feelings Allowed.

And I already said I don't get turned on sexually / erotically if either of us is treating the other as a thing, an object, and not as a whole person, complete with feelings. Sex without affection, to me, is ... pointless and uninteresting. Sex is ... erotic, and eros is a kind of love.

It doesn't have to be an overwhelming, all demanding love.

With the other person I have the opposite problem of falling into love after just one encounter.
FWB seems not easy to me.

Does this love feel overwhelming or all-demanding? Is it really a problem? It may not be a problem at all!

 

[kdt26417]

How about, "CFWB?" Close Friends With Benefits. Or, "AFWB?" Affectionate Friends With Benefits.

Or, "Eros Friends?" Just kicking some ideas around.

 

[River]

How about, "CFWB?" Close Friends With Benefits. Or, "AFWB?" Affectionate Friends With Benefits.

Or, "Eros Friends?" Just kicking some ideas around.

Either of those work for me, Kdt. I like your direction here. After all, if one is to read the widely distributed "expert" explanations of the FWB situation, one quickly discerns the underlying terror of actually having (gasp!) feelings. The FWB situation, as broadly described and defined, is really NOTHING more than a "hookup" partner with whom one hooks up between capital R Relationships -- rather like a sophisticated sex toy made of biological cells instead of plastic and electronics.

I'm not half that scared of feelings. Feelings, in fact, are what make us human.

 

[Evie]

I deeply love all my FWBs, that's why they are both Fs and Bs!

Some started as flirtations then fuck buddies, but I do that long enough and regularly enough then loving friendship is the result.

I'm slower to call someone friend than I am to fuck them, generally.

Friends, true loving friends, are the people I know that will have my back, and it'll be like not a day has passed when I see them again after god knows how long. We can get all deep and meaningful on it without wanting to climb on the standard relationship escalator. But I love them all so very much.

 

[Tinwen]

Does this love feel overwhelming or all-demanding? Is it really a problem? It may not be a problem at all!

Well... I can see it becoming very overwhelming very quickly, as it has captured my fantasies quite a bit. I definitely tend towards riding the escalator with my romantic attachments. Still might not be a problem, but I'm unsure of it to say the very least. (Might be a problem from his side too.)

 

[River]

I deeply love all my FWBs, that's why they are both Fs and Bs!

Some started as flirtations then fuck buddies, but I do that long enough and regularly enough then loving friendship is the result.

I'm slower to call someone friend than I am to fuck them, generally.

Friends, true loving friends, are the people I know that will have my back, and it'll be like not a day has passed when I see them again after god knows how long. We can get all deep and meaningful on it without wanting to climb on the standard relationship escalator. But I love them all so very much.

Thanks Evie.

FWB is clearly a compound concept (it is comprised of multiple parts), and some of those parts are not included in some folks' version of the concept, or are rendered quite differently there. So FWB simply means very different things to some folks than to others. One has to be explicit about the details with one's prospective FWB, it seems.

Not "wanting to climb on the standard relationship escalator" seems to be a crucial part of most folk's definition of FWB. It's certainly true of my version! I simply want a friend who cares about me, whom I can care about and have real affection toward, who is also a sexual companion. I don't want to hold him or her at the great distance folks sometimes do with FWBs (in order to avoid those dreaded feelings). I want the feelings. I want him or her to feel toward me and me to feel toward him or her! Good grief, of course! But I already have a domestic partner whom I love. It's doubtful I'll have two in the future. Not impossible, but not some sort of escalator item I even want to think about while simply reaching out for a friend/lover. I don't want all of these escalator items to be waiting in the wings, even if the wings are invisible in the background. A relationship is not a plan. Or a script. It's an unfolding.


Wanderer, your footsteps
the road, and nothing more;
wanderer, we have no road,
we make the road by walking.
As you walk you make the road,
and to look back
is to see that never
can we pass this way again.

- Antonio Machado

 

[vinsanity0]

Less wordy version:

Do FWB's sometimes become real, intimate, close friends? Is warmth and affection strictly unwelcome within a FWB situation? What is the boundary of the term? And -- if so -- what distinguishes these from "boyfriend" and "girlfriend"?

The short answer is yes, at least in my book. I don't view FWB as unfeeling. It's a friend. Unfeeling would be a one night stand or a booty call without much other interaction.

I had a FWB I called "Elle". We often hung out as friends. Occasionally we would have sex.

I guess the boundary is you don't really talk about a romantic future. You're just friends who fuck. In monogamy you might start seeing someone else and have to stop screwing, but can still remain friends.

Shorter version: friends with benefits do not move up the relationship escalator.

I am also somewhat demisexual. I agree it has nothing to do with asexuality. I do develop feelings pretty easily though.

I view boyfriends and girlfriends as people in a committed relationship of some sort. FWB doesn't have that sort of commitment in my experience.

 

[River]

I view boyfriends and girlfriends as people in a committed relationship of some sort. FWB doesn't have that sort of commitment in my experience.

Thanks Vinsanity.

I don't want to ignore your other helpful comments, but would like to hone in on this one piece here, which I've quoted from you. The part about commitment.

Generally, folks never speak of platonic friendships as having to do with something called "commitment," right? That word, it seems to me, appears in talk about 'romantic' relationships, but not platonic friendships. But doesn't the concept pointed to by the word, commitment, pertain to our close platonic friendships as well?

I had an experience recently which shows that "commitment" is important (to me!) in close platonic friendships. I recently had a close platonic friend rather coldly abandon our friendship all of a sudden and without explanation. We were the kinds of friends who would talk quite intimately and deeply about our lives, our feelings, our personal challenges, everything! And she used to tell me quite frequently that she loved me; and I would do the same with her. It wasn't romantic. It wasn't sexual. It was platonic... love.

And she gets a new boyfriend ... and we stop hanging out. Then she's on a marriage path. She's gotten engaged. She's invited me to the wedding -- but won't hang out with me or have dinner with me, as we used to do. She has no time for me. She's busy, she says.

I told her that I had been feeling neglected as a friend since she stopped reaching out or being available should I reach out. Ever since the b.f. showed up, that is. We're talking suddenly. Months would pass, instead of weeks, between visits -- and then nothing.

I chose not to go to her wedding. I asked if we could simply hang out together briefly before she moves to a very far off place. (Location omitted for privacy reasons.) I hadn't seen her in months, and she no longer sent me those text or email messages expressing her affection.

As a friend, I was suddenly dropped without ... anything, neither rhyme nor reason... or explanation. I have not heard from her since. This is now into year territory. I was "dumped" as a friend -- and this was one of my closest friends, measured in quality over quantity terms. It stung then and it still stings, frankly.

I feel like she broke a basic tenet of friendship -- a kind of unspoken agreement which real, true friends share. Right?

But that's how our world / culture is now. It seems to me. Expendable, disposable.... People are shit. Whatever.

We can't blame Facebook, for its' "friends" thing. But surely that's not what we mean by "friend," is it?

.... Well, that was a long contextualizing rant and tangent, but my point is that if a Friend (with benefits) is really a friend, and not merely a sex toy, the person's feelings are crucially important to whatever is going on between these friends. This is true in platonic friendships, too. Even moreso, I'd say, in a FWB situation, since most of us aren't robots and associate sexual intimacy with "feelings".... And, yes, attachment -- in the positive (not the negative) sense. Shouldn't friends be "committed" to caring for one another's feeling-ness?

I've got lots more stories, and bruises, but that's enough for now.

 

[Evie]

I'm sorry she's treated you like that.

Are you going to stay in peripheral touch?

 

[River]

I'm sorry she's treated you like that.

Are you going to stay in peripheral touch?

She broke off all communication and the ball is in her court. I have no plans of reaching out to her again.

 

[lunabunny]

I'm also sorry your friend treated you like that.

Unfortunately, I've often encountered the phenomenon of a friend getting into a new romantic relationship and simply dropping their other (platonic) friendships because they seem to feel, or act like they believe, their boyfriend/girlfriend is ALL they need now in terms of company/contact.

It's often the result of out-of-control NRE - if it's temporary - but if it becomes a permanent state of affairs, I believe it indicates one of two things:

- They had some kind of unspoken issue with their friend (you, in this case River) and were too cowardly to mention it, or didn't want to lose the friend... until they'd "secured" (latched onto) someone else who was going to meet their emotional needs.

- Their new partner is the extreme jealous type who demands they drop their close friendships; usually those with members of the opposite sex. OR the "friend" themself becomes jealous of their new partner's best friend/s and demands they curtail contact with. In return for compliance, they offer to back off from close friendships of their own because they think it's "only fair".

 

[vinsanity0]

Yes, perhaps I misspoke ( mistyped?). There is some level of commitment there. But what you described seems fairly common. It takes a lot of effort to remain friends when one goes through some big life changes.

As for FB, I guess they have to call it something. I have friends there who aren't actually friends. Usually friends of friends who share the same political views. A couple people who I went to school with yet we weren't friends then.

 

[River]

I'm also sorry your friend treated you like that.

Unfortunately, I've often encountered the phenomenon of a friend getting into a new romantic relationship and simply dropping their other (platonic) friendships because they seem to feel, or act like they believe, their boyfriend/girlfriend is ALL they need now in terms of company/contact.

It's often the result of out-of-control NRE - if it's temporary - but if it becomes a permanent state of affairs, I believe it indicates one of two things:

- They had some kind of unspoken issue with their friend (you, in this case River) and were too cowardly to mention it, or didn't want to lose the friend... until they'd "secured" (latched onto) someone else who was going to meet their emotional needs.

- Their new partner is the extreme jealous type who demands they drop their close friendships; usually those with members of the opposite sex. OR the "friend" themself becomes jealous of their new partner's best friend/s and demands they curtail contact with. In return for compliance, they offer to back off from close friendships of their own because they think it's "only fair".

I suspect it was a combination of these factors -- NRE, something unspoken... and perhaps jealousy too.

She had bunches of friends before she met the man who is now her husband. For all I know, she dropped them all the same way (I had not met most of them; we tended to be one-on-one when hanging out together).

She had become extremely busy with work before she pulled the Houdini (which phrase should, I think, apply to close platonic friendships, too). So she ended up with almost no time -- all of which, apparently, she devoted to the shiny new lover. It's understandable, sure, but also pretty a f**ked up thing to do. She could have spent an hour or two with me twice a month, or something. Sheesh.

Makes me wonder, what did that "love" word even mean. She always told me she loved me (platonically). None of my other recent platonic friends said that, and it felt good.

We shared very intimate things with one another -- a level of communication I've rarely ever experienced, really.

 

[Tinwen]

Makes me wonder, what did that "love" word even mean. She always told me she loved me (platonically). None of my other recent platonic friends said that, and it felt good.

Maybe ... it wasn't entirely platonic after all? That would 'explain' cutting contact when she got involved.

Anyway, to get back on topic ... I guess I do have one friend with benefits after all. She's female and I'm mostly hetero, but I kinda love her and we sometimes slide into very intimate cuddling. It comes natural to her, I'm a bit more reserved. She's the most wonderful being and I would love her as my best friend, flatmate or partner... if, only if.

I had to learn in that relationship that her 'I love you' may indicate intensity of feelings but won't translate into time, and into commitment especially. She's the type of free spirit who will cancel on you because she's now drawn to go live on a farm and has to follow the impulse, like, immediately. Or she just gets depressed and doesn't answer texts. Or.. you know, stuff. So first few times she disappeared it was painful, very painful actually. I had to learn to expect nothing from the relationship. In return for expecting nothing really, sometimes when the stars align and we manage to meet I get an extraordinary evening or weekend with an extraordinary person. Yai.
There's no really good label to describe our relationship, so I can as well go with "friend".