| I remember the subject came up on some lame short-lived TV show whose name I have forgotten. I believe it starred the Queen of lame TV shows (Party of Five excluded, of course), Jennifer Love Hewitt. On the show, they called it "being alone together."
I know they only came up with the term because they couldn’t say "fuck buddy" on TV, but I liked it.
I thought it a nice way of putting it, because a fuck buddy is someone to be with when you're both alone, someone you like having sex with even though you know it will never be a relationship. Or especially because it will never be a relationship. When you're single, having a good fuck buddy can be a beautiful thing. You get regular sex, affection and someone to hang with, all with no strings attached.
But it ain't always easy. Take it from an expert.
"The key to good (fuck buddy) management is understanding each other and knowing why you're both there," says a friend of mine who always seems to have a perfectly uncomplicated fuck buddy available whenever he's single. "If you see that that's not the case, then you nip it in the bud and get out of there."
Because you know what happens. It's one of the main reasons fuck buddies don't last: One person gets weird and then your cozy little arrangement blows up in your face.
It's easy to do. The most successful fuck-buddy relationship I've had was great until I let my ego butt in. Up until then, we'd had fun, regular sex with no expectations. Then one night he said he couldn't go home with me and I let it get to me. I felt rejected. You can't do that with a fuck buddy. It's one of the rules.
"You have to be able to say 'no' to each other without feeling hurt," says our expert. "If I run into a fuck buddy, and we're both into going home together that night, we give each other signs. There might be some extra flirting, for example. If neither of us is into it that night, we don't flirt. If one of us isn't into it, we're just straight with each other, without being hurtful."
Sounds easy enough, no?
"I can't do it," says another male friend. "The problem is that I'm not comfy just having a sexual relationship with someone. So even if it really is just sexual, I act like it's more. Then she thinks I'm into it more than I am and next thing you know we're trying to make a relationship out of something that is just not there on that level."
OK, so like I said, it isn't always easy. But sometimes, you're just not ready for a new relationship, but you don't feel like being entirely alone and you want to have sex once in awhile. Sure, you could have a one-night stand, but the joy of a fuck buddy is that there is continuity – it's a type of relationship. You become comfortable with each other, you get to know each other and you make each other feel good physically. It's a sweet deal.
That's not to say that having a fuck buddy is always just about sex.
I know some fuck buddies who do everything but, well, fuck. I've recently encountered a few "couples" who just hang out and sleep together – no really, just sleep. Cuddle buddies, I call them.
It's not something you specifically go out looking for, says a friend who has recently hooked up with a cuddle buddy. ("Oooh yeah, I'm gonna get me some cuddling tonight.")
"Sometimes you hook up with someone, you like each other, but neither of you is ready for sex with someone new, never mind a relationship," she explains.
So, instead, she and this guy get together from time to time, sleep in the same bed together and get into some hot and heavy cuddling.
If you want to play that game, I can even take it one step further. With a flirt buddy you don't even have to get into bed at all. This is someone you know you can flirt shamelessly with, again, because you both know it won't go any further. You don't even necessarily have to be single for this one.
"I worked with this guy. He was miserable in his marriage. My boyfriend was getting ready to go away," confesses yet another friend. "I'd come into work and this guy and I would immediately be on the phone to each other all day. We'd meet for coffees and we even went so far as to go for drinks together after work. It was fun, intense and safe. I knew he wasn't falling in love with me, or vice versa."
This is a great way to work your passion muscles without getting into trouble. At least that's the idea. Sadly, this arrangement, too, can sometimes go awry.
One friend of mine had a flirt buddy for two years. They were both in relationships, knew the limits of their flirtation and enjoyed it immensely. Then one day it happened. They took it to the next level and had sex.
"We were both very sad and ashamed and we stopped seeing each other altogether."
That's the problem. Whether it's a fuck buddy, a cuddle buddy or a flirt buddy, these arrangements are like a delicate ecosystem – start mucking with the arrangement and you're usually asking for trouble.
So why bother? Well, while it might be nice to wait patiently for the real thing, or to be attracted to one person for the rest of your life, it's not usually that cut and dried. There's a lot of stuff in between the full deal and being single.
And sometimes you just need a little something to get you through the night. |
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