Ask an assembled group of women why they think men cheat, and you’re more or less guaranteed that a good 80% of them will declare: “Because they’re bastards!” or “Because they’re sex addicts!”. The idea of a man cheating is far more common and - dare I say - acceptable than the idea of a woman doing the dirty, especially a woman who does it because she likes sex and not just because she’s stuck in a miserable relationship looking for an escape. But do men really cheat because they are seedy, sex-obsessed a-holes with no feelings and hearts of stone? Of course not, so why do so many of us think that?
According to a marriage counsellor named Gary Neuman, “Men cheat because they’re lacking an emotional connection at home.” Hear that, ladies? An “emotional connection”. It’s certainly a claim one of my female friends agrees with. “It [cheating] happens for a reason. Something is missing from the relationship and things aren’t being worked at, the lines of communication aren’t open. If I wasn’t giving my fella enough time and he starts looking for attention elsewhere, then I’m at fault. Let your man know they’re special. Five minutes every day can save a relationship.” If we’re really honest with ourselves here, girls, isn’t it true that we expect a certain amount of complimentary comments and assurances from our boyfriends? But how often do we return the favour; tell them how handsome/sweet/funny/talented they are? I’m going to take a guess and say it’s probably not as often as they say it to us - but why not? Many men are more self-confident than the average woman, but that doesn’t mean they don’t need to hear reassurances from the lady in their life.
There’s also a massive misconception that men are much tougher when it comes to being cheated on. Yes, they might rage around and punch a wall and then go out with the intention of decking the guy you cheated with, but us girls have a tendency to put that down to hurt pride rather than actual heartbreak. Well, I’m here to tell you ladies: men DO HAVE FEELINGS. One such male friend of mine told me what happened when he was cheated on: “It was awful. I cried for a week, didn't leave my room, couldn't eat. I lost loads of weight and went dangerously thin. Then I was incredibly angry and just tried to sleep with as many girls as possible.” And what are his thoughts on cheating girlfriends now? “They can go f**k themselves.” Another of my female friends says, “I think that men find it more painful if a woman they love cheats on them; they can not get over it.”
Unfortunately, there are some men (and indeed women) in the world that don’t see anything wrong in cheating and refuse to acknowledge that going behind someone’s back is a huge betrayal. A male acquaintance I know cheated on his girlfriend repeatedly over the course of seven years - including throughout their engagement - reasoning that “once I’m married, I‘ll stop”. Do I believe a piece of paper and a slice of stale wedding cake is going to alter his ways? Not a chance in hell. Surely if you love someone, you don’t cheat on them, right?
One argument as to why men purportedly cheat more than women is because they find it hard to turn down sex. Have you ever walked up to a random guy in a bar or club and asked, “Fancy a shag?” Can you imagine the response? Now imagine your response if a guy said the same thing to you. The success rate would be VERY different. The fact is, men don’t get offered sex as much as women, so they find it hard to turn it down when they do. That’s not an excuse, merely an explanation, but I would ask all the guys reading this to imagine an attractive girl coming up to them and offering sex on a plate before they dismiss it. It goes back to those basic differences between men and women that I discussed earlier in this blog: it’s simply more socially acceptable for men to want and have a lot of sex.
When I asked a selection of friends whether or not they thought there was any difference between a man who cheats and a woman who cheats, most came down in favour of equality. “I can see why people might think that it‘s not as bad when a man cheats, because men think with their dicks,” muses one friend. “But I think that's an excuse, created by men.” Another friend argues, “I think men get away with it more as for them it is physical, but with women it is emotional. Men detach.” So are we saying that men are the only sex able to get down to it without feelings getting in the way? Not according to another friend… “Men seem to think that only they can have sex without emotions. What a load of crap. I used to be quite conservative about my sex life and used to think that too, but I have successfully proved to myself that no emotions whatsoever have to be involved in sex. Women can have 'just sex' just as men can.”
Now here’s an interesting scenario: imagine you’ve gone to meet your male friend for a drink in the pub. After a few drinks they turn to you and say: “I’ve been cheating on my girlfriend. In fact, I’ve cheated on her loads of time, and I have no intention of breaking up with her or ever telling her the truth.” What would you say to this man? Are you imagining it? Right, now switch that male friend for a female one. Are you still as angry? Are you more surprised? Are you immediately assuming there must be something more to the whole thing than just sex? While doing research for this blog, a friend admitted to me: “My best friend cheats on her long-term boyfriend frequently and for sustained periods of time. I don't judge her as much as I would if it was him, which is weird and totally double standards.” And isn’t it? Like, totally! But it’s because many of us girls expect a man to cheat, so we’re much more likely to react angrily than if it was a female friend.
Men I have spoken to who admit they’ve cheated give various reasons for their dalliances. “I was full of myself and not caring about anyone else other than me,” admits one. “I was drunk and it was available,” confesses another. “I was in a relationship I didn’t think was going very far, so I took the opportunities as they arose,” adds yet another. But don’t be too quick to tut, ladies, there were also lots of men who had never cheated, and others who admit they learned a lesson after they did. “I imagine being cheated on properly would feel pretty horrific,” one friend told me. “I'm happy that I've learnt my lesson before it f**ks up something important in later life.”
We’ve all encountered the types of men who play up to those pesky stereotypes and use them as an excuse for their philandering ways, but for many men it’s an annoying assumption that lets down the male race as a whole. Asked if he thought that men cheating was less bad than women cheating, one male friend insisted: “Not in the slightest. I think that’s very symptomatic of the underlying opinion people seem to have that men sleeping with people is fine but that there is a much lower threshold for a woman doing so before she becomes a slut. They are definitely linked. Maybe men have less self-control, or are less concerned on average. I don't know, but I would be sad to think so.”
So men cheat and women cheat and some do it because they can and some do it because they can’t and most do it because they’re unhappy - but what can we do about it? As I explained in my earlier blog, I have found it near-on impossible to trust a man since my first boyfriend cheated on me, but given that it happened 17 years ago (that hurt) and no other boyfriend has cheated on me since (I hope), I’m thinking it’s about time I got over myself and moved the hell on. Either I start trusting men and respecting them a bit more, or I really am going to be an old spinster with a dog (as one of my less-subtle male friends warned). So, that’s my new plan! Who’s with me?
Monday, 25 April 2011
Sunday, 24 April 2011
Day 33: Oh come all ye faithful
A few weeks ago, I conducted a mini-survey on my Facebook wall, asking friends to describe the perfect man in just one word. Can you guess which words came up the most? Rich? Nope. Handsome? No, not that either. Funny? Nah, not even that. The three words that most of us girls used were “trustworthy”, “loyal” and “honest”. Basically, we don’t want no cheaters, no siree! We’d take a poor, ugly, unfunny man, as long as he didn’t do the dirty on us. Okay, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but there’s no getting away from the fact that cheating is one thing most of us loathe - and when I say “us” I mean the guys as well as the girls.
The first time a boyfriend cheated on me was during my first-ever relationship (see Mr T, as in T for Troll) and I felt as if my heart had been ripped out through my throat. I was only 14 at the time, so my emotions were abnormally off the scale as standard, but I don’t think I ever forgot how purely horrible it felt when I found out. What was wrong with me? What had I done that was so bad that he’d had to cheat? How would I ever get out of bed/leave the house/breath normally again?
The funny thing is, I don’t actually remember being that angry with my errant boyfriend. I hated myself, sure, and I hated the girls (yes, there were a few) he’d cheated on me with even more, but not him. In fact, rather than do the smart thing and move on with my life as far away from him as possible, I spent all my spare time coming up with plots and schemes to win him back. I can clearly remember telling him (in my best nonchalant voice) that I was “cool with us just being friends” and that I was “sooo not bothered”. Both those statements were utterly untrue, but do you know what - they worked. When we did finally break up almost three years later, it was him at the front door begging for more and me glad to see the back of him. However, despite that small victory, I have never EVER trusted another boyfriend from that day to this.
This little issue of trust is, I think, a major contender in the “Why Broom is still single” mystery. The way I see it, any boyfriend of mine has to accept that I won’t trust them until they have earned my trust, and that won’t happen overnight. My last boyfriend used to get endlessly frustrated with my assumptions that he would do the dirty given the chance. I would calmly explain that I’d rather think the worse, so that if it did happen I’d be less shocked and more able to get over it. It’s a nice theory, but it’s also a load of crap. Even if you wake up thinking “today’s the day my boyfriend will sleep with someone else” it’s still going to hit you like a charging rhino with a sledgehammer if he actually does. And do you know what, maybe he’s only done it because his girlfriend has pushed him away with her constant distrust.
Learning to trust a man again after you’ve been the victim of a cheater is not easy. One friend, who had the misfortune to become involved with a man so close genetically to pond scum that I was always surprised newts weren’t popping out of his ears, told me: “I always thought I would never put up with it [cheating], but when I was in that actual predicament I found it too hard to walk away, and hoped it was a one-off. I thought I could change him, still make it work because he loved me - and that real love doesn't come around often. I completely lost my self-esteem and became a jealous monster. In my head it was still all about him. I never put myself first.” I can hear you all now, going “bastard” in your heads. You should, he was. But the key thing here is the effect it had on my poor friend. As well as a serious blow to her self-esteem, it made her expectation for disaster shoot up to an extreme level. As far as she was concerned, men will cheat, men do cheat and the best thing to do is assume the worst at all times. I can happily say she’s worked through many of these worries now, but it has taken years. Another friend of mine whose other half did the dirty while she was in the next room, admitted, “I find it very hard to trust men now and find myself 'protecting' myself on instinct by being tough and not getting too attached. I deliberately stayed single for ages, as I didn't want to transfer my crap on to anyone else, or go into another relationship with baggage or damaged.”
Surely my trust issues could be seen as “baggage”, and if I’m honest that is part of the reason why I’ve opted to be single for these 12 months. If I can come to terms with being cheated on, start to think of myself as more worthy, and feel able to enter a relationship without all that (adopts American tone) “negativity” then maybe I’ll have a chance of being happy. Not only that, but - and this is the part where I get so honest it makes even me squirm - I don’t think I can trust myself not to cheat. I have done it before. In fact, I’ve done it twice before, and both times it was because I was unhappy and looking for a way out. Having sex with someone who is not your boyfriend is certainly a big neon-lit sign that all is not well, and it would appear I am not the only person to have resorted to this course of action.
“I was with a guy who was very possessive who I’d tried to break up with many times,” one friend told me. “He wouldn't leave me alone, wouldn't stop turning up at my house and always wormed his way back in somehow, even though he knew how much I wanted out. It's not an excuse, and I did try (many times) to end it before I did anything with anyone else, but by the end I just thought I'd never have the resolve to cut him out and not let him back if I didn't do something irreversible. It was a way to get me out of the rut and I knew that I would never be able to take my ex back again. Although I wish I hadn't resorted to being unfaithful to get there, I don't regret that it was the kick I needed to break it off and not go back.”
So, does cheating always mean the end of your relationship? Not according to another friend of mine: “I cheated on my boyfriend two months into our relationship,” she admits. Basically, I was smitten, so when he went AWOL for a week and didn’t return my calls or texts, I was distraught. On the fourth day, a boy chatted me up and I took him home with me. I was hurt, angry and wanted to feel desirable and that I could still get boys (pathetic after 4 days, right?). Anyway, the next day my boyfriend came round and it was all fine – he said he’d 'freaked out' so I told him he should have told me how he was feeling. If anything it made us a bit stronger, but he never found out. Ultimately, I didn’t want to hurt him.”
Indeed, it would appear that those of us who do admit to slipping up in the past are more likely to forgive a future partner if they did the same thing. “I used to think cheating is absolutely unforgivable,” says one friend. “But I've changed my mind completely. With what I know now, I think I would forgive. Maybe stupid, but knowing myself I would probably cheat too, and want to be forgiven. I understand how you can love someone and still go off and have sex with someone else. The key is if you’re going to do it, don't get caught!” Does it feel strange, to hear a girl admit things like that? I suppose it does in a way, but every one of us is different. Some people can move on and forgive, while others would not even consider the idea.
“I can see it's confusing what's acceptable when you're casually seeing someone,” agrees another female friend of mine. “But if it was my boyfriend, they'd be gone in a second and I'd never speak to them again, never hear them out, never look at their face again. That would be it, even if it were just a two-second kiss. It's a betrayal and the trust is gone.” And she’s not the only one… “If you take them back, it's NEVER gonna be a one-off,” insists Pond Scum’s ex. “Once we allow them to get away with it, it will happen again. That boundary is well and truly gone.” According to another friend, “Whoever is doing the cheating is wrong, and I don't see why people don't have the balls to end relationships before trying someone new!”
And surely that is the main point: don’t be in a relationship if you want to sleep around. Don’t be in a relationship if you’re not 100% sure that it is what you really want. And don’t be in a relationship if you will never be able to trust the other person. A few years ago, I was going out with a guy who I met in a bar. It was never an idyllic union, if I’m honest. He was strange, I was lonely, and we didn’t have an awful lot in common. Despite this, we persevered and had made it to our year’s anniversary when I started to get the itch. Our sex life, while never anything to base a Mills & Boon novel on, had completely stopped. I felt unattractive, unwanted, frustrated and pointless, and it was around this time that I went on a holiday abroad with my best friend. I had resolved not to do anything behind his back, but one night he called me out of the blue to ask - I thought - how I was and if I was having a good time. He didn’t ask that, he didn’t even ask how I was, he just ranted about some friend or other who’d left rubbish in his room. I must have paid at least £4 for the call, and it was just the final nail (or not, given the celibate state of our relationship). That night I went home with a barman and the next day I felt an overwhelming sense of relief: I’d gone too far and now I had to end things. That doesn’t mean it was acceptable, in fact it was probably extremely cowardly, but it does seem to be the reason most women cheat.
If women cheat to escape miserable relationships, then why do men cheat? Is there a difference? Is a man cheating less awful than a woman? And what effect does women cheating have on the men in the relationship? These are all subjects for part 2 of this blog entry (coming up tomorrow). In closing, and having read so many of your responses on the issue of cheating (thank you very much for those, by the way), I think one of my friends summed up cheating perfectly when she said, “Men and women with no backbone cheat. It takes an adult to admit a problem, but it’s better to end a relationship than cheat or be cheated on.” Wise words, and I just hope that over the next 12 months I grow into a strong enough person to put my hands up when the going gets tough.
The first time a boyfriend cheated on me was during my first-ever relationship (see Mr T, as in T for Troll) and I felt as if my heart had been ripped out through my throat. I was only 14 at the time, so my emotions were abnormally off the scale as standard, but I don’t think I ever forgot how purely horrible it felt when I found out. What was wrong with me? What had I done that was so bad that he’d had to cheat? How would I ever get out of bed/leave the house/breath normally again?
The funny thing is, I don’t actually remember being that angry with my errant boyfriend. I hated myself, sure, and I hated the girls (yes, there were a few) he’d cheated on me with even more, but not him. In fact, rather than do the smart thing and move on with my life as far away from him as possible, I spent all my spare time coming up with plots and schemes to win him back. I can clearly remember telling him (in my best nonchalant voice) that I was “cool with us just being friends” and that I was “sooo not bothered”. Both those statements were utterly untrue, but do you know what - they worked. When we did finally break up almost three years later, it was him at the front door begging for more and me glad to see the back of him. However, despite that small victory, I have never EVER trusted another boyfriend from that day to this.
This little issue of trust is, I think, a major contender in the “Why Broom is still single” mystery. The way I see it, any boyfriend of mine has to accept that I won’t trust them until they have earned my trust, and that won’t happen overnight. My last boyfriend used to get endlessly frustrated with my assumptions that he would do the dirty given the chance. I would calmly explain that I’d rather think the worse, so that if it did happen I’d be less shocked and more able to get over it. It’s a nice theory, but it’s also a load of crap. Even if you wake up thinking “today’s the day my boyfriend will sleep with someone else” it’s still going to hit you like a charging rhino with a sledgehammer if he actually does. And do you know what, maybe he’s only done it because his girlfriend has pushed him away with her constant distrust.
Learning to trust a man again after you’ve been the victim of a cheater is not easy. One friend, who had the misfortune to become involved with a man so close genetically to pond scum that I was always surprised newts weren’t popping out of his ears, told me: “I always thought I would never put up with it [cheating], but when I was in that actual predicament I found it too hard to walk away, and hoped it was a one-off. I thought I could change him, still make it work because he loved me - and that real love doesn't come around often. I completely lost my self-esteem and became a jealous monster. In my head it was still all about him. I never put myself first.” I can hear you all now, going “bastard” in your heads. You should, he was. But the key thing here is the effect it had on my poor friend. As well as a serious blow to her self-esteem, it made her expectation for disaster shoot up to an extreme level. As far as she was concerned, men will cheat, men do cheat and the best thing to do is assume the worst at all times. I can happily say she’s worked through many of these worries now, but it has taken years. Another friend of mine whose other half did the dirty while she was in the next room, admitted, “I find it very hard to trust men now and find myself 'protecting' myself on instinct by being tough and not getting too attached. I deliberately stayed single for ages, as I didn't want to transfer my crap on to anyone else, or go into another relationship with baggage or damaged.”
Surely my trust issues could be seen as “baggage”, and if I’m honest that is part of the reason why I’ve opted to be single for these 12 months. If I can come to terms with being cheated on, start to think of myself as more worthy, and feel able to enter a relationship without all that (adopts American tone) “negativity” then maybe I’ll have a chance of being happy. Not only that, but - and this is the part where I get so honest it makes even me squirm - I don’t think I can trust myself not to cheat. I have done it before. In fact, I’ve done it twice before, and both times it was because I was unhappy and looking for a way out. Having sex with someone who is not your boyfriend is certainly a big neon-lit sign that all is not well, and it would appear I am not the only person to have resorted to this course of action.
“I was with a guy who was very possessive who I’d tried to break up with many times,” one friend told me. “He wouldn't leave me alone, wouldn't stop turning up at my house and always wormed his way back in somehow, even though he knew how much I wanted out. It's not an excuse, and I did try (many times) to end it before I did anything with anyone else, but by the end I just thought I'd never have the resolve to cut him out and not let him back if I didn't do something irreversible. It was a way to get me out of the rut and I knew that I would never be able to take my ex back again. Although I wish I hadn't resorted to being unfaithful to get there, I don't regret that it was the kick I needed to break it off and not go back.”
So, does cheating always mean the end of your relationship? Not according to another friend of mine: “I cheated on my boyfriend two months into our relationship,” she admits. Basically, I was smitten, so when he went AWOL for a week and didn’t return my calls or texts, I was distraught. On the fourth day, a boy chatted me up and I took him home with me. I was hurt, angry and wanted to feel desirable and that I could still get boys (pathetic after 4 days, right?). Anyway, the next day my boyfriend came round and it was all fine – he said he’d 'freaked out' so I told him he should have told me how he was feeling. If anything it made us a bit stronger, but he never found out. Ultimately, I didn’t want to hurt him.”
Indeed, it would appear that those of us who do admit to slipping up in the past are more likely to forgive a future partner if they did the same thing. “I used to think cheating is absolutely unforgivable,” says one friend. “But I've changed my mind completely. With what I know now, I think I would forgive. Maybe stupid, but knowing myself I would probably cheat too, and want to be forgiven. I understand how you can love someone and still go off and have sex with someone else. The key is if you’re going to do it, don't get caught!” Does it feel strange, to hear a girl admit things like that? I suppose it does in a way, but every one of us is different. Some people can move on and forgive, while others would not even consider the idea.
“I can see it's confusing what's acceptable when you're casually seeing someone,” agrees another female friend of mine. “But if it was my boyfriend, they'd be gone in a second and I'd never speak to them again, never hear them out, never look at their face again. That would be it, even if it were just a two-second kiss. It's a betrayal and the trust is gone.” And she’s not the only one… “If you take them back, it's NEVER gonna be a one-off,” insists Pond Scum’s ex. “Once we allow them to get away with it, it will happen again. That boundary is well and truly gone.” According to another friend, “Whoever is doing the cheating is wrong, and I don't see why people don't have the balls to end relationships before trying someone new!”
And surely that is the main point: don’t be in a relationship if you want to sleep around. Don’t be in a relationship if you’re not 100% sure that it is what you really want. And don’t be in a relationship if you will never be able to trust the other person. A few years ago, I was going out with a guy who I met in a bar. It was never an idyllic union, if I’m honest. He was strange, I was lonely, and we didn’t have an awful lot in common. Despite this, we persevered and had made it to our year’s anniversary when I started to get the itch. Our sex life, while never anything to base a Mills & Boon novel on, had completely stopped. I felt unattractive, unwanted, frustrated and pointless, and it was around this time that I went on a holiday abroad with my best friend. I had resolved not to do anything behind his back, but one night he called me out of the blue to ask - I thought - how I was and if I was having a good time. He didn’t ask that, he didn’t even ask how I was, he just ranted about some friend or other who’d left rubbish in his room. I must have paid at least £4 for the call, and it was just the final nail (or not, given the celibate state of our relationship). That night I went home with a barman and the next day I felt an overwhelming sense of relief: I’d gone too far and now I had to end things. That doesn’t mean it was acceptable, in fact it was probably extremely cowardly, but it does seem to be the reason most women cheat.
If women cheat to escape miserable relationships, then why do men cheat? Is there a difference? Is a man cheating less awful than a woman? And what effect does women cheating have on the men in the relationship? These are all subjects for part 2 of this blog entry (coming up tomorrow). In closing, and having read so many of your responses on the issue of cheating (thank you very much for those, by the way), I think one of my friends summed up cheating perfectly when she said, “Men and women with no backbone cheat. It takes an adult to admit a problem, but it’s better to end a relationship than cheat or be cheated on.” Wise words, and I just hope that over the next 12 months I grow into a strong enough person to put my hands up when the going gets tough.
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
Day 16: No (G)Strings Attached
When I was at university I had one very close male friend. We bonded over our mutual love of films, Guinness and his ability to make me laugh until I wept. One of the things I liked most about him, though, was that he was a genuine friend. As in, we’d never slept together. Well, we didn’t until one night in my final year.
I was drunk when it happened, and I don’t just mean I’d had a few too many Blue WKDs down the Union. I mean, during the actual deed my head was spinning so much I almost chundered all over him. I can only remember the sex itself in snatches of blurred detail, but I can say with absolute certainty that it definitely wasn’t worth the next few months of misery that followed.
I was drunk when it happened, and I don’t just mean I’d had a few too many Blue WKDs down the Union. I mean, during the actual deed my head was spinning so much I almost chundered all over him. I can only remember the sex itself in snatches of blurred detail, but I can say with absolute certainty that it definitely wasn’t worth the next few months of misery that followed.
You see, after we’d Done It, I started (probably rather predictably) to see him as much more than just my silly friend. He didn’t feel the same way as me though, and one afternoon, a week after I’d woken up in his bed with hair like Worzel Gummidge and a tongue resembling a Saxon gravestone, he called to tell me all about some girl he’d pulled the night before.
This wasn’t an unusual thing for him to do. Indeed, I know more about some parts of my female friends’ anatomies than I ever wanted to, thanks to their own nights of fun with this guy. But listening to him regale me with tales of how great the sex was this time felt like someone was sliding a very long and very sharp needle into the side of my head. My stomach took up residence in my throat and my eyes filled up with tears. Ridiculous really. Eight days previously I would have been cheering him on.
This wasn’t an unusual thing for him to do. Indeed, I know more about some parts of my female friends’ anatomies than I ever wanted to, thanks to their own nights of fun with this guy. But listening to him regale me with tales of how great the sex was this time felt like someone was sliding a very long and very sharp needle into the side of my head. My stomach took up residence in my throat and my eyes filled up with tears. Ridiculous really. Eight days previously I would have been cheering him on.
The result of our drunken fumblings was several awkward months of me trying to avoid him and him being confused and our friendship never really recovering. And so…we come to the inevitable topic of Friends With Benefits.
Can you really have a relationship with a man that is purely based on sex? There are no strings, no real feelings are allowed, you aren’t allowed to keep tabs on each other BUT the sex is bloody great. Well, and I’m being tentative here, I think that you can. My experience at university was an unfortunate one, but I think where I went wrong was assuming I could be F*** Buddies with an actual friend. Surely a more casual acquaintance is a better bet, as then you have fewer feelings for them in the first place and there’s less danger of developing any.
I’ve only ever really had one bona-fide “buddy”, and he really became so purely by accident. I liked him quite a lot for the best part of a year, but when we finally got together I felt distinctly under-whelmed. Not by the sex, you understand, the sex was just peachy, but by my feelings for him. I’d romanticised it so much and for so long in my head that I was expecting pure love of the highest order. Instead, what I felt was an instant comfort and a definite degree of self-confidence. I didn’t love this man, or even want him to be my boyfriend, but he was great fun to hang out with and made me feel really good about myself – jackpot!
Right from the start we were open about the status of our friendship, and as a result we had lots of good clean fun and are still friends today. I do realise this example is a rare one, because I’ve had many, many cases where I sleep with them and do fall for them, only to have them not see me in quite the same light. In fact, perhaps it’s the actual seeing me in the light of the next morning that puts them off!
I asked a selection of male friends what they think of Friends With Benefits, and the results were almost universally the same. As one put it, “I think it can be a pretty healthy agreement for both people. Let's be honest, it's regular sex without some of the hang-ups of a relationship. Gets difficult when one becomes more emotionally involved than the other, though. And who doesn't love a f*** buddy to hand when you're feeling horny?!”
And there we have the key: emotional involvement. The problem is that sometimes you’re not even aware that you are emotionally involved, as was my case at university. Or sometimes you’re SO emotionally involved that you agree to sex with a guy because you’ll literally do anything to spend time under a duvet with him. You may even hope that by tapping away at him little by little like some sort of Bridget-Jones-Meets-Shawshank-Redemption beaver, you’ll convince him that he is, in fact, madly in love with you. A word of warning: this has probably never worked in the history of EVER.
A man I met recently expressed a mild outrage bordering on disgust when I told him about my Mr Bona-Fide. According to him, it’s “impossible” to have sex with a girl you’re not emotionally attached to. Scoop your bottom jaws off the desks, girls, this man actually exists! I’m inclined to think he only sees it this way at the moment because he’s convinced himself that he wants a girlfriend. The first rule of F*** Buddy Club is: you can’t do it if you’re looking for a relationship. If you do, you will get hurt, and very possibly humiliated as well. Having casual sex with a man will not make him fall in love with you. There, I said it, and it’s true you know.
And there we have the key: emotional involvement. The problem is that sometimes you’re not even aware that you are emotionally involved, as was my case at university. Or sometimes you’re SO emotionally involved that you agree to sex with a guy because you’ll literally do anything to spend time under a duvet with him. You may even hope that by tapping away at him little by little like some sort of Bridget-Jones-Meets-Shawshank-Redemption beaver, you’ll convince him that he is, in fact, madly in love with you. A word of warning: this has probably never worked in the history of EVER.
A man I met recently expressed a mild outrage bordering on disgust when I told him about my Mr Bona-Fide. According to him, it’s “impossible” to have sex with a girl you’re not emotionally attached to. Scoop your bottom jaws off the desks, girls, this man actually exists! I’m inclined to think he only sees it this way at the moment because he’s convinced himself that he wants a girlfriend. The first rule of F*** Buddy Club is: you can’t do it if you’re looking for a relationship. If you do, you will get hurt, and very possibly humiliated as well. Having casual sex with a man will not make him fall in love with you. There, I said it, and it’s true you know.
Of course, there are the rare occurrences where a relationship of this nature does develop into love and marriage and babies, but it’s a gamble. If anyone knows of one, do please tell me.
You’re the only person who knows whether or not you can indulge in No Strings Sex, but if you can, and it makes you feel good about yourself, then go ahead. Sometimes it’s fun to shake off all the emotional baggage of sex and just get down to it for fun. It’s only when it stops ever being fun that it’s time for a rethink…
You’re the only person who knows whether or not you can indulge in No Strings Sex, but if you can, and it makes you feel good about yourself, then go ahead. Sometimes it’s fun to shake off all the emotional baggage of sex and just get down to it for fun. It’s only when it stops ever being fun that it’s time for a rethink…
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