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.

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.

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.

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…