Having a fuck buddy should be one of life’s simpler pleasures – a pursuit that keeps your sexual batteries charged, not one that exhausts your emotional energy.
For this reason, I gave up on the idea of transforming friends into fuck buddies a long time ago. Taking a “no strings attached” attitude towards sex just doesn’t work when strings are already firmly in place.
I see many of my friends start these seemingly casual friend- fuck buddy relationships, only to watch them inevitably slide into a morass of emotional need: minor complaints that he said or did the wrong thing lead to objections of feeling either smothered or ignored, and ultimately to accusations of him of sending mixed signals, of not being clear on where the relationship is heading.
To me, this sounds an awful lot like dating. And if all you’re looking for is a regular partner to have good sex with, then dating, with its complications and expectations, isn’t the best way to go about it. With a fuck buddy you should be worrying less about his intentions and more about your climax.
Although focussing more on the “fuck” and less on the “buddy” helps to keep things simple, it shouldn’t feel as though you’re repeating a bathhouse trick over and over again. Very few people like being made to feel as if they’re providing drive-thru service, but this can happen quite easily when visits from a fuck buddy become routine. Him showing up with his weekly groceries or dry cleaning suggests that perhaps you’ve become just another stop on his to-do list.
I remember one afternoon a fuck buddy popped by all sweaty from the gym, and, in the space of about an hour, he showered, orgasmed, showered again and was getting ready to leave. He said his boyfriend was expecting him at home. Seeing I was puzzled, he explained that they had an open relationship, but that his boyfriend was making dinner and hated it when he was late. It was such a touching domestic sentiment that I almost didn’t feel him trampling over my dignity as he rushed home to his lover’s casserole.
A good fuck buddy relationship shouldn’t make you feel cheap, or, at least, any cheaper than you actually are. It blends the ease of hanging out with a friend and the hot sex that you can often get only from strangers, and it does so in a fun and playful way. One of the best fuck buddies I ever had knew this well. One Easter Sunday, instead of going to mass I invited him over for the afternoon. He arrived with little tinfoil wrapped chocolate treats stuffed down his pants and our foreplay involved an Easter egg hunt in his underwear. What’s not to love about that? It would leave anyone wanting more.
Of course, when things do click a fondness can develop that may sometimes be mistaken for the intimacy you share with a boyfriend. It’s really not, and to behave as if it is will only complicate matters. Things were going so well with Mr Chocolate Pants that he made this mistake, surprising me one day by suggesting that we abandon our normal rapport by “making love” instead of just fucking. As it turned out, this only meant that we did it slower and there was no ass slapping involved, but it still felt awkward and spastic, like the sexual equivalent of a hiccupping fit. Neither of us were particularly comfortable faking the necessary emotions and, after a few minutes, I thought, “This is too fucking weird. Let’s just go back to me calling you daddy and pretend like it never happened.”
I’m not too worried about the guy I’m currently seeing making the same misstep – he seems to balance the thoughtfulness and detachment needed to be the perfect fuck buddy. After eight months of meeting regularly for sex we both still occasionally forget each other’s names and do so shamelessly. It doesn’t matter though. The sex is good and the fondness is there, even if his name escapes me.
Why you can trust Xtra
