...not sure I can handle this sort of arrangement. Not yet, anyway. Maybe never. Maybe. Maybe not.
I have had a couple of arrangements like this since my wife left. Neither went well. It was super terrific while it lasted, don't get me wrong. I'm a guy, guys really like...that. But one of the people involved gets a little too involved emotionally, while the other person thinks the sex part is for fun and the friendship is just a friendship...not a lifetime partnership. I have been on both sides of this dilemma in my first two 'flings.' Being on the clinging, falling-in-love side: you get your heart broken. Being on the sex-for-fun, more detached side: you have the regrets of breaking somebody's heart. Maybe I'm still too shakey at this point to handle any kind of intimate relationship, I'm still shakey from my failed marriage...it was too soon to jump into the pool.
Maybe I'm just a monogamous kind of guy. Or: Maybe people aren't meant to 'own' each other. Maybe I just need to get used to 'friends with benefits' arrangements. Or: Maybe...as I always say - and as I will continue to say - there is a balance (some kind of balance...not sure what that would be in this case...seems black and white). If you are into somebody who is equally into you...and other factors are playing out favorably...and 'stars are aligned just right,' ...you are very, very lucky.
A friend of mine told me about Paul Lowe. He's the man who runs this 'workshop' ...that they made a documentary about...with a bunch of naked people in it. (It's about more than gettin naked...ha...there are serious spiritual/self questions pondered). Here's Paul Lowe's take on monogamy...and he's smarter than I am...not sure if I buy all of what he says...maybe some...maybe not:
hmm...it's difficult to be the kind of person who can f*ck without their brain and heart getting in the way. Is sex EVER casual???
ReplyDeleteWell, I can' speak for the entire universe but I think one must be fairly shallow not to have some feelings come up when you are in a friends-with-benefits relationship. I am a very emotional, highly sensitive person that gets in way too deep when sex is on the table (ha ha. I didn't mean sex on a table. Anyway...) I have done the friends with benefits thing and it was a wild and fun time at first but then, well then we stated having feelings for each other and I was not ready to be involved like that. So that was that. Fast forward several years when I was single and abstinent for a good long time. I took the time to find out who I was without a man. I found out a lot of things, most important that I was OK without a man. Yes, it took being single and abstinent to find that out.
ReplyDeleteOK, I am rambling. I think the majority of people out there can't have sex in a friends with benefits situation without some level of emotion.