Not-friends with only one benefit.

Dorkiewitch sent me this article, and it is amazing. I was uncertain if EzineArticles should be completely beneath my notice, to be honest, because I'm not sure anyone reads them, but this particular scribbling managed to be offensive in a sort of interesting way.

Occasionally, you'll meet a girl you have a lot of chemistry with, but for some reason, you don't want to commit to her. So you remain friends with the girl, while still being intimate with each other. It can become a problem though, if the girl is insistent upon turning it into more than that. She might try to suck you into a relationship. To prevent this, you need to lay some ground rules.
No, you need to lay one ground rule: this isn't a romantic relationship, and if you try to make it one while I still don't feel the same way, it would be best if we stopped altogether. Unless she's a full-on stalker (in which case any sexual relationship, "intimate" or not, is likely to set her off), she's actually capable of understanding this if you just say it in words. Just about everything that follows isn't maintaining boundaries, it's distrustful humiliation. But don't take my word for it.

1. No spending the night.
Letting her spend the night, or spending the night at her place sends the wrong message! It communicates a desire to settle down. If you can, keep the encounters at her place, and then leave. It's much nicer than kicking her out of your place.
Is she your fuckbuddy, or not? Because if she is, then she'll most likely want to leave, or be able to sleep over without making a thing out of it. And if she isn't, this isn't going to help. Either way, sometimes "I'm sleepy and don't feel like driving home" actually means it. Or hell, even "I'd enjoy sharing a bed with you"--sometimes I like a warm bed and some skin contact, without it meaning the guy is entrapped in my tentacles forever.

This article has a lot in common with Cosmo's "communication by whipped cream" philosophy--it totally discounts the messages you might send in words.

5. Don't discuss anything real.
Remember, we're trying to avoid intimacy here, and nothing creates intimacy like talking about important things. No family history, no favorite colors, no goals, no personal triumphs or tragedies. If you want to keep it a friends with benefits situation, you have to stay light: movies, bands, and favorite brands of booze.
Then you're not friends with benefits, because you're not friends. This shit isn't all-or-nothing; you can be slightly closer than strangers at the DMV and still not end up accidentally married with five kids, or whatever you're so afraid of.

What is this guy so afraid of, seriously? Say the worst-case-scenario happens and his fuckbuddy starts introducing herself as his girlfriend--then he tells her it's not so, there's a few minutes of really ugly crying and yelling, and it's over with. The worst that could happen, the result if she really gets her evil woman-tentacles in you, is just not that bad. It seems like one big fight and some hard feelings is vastly preferable to an entire relationship of mistrust and humiliation.

And it is humiliation; this kind of stuff doesn't make me feel like I'm not a girlfriend, it makes me feel like I'm not a person.

9. Always play it safe!
One of the sad realities of life is that women will sometimes do dirty things to hook a guy, and one of those things is getting pregnant. So always, always, ALWAYS use condoms and birth control when playing with your friend with benefits!
Okay, here's the worst worst-case scenario. It's not that common, and using the discretion to not fuck the craziest woman you know will probably do more for you than a condom, but say it happens. Say she calls you and says she's pregnant and now you have to get married. You say that you'll go halfsies on an abortion or she can take you to court for child support. It's harsh (but so is using a human life as a trap, which is why remotely-sane girls don't do this), but 98% of the time this results in a "miscarriage."

I still think you should always use condoms with fuckbuddies, because you're not fluid-monogamous and birth control can fail, but you can do that without expressing your hate and mistrust of all womankind.

I can tell you from sad personal experience, too, that guys like this never manage to be subtle about this shit. It's never "let's use a condom for safety"; it's always "YOU'RE TRYING TO MAKE A TRAP BABY YOU BITCH I KNOW YOUR TRICKS." (And boy, you know I'm not in this for the emotional fulfillment if I still fuck you after that.)

Joseph Matthews has been instructing men how to meet women since 2004, and is widely known as an authority in the subject of confidence building and dating advice.
Confidence building? Confidence? Confidence is being able to trust someone even if they aren't your schmoopy-bear, and being able to say "no" to them if you can't trust them. Confidence is realizing that you can deal with worst-case-scenarios so you don't have to spend your entire life on edge. Confidence is acknowledging that it's okay to have emotions and not all of them mean that you have to get married. Confidence is being able to say what you mean, instead of getting into a relationship with no spoken agreements and trying to communicate everything via whipped cream and toothbrush placement.

If you want to stick your dick in a warm hole, but you absolutely don't want to talk or go out or cuddle or sleep together or look a woman in her treacherous entrapping eyes--soak your Fleshlight in warm water and leave human beings the hell alone.


Wow, I got through this entire post without mentioning Benny. But even Benny, who was the absolute king of stiff-armed "know your place, woman" antics, wasn't this cold. (Actually, we started out genuinely dating, and it sort of devolved after I broke up with Alan. But even at its coldest it wasn't this cold.) He let me sleep over and we cuddled and stuff. And as you can see I became devastatingly attached and am now carrying twelve of his babies. He better buy me a really big ring!