seeker25801's blog: "Things you ought to know but might not"

When I was younger, I loved open relationships.

People call them “no strings attached” relationships, “fuck buddies” or “friends with benefits”, but whatever name they go by, for most men they are hard to pass up — there is something intensely satisfying about being able to ring up a girl at 11PM, be having sex with her at 11:30, and then be saying goodbye to her by 2:30AM.

Of course, as I got older I realized this had a lot to do with fear of abandonment and commitment, but I was able to address those issues in time, and develop healthier long-term relationships as well.

But when you’re young it’s time to play a bit, to sow those wild oats and, more importantly, to get a good cross-section of experience with a variety of different partners without getting too serious. It’s like dancing: you can’t tell who’s a good partner unless you’ve had some experience with bad partners.

The problem, of course, is that “open relationships” are hard to pull off without one person “catching feelings” for the other, feelings that won’t necessarily be returned in kind.

In this post I want to talk a little about the different types of open relationships, and a few examples of what NOT to do if you really want to maintain a girl at FB or FWB status indefinitely.

Friends with Benefits versus Fuck Buddies
I do think there is a difference, and I do think it is important to be clear about what sort of relationship status you are trying to achieve with a girl.

If you can get her to admit to it, and talk with you about it, it’s best to get her on the same page, as well. Deep down, she might harbor desires for more — but as long as she’s agreed outwardly to play by the rules, you’ve covered your bases.

On the other hand, I’ve known plenty of women who have no problem with open relationships, and are less likely to get attached than some men I know.

Friends with Benefits (FWB): This is the relationship where the friendship bond is stronger than the sexual bond. You two may have developed a friendship first, and made it sexual in a moment of weakness (or passion, or frustration, or rebound) — or sometimes, you will have a strong sexual attraction, but one or the other person decides they want a friendship bond in place as well (usually for comfort and security needs).

Fuck Buddy (FB): A relationship where the sexual bond is really the only bond. These are the true “booty calls” — the people you know you can call at almost any hour of the day or night and, if they’re not doing anything, will come over for a shag. This liaison is extremely casual, low-key, low-investment and no-maintenance.

Whereas with FWB there is a bona fide friendship to maintain, with FBs there is really nothing but an agreement to share sexual experiences whenever it’s convenient.

Friends with benefits are further distinct from Fuck Buddies in that FWB usually go out socially in groups of mutual friends, and do fun non-sexual “friend”-style things, like parties or movies or camping or plays.

So what differentiates a FWB from a full-blown relationship, you might ask? The absence of monogamy. That’s really the only thing.

How to Keep an Open Relationship, Open
Keeping relationships open is not difficult, it just requires a little backbone. Below are some rough tips:

General guidelines for Open Relationships:

– Do be upfront about your intentions. You don’t have to be blunt or crass (”Ok so You are now my new fuck-buddy”) but you should be unequivocal, especially if she seems unclear (”I’m not looking for a monogamous relationship right now”).

– Do let her know if what you want from the relationship changes (either towards a more committed or less committed status). If she doesn’t like it, she will have to either negotiate or leave. More on relationship ratcheting below.

– Do make it clear that you are seeing other girls (socially and sexually): but by implication only. Do NOT wave it in her face or remind her too frequently.

– Do set your boundaries and stick to them (more specific boundary examples below).

– Do not be sexually judgmental of her, ever.

To establish and hold a FWB

– Do fun “friendship” activities with her (whatever you both like and agree on)
– Do hang out with her without anything sexual happening once in a while
– Do give her good enough sex that she’ll make a good report to her female friends

– Do not make love to her
– Do not buy her things, especially if she asks you to
– Do not accept any instances of her calling you her “boyfriend”, either in front of you or behind your back; shut that shit down before it starts

To establish and hold a FB

All of the “do nots” from FWB above, plus:

– Do not only booty call he when you’re drunk / as a last resort (she can tell)
– Do not socialize with her in a non-sexual way
– Do not intro her to your friends or show interest in an intro to hers
– Do not sex her more than 2x a week at the most; if you sex her 2x in a single week, skip a week

– Do give her extremely good sex

Relationship Ratchets
There are a few things that you might have noticed recurring in the above lists; they are what I think of as Relationship Ratchets, or behaviors / boundaries that I think very clearly indicate the status of the relationship, and the direction it’s headed (more committed / less committed).

I think the big ones are:

Spending money: Spending money on a girl, especially spontaneously, is a clear “provider” signal — it says “I want our relationship to be more serious. I want to provide for you, so you can provide for our kids.” In other words, let’s get married and have kids. This is why it’s SUPER important NOT to spend money on a woman unless that is, in fact, the message you want to convey. On the other hand, if you USED to spend money on a girl, and starting cutting her water off, that will convey that she is falling from your favor.

Frequency of visits: If you see or sex a woman more than 3x a week, it’s LTR-Land for you, buddy (usually). On the other hand, if you have been seeing a woman 3x a week, and start ratcheting it down to 2, then 1, she will usually get the message.

Location of sex: Having sex in bed = more intimate. There’s not a lot of women I actually have sex in my bed with: I’m probably horrible in this respect, I fuck most women on my couch or floor or kitchen or car (or wherever). A lot of guys would probably disagree with me on this; maybe having sex in a sunny field is as intimate as it gets for you; or maybe it’s the bathroom counter. The point is, FIGURE OUT what different sex locations mean FOR YOU and don’t give the sex her in the “intimate” locations unless you want to take things forward.

Frequency of contact Now this isn’t visits: this is phone / email / SMS / internet / snail mail messages. Hint: If you’re talking to a girl every day, no matter what your medium is, you are headed to LTR Land. On the flip side, if you want to dial a girl back from FWB to FB, just return every other call, instead of every one (or whatever percentage). There is a good bit of wiggle room here because of the nature of contacts; you’re going to miss some phone calls, etc.

Commitment Creep
What tends to happen in these open relationships, and what is most important to guard against, is something I call “Commitment Creep”, and it looks like this:

Once you have fucked a girl for long enough, well enough, she will invariably try to progress the relationship to the “next level” of commitment — if a FB, to a FWB…if a FWB, to a LTR….if a LTR, to marriage (if married, to divorce?!)

I believe women are hard-wired to do this, if not for evolutionary reasons, then also with social programming that tells them they will find their happiest state in a committed, financially-entangled relationship with a man (let’s ignore for the moment the conflicting social programming which also tells them they will find their happiest state childless, in the corporate world).

No matter how firm the boundaries you set down at the inception, given enough time and good sex, a woman will always begin testing, probing the edges of your boundaries to see how she can move things along. Stand firm, young soldier: she will follow you lead, even if she doesn’t like it — she will take what she can get (or, maybe she’ll leave, but don’t take that personally, either).

Personal story: Once, a pretty wily girl managed to get me into a LTR with her, when my original intention was just to keep her as a FWB; as soon as I realized this, I ratcheted her back down from a full-blown LTR to a FWB and then a low-rung FB before finally dumping her. It’s not often a girl puts one over on me, but that girl was good; as it happens, I was just a little better. It was funny, though, because it was like a full ladder; from the very bottom to the very top and then all the way down to the very bottom again. There’s really no limit to what you can do with this stuff.

The point is, using the above tools and techniques, you should be able to put the brakes on the “natural progression” for as long as you want or need.

NOTE: for those who feel this entire post is needlessly mechanistic and even manipulative: In an ideal world, I believe relationships should be egalitarian and fully communicative, and the status of the relationship 100% agreed upon by both parties prior to its commencement: but we clearly don’t live in an ideal world (more’s the pity), so we work with what we have. C’esta la vie, ma chérie.