Friends with Benefits. What does that mean?
In her experience, she had discovered that men lay more emphasis on the Benefits portion of that statement. Whereas women, or at least she, felt the Friends part was equally as important.
She wanted the connection. The chemistry. She yearned for the best parts of a relationship without the hassle and complications of having to consider another person’s thoughts and feelings. She wanted the friendship, the fun, the silliness, the playful teasing, the flirting, the butterflies, the intimacy, the body shaking and mind-blowing physical experiences… She wanted ALL of that, but without having to integrate that person into the rest of her life. That’s what Friends with Benefits meant to her.
She had gone through enough drama throughout her last relationship. She wasn’t ready for all the questions and introductions and advice and comments from nosy people in general who should mind their own business about other people’s relationships. She was enjoying being on her own. She just wanted to have someone whom she trusted on stand-by for the moments when she needed the intimacy that only a romantic/physical relationship could provide. Why was this so hard for to find?
She answered her own question. She knew that it was the emotional intimacy part of a relationship that most men have trouble with. Men are much more adept at compartmentalizing things, whereas women often have their feelings and emotions intertwined with one another when it comes to sex. Men seemed to prefer the physical intimacy, but lacked the emotional depth for the friendship part of FWB. So unless she wanted to be treated like a one-hour whore, she had resigned herself to likely not finding a suitable guy to enter in to a friendly, no strings attached type agreement.
After her most recent bad date, she had chatted with several more guys on her various dating apps. What else was new? One day, she matched with yet another super hot 40-year-old. He had blue eyes and shaggy blonde hair; the just-rolled-out-of-bed look that most guys can’t pull off. But he could. His name was Tommy. She found out later that he was only 5’7, but that’s how hot he was that she was willing waive her height requirements. He messaged her and very quickly got to the point.
“What do you look for in a guy?” Tommy asked. She answered her typical answer and asked what he looked for in a woman. A lot of what he described did apply to her. She told him that, and he asked, “Even the sexual part?” He had said that he was looking for someone in tune with her sexuality, and maybe a little kinky. She replied, “Well, everyone has different levels of that,” and asked him to give her an example.
The scenario that Tommy described turned her on instantly and she became extremely intrigued. The problem was that this conversation was taking place at like 10 o’clock in the morning while she was busy at work. When she had woken up that morning, she replied to his message from the night before. So this unexpected yet extremely fun and spicy conversation was taking place at a very inopportune time.
She kept trying to pause the conversation and pick it up when she was done work, but he kept replying to her with more sexual comments, even asking her to go to the bathroom at work and take a pic of herself playing with her nipples. Really dude?! You’re a 40-year-old man. What do you do during the day that you think people can just up and drop everything at work to go play with their own tits in the friggin work bathroom?!
He finally let up when she promised to send him a pic after work when she would have the time to take a good one. She never did it, though. And likely should have blocked him. Instead, she just ignored his texts for the rest of the day. But the next morning, the same fucking thing. He had texted her in the morning, so she made up some lie as to why she didn’t message him the night before. He then began throwing out ideas of how she could “make it up to him”, as if she actually owed him something. She obviously knew there was no point to pursuing a FWB thing with this guy. He clearly didn’t listen, and was already only focused on himself getting off, disregarding what she wanted. She stopped replying to him and he got the hint.
The very next day, though, she matched with a guy named Tom. Not Tommy, but Tom. Same name. Different, hotter, younger guy. Much younger. Twenty nine friggin years old, in fact. The thought of hooking up with someone that much younger than her weirded her out a little, but he was tall and hot and he told her immediately how hot he thought she was. What was the harm in having fun with a younger guy?… (aside from her own evidence and experience with younger guys proving to her that it was a bad idea and they were not worth the hassle…)
Tom took even less time than Tommy did getting to the point. His introduction message to her was, “Hey, are you down for FWB?” She paused and thought about it. Based on that sentence alone, she already knew what this type of guy was like. Did she want to waste her time? Well, it seems that yes, she did. It was a Thursday evening. She was bored, lonely and horny. So she replied, “Umm.. yes? If the chemistry is there..” He responded with, “Mmm. Nice” and sent her a link to his Instagram. She requested him, he requested her. They began following each other, but then there was no further conversation. She was unbothered and just continued on with her evening. However, the next day on her lunch, Tom sent her a voice message.
The last voice message she had received from a guy was when Chad sent her one all those weeks ago. This new guy, Tom, was 29. Chad was 30. Were voice messages a red flag about younger guys?? She shook that question out of her head and just focused on Tom’s hot voice, replying to him via written message.
They started chatting a bit. He asked about her day, she asked about his. He told her that he was going to do some weight training with friends after work and they got on to the topic of staying in shape. “I’m sure we could come up with something physical to do together…” he teased. She flirtily feigned confusion, so he offered to elaborate. Again, she was at work, but at least she was on her lunch at this moment because the message he sent her was so dirty, yet so sexy.
It was like he could read her mind. The scenario he had laid out covered literally everything she liked in the bedroom and, for a moment, she was about ready to just leave work and go hook up with this guy right then and there. Never had a guy articulated exactly what she liked without ever having discussed it before. Maybe this guy could be her Friend in Shiny Benefits!
She and Tom didn’t chat much that evening as he was off working out with his friends. But Saturday morning she found the nerve to ask what his plans were that afternoon. He replied by saying, “I’ll probably be free around 2pm”. It was only 9am, so that was plenty of time for her to get herself ready for a hook up. However, she thought back to her second time with Chad and remembered that horrible feeling of being kicked out only an hour and a half after she had gotten there.
She decided to reply by telling Tom that she was fine to meet at 2pm, but that she wasn’t down for just a “wham bam thank you ma’am” type thing. She explained that she would have wanted to chill a bit, and hopefully fool around more than once. She then sent a hopeful, “Cool? 😉” to which she received no reply.
An hour later she went back to check and discovered that not only had he unfollowed her, but he had also blocked her on Instagram – “User Not Found”. She flipped back over to Tinder and found that he hadn’t unmatched with her there. What an idiot. If she really wanted to be crazy she could have totally let him have it, but instead she just unmatched. What did she care if this horny 29-year-old man/child whom she had never met, wanted her or not? Except now she had nothing to do on her Saturday afternoon.
Her parents were attempting to get a project going in the backyard, so her mom asked if she would help with her To-Do List by sweeping and mopping the floors. Of course she obliged. As she was putting some things back after having cleaned the upstairs, she noticed that she had an Instagram notification. She checked it and saw a message from a guy she had become friendly with over the last few weeks. Though she was familiar with him, in that moment she stopped dead in her tracks as she made a connection that hadn’t been there before. This guy’s name was Tom, too! Wtf was with all the Tom’s??
Was the Universe trying to tell her something…?