Why Friends With Benefits Are the Most Sustainable Relationships

 

The realization that my two longest relationships have both been with men I never formally dated came to me as I was making plans for this vacation. My friends with benefits have remained constant over the years while boyfriends and girlfriends have come and gone.

Eight years, I suppose. I don't think my first marriage will last as long as that. Even though my Cuba date is a low-key homeless anarchist who once took me on a date to his Vietsub Sex Movies and Love Addicts Anonymous meeting, there are red flags, and I can't imagine being with him "for real," I still value our relationship greatly.

In fact, he is more familiar with who I am than many of my past partners were. What makes the dynamic of friends with benefits more enduring and frequently more transparent than a real relationship? The public is dubious of fuck buddies. They ask, "How can you repeatedly have sex with the same person without falling in love?" or, at the very least, refrain from feeling overly envious and Fatal Attraction-like? Some people believe that one of the "buddies" is always being used in an effort to get more serious fucking.

Others dismiss fuck-buddy relationships as nothing more than mindless compulsive sex. But why do things need to be so binary? You can care about someone, have satisfying sex, and not literally want to implode at the thought of them having sex with someone else. Surely there is a middle ground between this and zombie-fucking a stranger.

 Right? For instance: I had a romantic friendship with an ex-editor I'll call Malcolm that was the most important of my life. Five years ago, we began "a thing," and it hasn't yet come to an end. He was 45 and charmingly grumpy when I first met him, and he always told me: "Sex is so perfect. Why let a relationship ruin it? I used to spend a few hours each afternoon at his apartment having sex with him soberly that I could actually cum, followed by tea and complaining about various things.

 It was excellent. We would occasionally see each other and then for a while things would lapse, usually because one of us had a partner. And sure, when he would get a girlfriend I would be a little bummed out—I’m (unfortunately) not a sociopath—but it didn’t cause me to spiral into an emotional cyclone the way I would have if I’d been cheated on by a boyfriend.

After all, expectation is the root of disappointment. Malcolm and I grew incredibly close over time. We felt as though we had stepped into a covert bubble of openness; we were emotionally close but unburdened by the weight of resentment and ownership. We had nothing to lose so we could be completely honest with each other. I opened up to Malcolm about my romantic past, my fantasies, and my breakup.

He once related to me this convoluted affair he once had with his cousin, saying, "That's not something I tell most people," before continuing. Although it may not have been wise on his part, I found that story to be fascinating because it revealed something about him that no one else did. On occasion, it seems as though we are less forthcoming with our partners and more forthcoming with our friends with benefits.

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