FWB = Friends With Benefits.
Genuine question. I'm interested in the concept but wanted to know more about how that actually works out.
How does that type of relationship start?
Is it healthy?
Can it be really unhealthy?
Anyone here have experience with a FWB type relationship and how did/is that for you?
Never worked for me. I always started to catch feelings and felt terrible every time and started hyperanalyzing everything I did lmao, mostly to keep them comfortable. Tried it twice with two different girls.
Now, I have done some casual things while in a relationship with my current bf, but it was more of a one and done deal that me and the bf both consented to. That felt way less bad because I feel like I need a consistent person to throw all my affections at (re: the bf). I'm just way too lovey-dovey and can't resist the urge to buy people I've had sex with flowers and showering them with affection lol. I can just direct it all at him afterwards instead xD
I met a guy on grindr who was very good at sex but also had a girlfriend (who was cool with it). Unlike most of the guys I met on there, I invited this one back. Turns out he was also a fun guy to just hang out with.
The fact that he was older than me and in a committed relationship made it easy for our relationship to just be sex and videogames, and I never felt any need for more than that. When I got into a closed relationship, we tried hanging out platonically. Sometimes he'll still text me about the old times though, and I have to remind him that I can't do that anymore.
So maybe our FWB situation really needed the benefits to keep going? It worked well when I was single and too busy for a boyfriend anyways.
Anyone here have experience with a FWB type relationship and how did/is that for you?
all of my relationships are varying degrees of this and i wouldn't have it any other way
How does that type of relationship start?
some of mine have started from hookup apps/sites where we found out we have shared interests outside of fucking each other, others from just being friends with other queer people or the occasional open minded straight
Is it healthy?
has worked for me for over a decade
Can it be really unhealthy?
maybe?
Thanks for these answers!
Yeah i can totally see how amoung respectfully and emotionally mature people these relationships can work out to be totally functional and healthy
Is a FWB something you went looking for, or was it something that just developed out of other things like just becoming friends but also fucking?
some started on purpose, but most just kinda developed
for context, i'm aro and am up front about it with people
sex for me is just something fun to doYeah gotcha.
I'm not aro but I'm also not looking for a long term relationship so that kinda how i got interested in the concept.
Going out purposefully looking for a FWB seems to be wrong headed. Just making friends and being honest about what I want seems like the correct way forward. Do you think that's right?
depends really
looking on hookup/dating apps specifically for FWB is fine, so long as you are both upfront about what you want
making friends and being open about it works toofirst one is friendship that grows out of sex, second is the other way round
both have worked for meMakes sense. Two different ways to approach it and both can work
Thanks for talking to me about this
In my experience, one person in the arrangement wants to take it to the next level.
It works between two people who have sworn off relationships due to bad experiences and maintain strict barriers, but still have healthy sexual attraction and appetites.
It does not work without the discipline of keeping that barrier to feelings up.
You ever have a buddy you play a game with like maybe you play frizbee golf with them. Maybe you get lunch after sometimes but in general you are both happy to just have someone to play with. Now imagine instead of playing with a Frisbee brand flying disc you are just playing with each others fleshy bits.
Occasionally it gets weird but that is like anything else in life.
Damn that is kinda such a perfect description of what I'm after.
Yeah I'm not looking to get married or have kids. But i also don't really have an interest in casual fleeting sex, not that I think that's wrong for people who that is appealing to
Someone who i just like spending time with plus some sex sounds like a pretty ideal situation
Have you ever looked into to poly spaces? I feel like that attachment style is pretty common with it and I wouldn't be surprised if you found a pleasant situation there. Even if it didn't end up working out exactly like you want I'm sure it'd be a fun time.
Oh interesting!
I haven't considered or known that was a thing. How does one get to know poly people?
It varies from place to place. I would google your city, or the nearest metro type area you would be willing to drive to and check out poly meetups or poly munches. Fet life might be good for your area or it might not. SLS sometiems does but that is more swinger specific. Probably is a reddit group for poly near you but that has a high probability of being weird. I am sure there are some new more focoused ways to do it but I have been out of the game for a while.
See if they have a meetup or a fun public event like a dinner/movie thing and then just go and talk to people and see if you make any friends. Also any board game meetup near you is probably at least 50% poly people.
I'm not exactly an expert on relationships, but I'm gonna say a lot of people are very possessive even when they say they aren't or are not trying to be, so only try something like this if you are sure everyone involved(including yourself) is really committed to the idea and mature enough to handle it. I'm never going to do it or even consider polyamory because I straight up know I would be too attached and jealous.
Yeah jealousy and possessiveness seem like pretty well ingrained human attributes when it comes to relationships. I agree I feel like that could be pretty hard to work through
like i say, if you aren't 100% sure both you and the other person can handle it, don't even try.
Yeah good advice. I feel like in the moment tho it could be hard to follow lol
Don't just treat this like an experiment, it's other people's hearts you could be playing with.
I had one as a junior in college. We were very good friends first, very comfortable with each other, so I think that's how it slowly turned into benefits too. No commitments, no exclusivity, just that one +, without pressure or obligations. Good age/place for that, obviously. But idk if that's something that can be deliberately sought out, and a lot depends on your attitude. For me, at times it felt I did want more and felt jealous. And then, many years later, it turned out they wanted more and felt jealous more, and I had no idea. It didn't end up unhealthy for me. I had so many complexes around sex, and that's how I lost my virginity, in a very safe environment, so to speak. But I can also see how it can be very very unhealthy because of the actual mismatch in actual expectations that I mentioned above. So honestly I'm still very ambiguous about FWB as a stable concept.
Thanks you so much for sharing. This is exactly the kind of insight i was hoping to get.
I think your dead right about it not being something that can be directly sought out. It sounds like it has to develop naturally.
Was it hard to stay on the same page, so to speak, with your FWB through out the duration of the relationship?
On the one hand, it was explicitly understood between us that this was a strictly fwb thing, so any "claims" beyond that were never discussed, even though, as it turned out, they could have been. On the other, we had been friends before, and after the benefits eventually petered out we still remained the regular types of good friends. In a way, we've never not been at least 80% on the same page. So from my perspective it was a more or less smooth sailing and a positive experience while it lasted. You don't really fight with your friends, or at least I don't. And then there was a 3 year break when we hadn't seen each other at all due to moving to different cities. And after we found each other living in the same place again, that's when some underwater weirdness came out. Both in the sense that we could discuss our past experiences afresh, but also because my friend would now get explicitly jealous about my new partners.
Making things clear from the get go seems like an important part of making a FWB thing work and your story sounds like an example of how to do that
How did you deal with the jealousy when you reconnected after three years?
at that point i just had to acknowledge but move on. it felt malicious ("give me all your attention") rather than "i love you" to me anyway
Had FWB for six months, then she broke up with her bf and we started dating. Another two years and she broke up with me to fuck someone else. C'est la vie. I personally find it difficult to have sex without catching feelings but it might work for you.
Yeah I'm genuinely unsure how that would work for me. Idk if it would be fine or if naturally I'd always catch feelings. I'm almost afraid to even try just for that reason
In my experience it's generally pretty cool as long as you don't overthink it
Had an on and off fling for a couple years with a girl who I knew wanted very different things out of life, but we were both in sort of transitory stages and it was nice not being lonely for a while.
Works better if you're actually friends with the person and enjoy spending time with them outside of the sex
Also I often catch feelings and communicate it and just am not weird about it when/if that isnt reciprocated and it has worked out fine
Yeah good points.
I think the Friends part of FWB is really the most important part not the benefits
