photos by Edmund X White
The fuck-buddy is a dating archetype. A broken one. A fuck-buddy is a relationship based on not communicating. Which will never work.
Apparently “fuck buddy” is in the Collins English Dictionary– “a person with whom another person has a relationship based on casual sex only.” I guess that’s what Leo was. I might say a fuck-buddy is a person you know so little of, but so completely. “But I love him”, I’d tell friends, if I had enough to drink. In the fuck-buddy equation, it seems one person always does.
Can you love someone but not really know them? Maybe it’s in the sex, the curious way it binds us. When we have sex (especially with the same person again and again) we inevitably become vulnerable: truths spilling. Suddenly you are grappling with deep seated shame or a weird memory. It’s not that the other person has any idea what is going on, but it feels passed between bodies.
With Leo, I was sure that the fucking was rife with meaning. The words exchanged were few, but surely there was communication in our sex, conversation in the kiss on sleeping eyelids. I looped our words in my head. I had to plan my next move, next IM. Fuck-buddies are a power-game. But it seemed Leo always had the power.
Then something happened. It was with Leo’s friend. We were drunk and kissing. He pulled out a condom. He wanted to have sex but I was saying no. But then suddenly he was–we were. I went back and forth: going along with it– then feeling pissed, I didn’t want to. Maybe it’s not that fuck-buddies are based on non-communication. Fuck buddies are based on casual sex. And casual sex too often stems from non communication. (But what does the relationship have to be to reach communication?)
I felt weird about it the next day, but I could soothe myself thinking about Leo. What can I tell you about Leo? I have certain things memorized: body parts, voice, what his room looked like. But what I really knew was sex. And in the sex (rough, emotional, fantastic) I submitted, swearing myself to him (rife with meaning).
“But the relationship was entirely in my head” I would later say. And then, it was in his too. It was nighttime and quiet, snow fell on his lashes. “I love you!” he shouted in the street. “I love you” to me. And a light burst inside.
It was everything I had worked towards. Either you start talking and it becomes a sort of relationship– or it doesn’t. And now, I had to talk. I had to tell Leo what happened with his friend. “We were drunk and making out, he was putting on a condom but I didn’t want to have sex. I kept saying ‘No, I don’t want to’”.
He went to the friend. “She was crazy. When we had sex she didn’t even want me to wear a condom, she kept saying no.” Leo said he couldn’t trust me. I wanted to explain. I opened my mouth, but the words weren’t there, between us there wasn’t the language just invisible words and walls. The fuck buddy is a one-way relationship, leaving us disconnected from each other, and without honoring what we think feel or need– disconnected from ourselves.
That month my mom came to visit. Visits with my mom were notoriously bad, sploshed with drunken explosion. But this time was different. We were in a wine-bar, the windowpanes streaked with rain. “I think this has been the nicest visit we’ve ever had” she smiled. My heart was sunken, I could feel it in my chest deteriorating. I wanted to tell her. I could feel my story with Leo shouted inside, but I didn’t talk about these things with my Mom…between us there were also no words. I sighed.
It’s hard to really get over a broken heart when you don’t really know the person who broke it. It’s crazy-making. But what I felt for Leo was real. It exploded inside, a million Christmas lights. It was love… or something like it. In the sex, I opened myself up, and without communication, boundaries became gray, my heart unguarded. And this is where I’d get stuck. Until I could finally honor it, the fucked-up relationship it was.
13 Comments
I love this post! I’ve had a fuck buddy for about two years now, we’ve paused the relationship if we start dating someone else (exclusively) but that’s only happened once or twice. I didn’t know others felt/experienced the same emotion/feelings with their fuck buddies, thanks for sharing!
Thanks Kelly! When I wrote this, I kept asking myself: what is it that drew me to him? Why him? Like you, if I hadn’t met my husband I feel like this could have gone on another year and another and another. It was like an addiction to this person. Very intense to remember!
This really hit home “It’s hard to really get over a broken heart when you don’t really know the person who broke it.”
I’ve had 3 year relationships that ended and because it was logical and it made sense to end it for both of us, it didn’t hurt. Well, maybe a little.
I had an FB situation that evolved from her digging me a lot in the beginning, to me explaining that I wasn’t there, to me eventually admitting I wanted to be with her, to her ending it. That just gave me shivers writing it (then again it’s cold in my apartment).
It hurt that she rejected me when I thought she wanted to be with me because she pursued me and would say things like, “I like you.” Black and white, right?
What also hurts is that I thought that before we got involved, that she could be a really good friend. If I would have known we would no longer be talking to each other, I wouldn’t have done it in the first place.
Beautiful and haunting, Rachel. Unfortunately…it haunts women especially.
Apparently, only 1% men’s semen is sperm. The remaining 99% is a powerful coctail aimed at getting women “hooked and high” from the very first time:
http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/sex-the-happily-single-girl.html
This probably explains why researchers found that 3/4ths of *men* in the friends with bennies scenario were able to maintain their emotional distance. But 3/4 of *women* couldn’t, even when they consciously wanted to!
Jeff, I *get* those shivers. It’s like this incredibly vulnerable, emotionally wrought thing that happened…but it seems silly to talk about because it’s just a fuck buddy, it’s just sex. But that feeling is real, right?
You also bring up another issue, the friend with benefits a close cousin of the fuck-buddy. Can *those* work?
Duana, WOW. Consider my jaw on the floor.
It is an addiction, that’s probably the best word!! Maybe the “addiction” is because the other person remains so mysterious to you!
I’ve been dealing with coming to terms with my “fucked-up relationship” for far too long.
I love what you said about how it’s so hard to get over a broken heart when you don’t really know the person who broke it. I always THOUGHT I knew my fuck buddy (we did have a brief 5 month relationship at the beginning), but eventually the talking stopped but the sex did not. And it continued like that for over three years — exactly the way you described, always planning my next move, always being careful not to scare him away or say too much. Always leaving early in the morning before he could ask me to go. But still, one or the other of us would inevitably call or text every weekend and we’d have sex like lovers do. We’d hold each other like lovers do. But we just never talked like lovers do — and that’s why it never worked.
I really think this brought me a sense of peace about the whole thing. Thank you so much for that. Really.
This was highly informative, so its seems to me that the only causal relationships that can truly work are same sex ones(perhaps). I’d be curious to know what the brain wiring is for those kinds of relationships. Ive found its easier to be distant with a same sex partner than it is in a straight relationship. any thoughts for the bi’s out there?
this was a great post! i, like many others have had the same addicted relationship (if you could call it that) in the past. it was extremely TOXIC. i was “with” a guy who was also seeing 2 other girls…so for me, it was a competition to win him over…and that was with sex. when i think back on it, it actually sickens me that i could allow myself to succumb to his awful way of living. anyways, it taught me a lesson and the guy i dated after him is the love of my life!
Wow, I have to agree with Kelly that I didn’t know others felt this way about their fuck buddies; the sex feels so real, so filled with meaning but the meaning is lacking everywhere else. I’ve slid in and out of a fuck buddy relationship for 4 years now, acting like lovers in bed, in the dark hours of the night where a warm body next to me feels so good, so important but not having that in the daylight. I know this isn’t good for me any more and I’ve been trying to stop myself but it is so hard to choose say no when the late night call comes and I am craving the touch and the rush.
Hi Rachel – I’ve read your blog for a long time but have never had any words to say other than, “Amen,” or “That was awesome.” Ha. I guess this is a subject I have way too much experience with.
After finally getting out of a three-year borderline abusive relationship, it seemed my life had been riddled with fuck buddy after fuck buddy. They’d always start and end the same way; we’d hook up drunkenly after a night of flirting, and we’d stop hanging out when he’d found someone else….someone to have a real relationship with. And there I was, standing there, bereft, having thought that “Maybe this time it will work out. Maybe this time, this is real.”
The funny thing is that in between the start and end, my fuck buddy relationships were full of powerful, amazing, emotional sex and powerful, amazing conversation. The typical pattern was: Talk, bone, talk, cuddle, sleep, cuddle, bone, cuddle, talk. But though the conversation was plentiful, it would never reach the emotional level. I guess, analyzing it now, it makes sense why I read into something that wasn’t there. The quantity of the conversation coupled with the intense sex misled me into thinking we had a strong, true connection. Perhaps we talked a lot, but we did not communicate much.
hm. since i am starting out exploring my own sexuality i am an avid www-explorer. your post resonates with we because what i am looking for is no-strings sex. my personal caveat as you so very well said in one of your posts “sex should be fun – but only if taken seriously.”
therefore a socalled fuck-buddy is someone i would also communicate with/my sexual needs and boundaries with openly/beforehand.
no communiaction to me equals no sex, however it may be labeled (aka no-strings, casual). apart from other prerogatives i have come to define for myself. i rather have selfsex aka Dodson & Ross
btw, did you see the Heather Corinna’s “Sex Survey” ?
as in “the founder of Scarleteen” ?
i just discovered it via Susie Bright today and took both right away.
here is the link just in case you are interested/or i so far missed your post :
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/S97WR6H
nota : as a non-blogess and non-US/non-english speaker/ resident i usually do not comment. i have been browsing your blog intensively and i really wish to thank you for sharing !
i have found loads of inspiration and food for my thoughts on your blog and i will come back and read and self-/reflect.
Can I come and present the other side of the story?
I was with this guy and we started out as fuck buddies. You know, just your regular booty calls – at the moment neither of us was dating anyone else, although I did briefly see another guy at the very beginning and he would tell me about random chicks he went out with casually. And at first, it was just as you’re describing it: no communication whatsoever. This was when I fell for the guy. HARD.
And then, without anything special occurring, we just sort of started seeing each other more (almost every weekend), watching a movie over at his place and little things like that, until we found ourselves spending New Year’s Eve together. It was a party at his house & he introduced me to his friends, so.. beginning with that night, I was pretty much the official girlfriend
We’ve been together for about two and a half years and now we live together (yeah, at some point along the way he fell for me too) and he features prominently into my plans for the future.
I don’t mean to brag here
My point was that a relationship where there is no communication is not forever doomed and things can improve really nicely 
Best of luck in whatever you decide to do
One Trackback
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by sexgenderbody, Rachel Rabbit White. Rachel Rabbit White said: A Meditation on The Fuck-Buddy; or my Fuck-Buddy: http://rabbitwrite.com/a-meditation-on-the-fuck-buddy-or-my-fuck-buddy/ [...]