friends with...benefit?*

"There’s nothing you can do or say, you’re gonna break my heart anyway, but leave the pieces as you go."

-"Leave the Pieces" The Wreckers

I’m not happy with the male species lately. I know that’s really nothing new, but I’ve discovered a new kind of disapointment with them lately. Mostly, fidelity, commitment and their lack of both are driving me insane.

Firstly, with my own personal issue. I suppose it is my fault after all for letting myself get sucked back into sleeping with a "friend". If I realized one lesson in my friends-with-benefits experience it was that the friends title often falls away, and while you may be left with benefits(and damn good ones at that), you’ve lost the reason why you got so comfortable and close in the first place.

Whatever connection you had as friends has pretty much ceased to exist, at least in the situation. I’ve also hit another bump in the road, or a question I need to examine, as it’s not only been puzzling me, but other ladies around me, and I think I need to give it some sort of attention.

Why oh why, when one decides that casual dating is better than a relationship, are we punished into having to change the decision we’ve made? It used to seem that casually seeing someone, or casually sleeping with someone seemed to be the easy way out. This choice is supposed to give you more freedom, it’s supposed to relieve you of the agonizing overanalyzing and the drama that inevitably comes with a relationship. So why, all of a sudden did the tables turn? I still look at my coupled friends and cringe with slight disgust, and at the same time admire their endurance for being with the same people, and fighting the same fights day in and day out. But when did the single girls begin to share the same ugly drama that is supposed to be left for the girls in relationships? IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE EASIER TO BE SINGLE!! At least, this was my notion, and perhaps my justification for not getting seriously involved with someone. We were supposed to be the girls with no strings, the ones the practically married friends looked at and said "You make me wish I was still single." All of a sudden it seems as though being single has become as complicated as dating.

Non-dating has all of a sudden sprouted fangs and is becoming as threatening as being committed to someone. It’s become a vortex of complicated awkwardness, second-guessing and constantly worrying and wondering about what’s going to happen next. It starts off simple enough, a one-night stand, or a movie and drinks. All of a sudden we realize that there’s some spark, some interest, some sense of possibility, and that’s when we lose it. Our grip on singledom loosens, and we start to fantasize about what things could be like if this one-night stand turned into a three or four night stay, and what if drinks turned into breakfast in bed. We become so obsessed with the idea that something more than what we went looking for is going to be better than our intial desire, that we forget that all we wanted was something casual. We decided to take time off to re-discover ourselves, shop around for what we liked best, and then because we’re lonely or deluded by good cologne and nice shoes, we dive headfirst into wanting something more.

All of a sudden our composure is gone, our single-girl skills plummet, and thenwe’re obsessing over every missed phone call, or cancelled plan...just like our friends in relationships. If the night doesn’t end well, or we hear some kind of rumor, we grab the Ben and Jerry’s and analyze what went wrong. One, two and three, and the fun is being drained out, and the confusion is being pumped in. We stop and think to ourselves "This is wrong, I shouldn’t be so upset over this guy. I don’t even want to be in a relationship right now." But we cannot help but overanalyze, and because we don’t want the guy to feel the need to bolt at the mention of any kind of commitment, we refuse to discuss how we’re feeling. Eventually we bottle up all the little things and unleash them all at once to an unsuspecting male who thought that the whole thing was just about having fun. And it was at the beginning...wasn’t it?

So how to avoid the pitfalls of single "fun"? I havn’t quite figured that out yet. Maybe the key is to not have a wishy-washy notion of things when you decide to go on the date, or take a guy home. Figure out what you really want, and if this guy is worth the time you’ll be spending thinking about him. Because chances are you’re just looking for the next person to love, and who loves you back, because after all, this is why we date in the first place. We all want to find that person we really want mentally, physically and emotionally, and settling for half or a third of something never does anyone any good.

So I guess we all need to re-examine why we’re single. If it’s because we think we’re happier that way, is there really a point to dating or having a friend with benefits? Ultimately, it will end up complicated, and maybe even more so than being in a relationship, because no one feels like they have the right to deal with the conversation that must always be had. And if you’re single because you’re looking for the next relationship, let me tell you…a friend with benefits is not going to help you find Mr. Right, because the guy who is only giving you part of what you need, will never fully satisfy you.