Friends With Benefits

Be wary, I mean to talk about sex for a bit. I know, you're apalled. You're shocked to your toenails. Let me assure you this will be lengthy and uncomfortable.

Let me also preamble the whole she-bang (hah!) with a few things. Most importantly the phrase "friends with benefits" and how, despite now using it twice in a single piece, it makes me want to strangle someone with my bare hands. The most significant benefit a person can bring into my life is simply being my friend. I don't have many, because I don't have what I'd call casual friends. I have a group of people, more than a handful and less than a flock, that have become friends. These people are dear to me and, unfortunately for them, there's no turning back. I will go to great lengths for those people without exception, and gladly scrape the very bottom of my coffers (or closets) to help them should the need arise.

Smaller than that, and closer, are a few individuals that are dearer to me than all the other treasures this world has to offer, and for them I would snatch stars out of the sky if it helped to make one moment of their lives just the smallest bit brighter. So, in that way, "friends with benefits" is sort of a redundant phrase. Being my friend is a benefit, at least for me. I understand that friendship (which is another word I dislike, because it hardly seems sufficient to define those relationships) with me can be somewhat intense and I do try, though not as often as I should, to illustrate that there are boundaries and I'm not just trying to attract people for my own narcissistic reasons. But then, at least those small few in my tiny inner circle seem to have grasped that without my saying it. For that, I am sincerely grateful.

That said, the very second you tell me I'm in "the Friend Zone" is the very second you cease to be my friend.

I don't say this because I'm in any way upset that someone in the wide, wide world wouldn't go to bed with me. Make no mistake, I'm as certain of that fact as I am of anything. The thing that offends me about this Friend Zone horseshit is that you're assuming things on my part that, quite frankly, are probably untrue. You're assuming I want to fuck you badly enough that I've been nice to you all this time. You're assuming that's the entire basis of our friendship. Otherwise, why go out of your way to insist it will never happen? Are you clairvoyant, or just being a fucking twat? How do you know the future? See, things like that urge me to actually lose all that weight I keep joking about. Not because it would make me happy to be thinner, but because I know with a ripped body and my knack for charming words I could literally bed everyone that's ever scorned me in this way. And then promptly destroy them. That would make me fucking happy.

To me, outright denying that you could ever be brought to my level is like branding 'SHALLOW CUNT' across your forehead. I didn't ask. I didn't pursue. And now, I want to drown you in a sink full of lye.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of people I have neither the desire nor the intention of climbing into bed with, but I wouldn't reject the simple idea that it was possible. Because I'm not an asshole.

Clearly, for my married friends or those of you who are otherwise occupied, I'm not asking that you be willing to get a seedy motel and bang away while your wife or husband or boyfriend or goat is off on a business trip. I'm all for fidelity so long as you're happy (and as long as that goat isn't a total douchebag). And I'll stress that I'm not asking for a show of hands among my friends of who is totally down to make the beast with two backs right now, tonight (although, I wouldn't exactly ignore that show of hands, either). In addition, I am well aware that other people aren't as...Whitman-esque about their interpersonal relationships as I've found I am.

But for fuck's sake, you've tolerated all of the bullshit I regularly dish out and you're saying there's no way you'd do me? Nigga, please.

I love you, dearly, in ways I cannot readily describe. At least, not with any sort of sense, and not in any way that wouldn't reaffirm whatever misguided beleifs you may already have despite my infrequent assurances that I am not, simply put, putting the moves on you. If such a thing comes to pass, then so be it. There is no reason two functioning adults can't be friends and lovers and nothing more. In reality, there is nothing more. The rest is all obligation and finances to me, and I'm in no condition for any of those things. I'm willing to meet you halfway. I've already made a more significant commitment in calling you my friend than just about anyone else has ever made. That isn't arrogance, that's genuine adoration and a sincere desire to make you, all of you, as happy as is humanly possible with all of the skills and tools in my possession. I have a way with words, on occasion, but I have a very real, very physically intimate side that isn't exactly normal. It isn't exactly perverse either.

In all seriousness, this "Friend Zone" thing bothers me because it feels like a judgement and, honestly, if you're good enough to judge me then I'm too good to be your friend.

Now, show of hands, who wants a mustache ride?

Ridiculously Yours,
-S.R.