Friends With Benefits?

[Scarlett]

My friend has a friend with benefits. They have been having a sex-only relationship for 3 years. He tells me it is sex only. She however is very needy and seems to be in love with him. She is only 19 and has only ever been with him. He is older (27). I worry that he is using her for sex and that she now thinks that this is what all relationships are like. My feeling is that he should set her free and allow her to find someone who actually loves her, but he won't- because he has exactly what he wants from her. This bothers me, morally. Am I old fashioned- is it each to their own?

[Mamyalynne]

I don't think you are old fashioned,such relationships can work - but she is a bit young to settle for it right now.

[sandyRoe]

WHEN lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away?

The only art her guilt to cover, 5
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover
And wring his bosom, is—to die.

He's a Cad!

[boxtops]

I think you're right, but she has to want it for herself.

[ladyalex]

I'm with you, Sandy.
He's a rotter.

[douglas9401]

Mr 27 lights a candle to the spirit of no strings sex every night. Chancer.

[boxtops]

What commitment do they have to each other, that you sau he should"set her free"? I understand otherwise what you're saying, but he sounds like Christian Grey...

[sandyRoe]

TS Eliot had a different take on it.
She turns and looks a moment in the glass
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
"Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over."
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand
And puts a record on the gramophone.

[sandyRoe]

'No big deal', as some here might say.

[ladyalex]

I don't think this poem is particularly aposite or helpful to this thread, but I rather like it:
By the time you swear you're his
shivering and sighing
and he vows his passion is
infinite, undying
Lady, make a note of this
One of you is lying.
(Dorothy Parker)

[sandyRoe]

Didn't Miss Parker write that famous piece of advice to amorous chaps: Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker?

[jno]

she is free already, though. She can walk out any time. (I'm assuming she's not financially dependent on him.) But she has to decide to do it, there's nothing anyone else can do to make her. It may be that there is after all something for her in the relationship as well.

[jno]

Ogden Nash, sandyRoe. He added a line in the 1960s: Pot is not.

[ladyalex]

Another one of hers that I like is

oh life is a glorious cycle of song
a medley of extemporanea
and love is a thing that can never go wrong
and I am Marie of Romania

[sandyRoe]

With pot they'd be raiding the fridge or on the phone ordering pizzas.

[boxtops]

I don't think it's her that has the friend with benefits, I think he does.

[boxtops]

...and do we know he doesn't have commitments elsewhere?

[ladyalex]

You're right, boxtops.
A 27 year old man in that sort of relationship with a 19 year old girl is darned close to abusive.
Certainly exploitative.
A rotter.

[jno]

who knows... but the world is full of unequal relationships where the two parties are after different things. Only the parties can sort it out.

[boxtops]

I agree, ladyA - particularly since they were 24 and 16 when this started.

[sandyRoe]

He'll probably be telling her he'll leave his wife and kinds when...
As I said earlier, this is a cad and a bounder if I ever saw one.