I think about this encounter all the time, and I think its shows some of the benefits of just expressing yourself honestly with the people you are entangled with. It’s so exhausting holding things in and trying to protect other people from their own feelings. Being honest with them helps them, and it helps you.

My fwb invited me out to dinner at a fancy downtown restaurant, and as we are sitting down I was feeling kind of bummed.

fwb: What’s wrong?

me: Hey, I know we’ve been spending a lot of time together, and you are wondering what we currently are, and if this is going anywhere. I just need to be honest with you. There’s this girl I work with, and I’m really into her. I’ve been crushing on her for a while now. These feelings started before we met, and I can’t seem to make it go away. I feel like she might have feelings for me to. Sometimes we have really good interactions, but the fact that we work together and that she’s the only woman on the team make things super awkward. I don’t know if anything will ever happen with us, but if it does we might not be able to hang out like this anymore. I didn’t mean to drop this on you right now, I just thought it was fair for you to know where I was at and what was going on in my head.

fwb: if you being monogamous with someone else means you won’t be eating my ass anymore, I’ll be sad, but we can still be friends.

me: 😳 .

fwb: Are you coming over tonight?

me: yeah
Honestly, what a queen. This took place back in January. Nothing ever happened with work girl (seriously, does it ever?) but me and this girl are still fwbs. We haven’t gotten serious, and we go out with other people. There are some compatibility things that might be an issue if we tried to date seriously, and I can’t speak for her, but I know I’m not really ready to put in the work to commit. But we still hook up and express what we are feeling to each other honestly, and its kind of nice to have something like that, and a refreshing departure from the head games a lot of people play.