Not friends.

“Tonight let’s be lovers…and tomorrow we’ll go back to being friends.”

Sorry Dave. While I fancy your rock band and appreciate the length you went to in order to solicit platonic sex from your besties, I simply cannot endorse these lyrics. (Sorry, male friends.) But I just do not think it is wise to play Mario Kart with your guy pal one night and doctor the next, unless you want your nipples handled like joysticks and a guaranteed disappointment.

If you’re loose with your definition of “friend,” say “I love you” to each of your hall mates, and blast mass text messages like it’s your job, then you will undoubtedly disagree. After all, what’s wrong with a little hanky panky from your drinking buddy next door? However, to me “friend” has a very sacred and categorical meaning. The fuzzy area surrounding is reserved for titles like “acquaintance” “buddy” or “pal.” Not “late night booty partner.” Therefore, to hook up with a friend by my definition is inherently incongruous and somewhat fraudulent. A truly, strictly platonic relationship never goes temporarily sexual. The beauty of friendship is that it is pure, transparent and resolute. To take things carnal is not only unnatural and um, awkward, but potentially blasphemous.

For those “friends with benefits” enthusiasts ready to Tonya Harding my cankles, relax. I am not judging you for giving your dude friend a ride to Pleasuretown. I’m just saying real friends don’t let each other shack up at the Howard Johnson…. or in your lofted twin XL.

While I don’t think boy and girl buddies can alternate between playmates and bedmates, I do believe that friendship can evolve into romance. In fact, I think this can make for a wonderful relationship. However, “friends” – girls, boys, whatever – don’t suddenly find themselves in transient, precariously intimate situations (barring healthy ecstasy consumption or an apocalypse) without some pre-existing feelings of sexual attraction or romantic affections, thereby disqualifying them as friends. A drunken, harmless make-out sesh, yes; an “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” exchange, highly encouraged. But if heads head south, you are more than just friends.

I admit this is the opinion of a fairly sexually conservative female: I have never been the girl who dry humps a pole in the middle of the dance floor, nor have I ever volunteered to french kiss my roommate for the last Natty Light. (For the last piece of pizza, however, I’d beat her up.) So maybe there are girls out there who can straddle that friend line without complications. I also recognize that there are the inexplicable moments of weakness aptly named “I just broke up with my boyfriend” or “Spring Break Rules” or “Tequila,” and that most dudes would just as soon boink their best girlfriends than mow their lawn. These “exceptions” aside, however, I maintain that “just friends” don’t “just f*ck.”

Perhaps more importantly, while the “friends with benefits” can be a convenient and quite tempting arrangement, (aka, no dinner dates required, and bodily fluid jokes encouraged), the complications that can arise and the regrets that may surface aren’t really worth the best-of-both-worlds situation. Chances are someone is going to get hurt. One player will be more emotionally invested than the other, the benefits will trump the friend, the lines of communication will collapse under the weight of the “what did that really mean?” and unless there is a simultaneous pull-out (of the arrangement), someone will feel rejected.

The bottom line is no friendship ever improves after an impromptu scissor fest or a drunken cavity search, so the next time you and your couch buddy are feeling lonely, and perhaps a little dirty, skip the tongue bath and hit the showers, cold, and separately. You may need to help yourself out, but you’ll be much more satisfied in the long run.

This was a week for decisions. Major decisions. And boy, did we make them. We elected Barack Obama as the 44^th (and first African-American) President of the United States. And though we didn’t directly choose Michelle Obama (or any of the First Ladies), we did decide who’s hot and who’s not.  We chose between working out at the gym and at home, between babes and nerds, between trendy skirts and patterned leggings. On the relationship side of things, we decided to make the jump from friends to lovers, and subsequently from lovers back to friends. We learned that guys get off on porn (really?), and girls become more fertile by watching Sex and the City. We decided that you shouldn’t spend too much money on dating, and on the proper prep work for losing your v-card.

And now that it’s Friday, take a break from all the deliberations and enjoy the weekend!

And they make the rest of us look like emotionally immature, sexually frustrated, constantly single idiots.

But hey, you know what? Single’s not the worst thing. Because beneath the sun-touched, crystal-blue emotional coastline of those happy loving couples, there are gloomy storms. There are flashes of suspicious lightning and sudden tidal waves that crush the fishing canoes of stability on the rocks of impatience. There are the riptides of boredom that drown the surfers of passion. There is a dead seagull in the reeds, and it is gross and smelly.

Sexy and Stressed-out

One rather obvious downside of monogamy is that it isn’t polygamy. You can’t just go jumping every pile of bones in sight. And that might not a downside to some, since a sudden increase in sexual partners can turn your genitals into a giant bullseye for emotional instability, STDs and scary unwanted babies. But even if you aren’t planning on turning your dorm room into an all-hours Orgy 101 lab section, a monogamous relationship can turn even the most innocent girl-boy relationships into a nervous stressfest.

Maybe you’re visiting the guy you’ve been chums with since second grade, when you broke your hand launching your Big Wheel off of ramps you begged your dad to build. Maybe you’re going to catch a movie with an old friend who didn’t just bring his girlfriend — he brought the engagement ring to show off, too. Maybe he brought his boyfriend. The most physically intimate act you might commit is a badass fist-pound when you cut some guy off at a light. And yet, when you turn your cell phone back on, you’ve got four missed calls, a jittery text saying “were r youu!!!” and a voicemail that’s nothing but incoherent, angry sobs. And you’d say it’s paranoid and crazy, but at the same time, you know you’d be doing the same thing if he were having “a movie night with Katie” or whatever. People in relationships get protective, and it’s easy for that to damage long-standing — often longer-standing than the relationship — heterosexual friendships.

Love Handles

I’m sure that somewhere, probably in a different star system, there are high-energy, high-metabolism couples who love nothing better than going to the gym together. Their thighs, calves and glutes are wonderfully toned and a luscious emerald green, all sixteen of them. If these alien power couples ever decide to invade Earth, we’re screwed, especially if it’s during swimsuit season.

Because here on our lonely little planet, our primary reason for being in shape is to attract cuddle buddies. Once we’ve got that stable source of snuggles, there isn’t really any justification for sweating like a gorilla and coughing like a donkey while we pick up heavy things and put them down again. It also doesn’t help that most “couple” activities generally involve either sitting, eating or both: romantic five-course meals, double butter popcorn at the movies, enormous anniversary cakes. And while sometimes the constant, watchful eye of a lover can keep you honest (“You’re not really gonna eat that cake, are you?”), it’s more likely to be an excellent excuse for digging into those scalloped potatoes (“If this beautiful person can eat these and feel fine, so can I!”).

It’s true that when you love someone, they become a paragon of beauty, no matter how rancid they may look to everyone else. So a little thickening around the edges tends to go unnoticed, and may even be welcomed — just like a big, cuddly teddy bear! Aww, hey! But the rest of us think you’re disgusting.

The R-Unit

If you’re that person who always gets stuck planning the party, you know all about it: when you invite one half of a couple, you need to invite the other. They don’t come individually wrapped. And sometimes that’s kind of a pain, especially if you’re trying to avoid lots of he-did-she-did-what drama, or even if you just want to have a [girls/boys]-only night. It’s an old story: we can’t invite Kevin because he was doing that thing with Maura last week and she’ll be there and Kelly will not be able to handle that.. And so on, and eventually someone breaks your couch.

But it’s not only the people orbiting around the dynamic duo that get burned. Most of us are proud of who we are, and we don’t mind having a personal identity. In fact, you’re probably a little attached to it, and it sometimes it stings a little when people treat you and your significant other as a single human, with two heads and four legs and one bizarre, amorphous Frankenstein’s monster of a personality. Getting to know a new person is hard enough without having to battle your second head for dominance the whole time.

“What do you want to do today?”

If you’ve ever met that particular person, that one person whom you’re always comfortable with, with whom, you don’t even have to line up your thoughts before you speak them, who always gets exactly what you’re talking about, even when you aren’t saying anything — if you’ve met that person, you know how good it feels. You know how, when you’re with them, your life becomes a soft, pink, all-encompassing blanket of warmth. And you know how, eventually, even through your bucolic lovebird stupor, you will start to get really pissed off and hate them. What?

The problem with perfectly matched lovers is that they don’t have to try to entertain each other. Many people look at relationships as a sort of ‘chase’, similar to fox-hunting, except that nobody usually gets chased into a hole and torn apart by dogs. And there’s a measure of truth to that, though it’s not very romantic: a doubtlessly special part of any relationship is the shy beginning, where you’re gumming up your words and dropping things in awkward places and trying your best to be very funny all the damn time. And it’s fun because you’ve got something to gain; you need to impress someone, you need to change their mind, you’ve got a target. You’ve got something to achieve.

When you’re in a beautiful relationship that you wouldn’t change for anything, predictably, you don’t change. You become boring.. You don’t have to make an effort. When you’re so close that you don’t even need to speak to communicate, your relationship turns into two boring people sitting silently on a couch. At that point, it’s probably time for a breakup, just so you have something to raise your voice about.

So take your scant singleton joy where you can. Even the nicest relationships are still beset with problems, and while it might be small consolation on lonely nights, you can breathe easy knowing that you’re above all that nastiness. And if the solitude is just too much, get more stuffed animals.

[Photo of that happy couple courtesy of potterhauk.files.wordpress.com]

Like, say that new position you read about in Cosmo that requires you to stand on your head while he balances on one foot?

I’m here to tell you, these positions, while alluring in theory are not only an excessive amount of work (that isn’t always worth that coveted “O”), they can even be hazardous to your health…anyone ever heard of a sex injury (or as my friends and I call it, a sexjury)?

Picking up a copy of the Kama Sutra and realizing how many different options there are to twist your bodies in strange positions in order to better reach those special spots can be intimidating but also enticing. Who knew it was possible to do that? Who knew I could get off from that? Believe me, not all of us can. Not everyone has the same level of flexibility and yes, I speak from experience when I say that sometimes trying to put my leg behind my head in a new and unusual position is painful, enter a horse named Charlie.

Nothing can put a great sex session on hold as quickly as a severe leg cramp. “Oh God baby, yes” quickly turns to “Oh God that hurts!” as you ferociously throw your lover off you and jump up and down in hopes of making the pain subside as quickly as possible. And let me go out on a limb to say that searing pain can make getting back into things a lot less tempting.

Sexjuries can be a lot more severe than that, as well. Case in point; I have one male friend who has suffered from two major sexjuries; a thrown out back and a sprained penis. Yes folks, I said it, a sprained penis (insert collective “ohhhh!” and grimace here). Due to overzealousness and excitement in trying to spice things up, he and his girl managed to do a position that completely threw out his back and caused him to have to see a chiropractor for months on end, and to wear a back brace. He still suffers from minor pain when he does strenuous activity. Tell me now, is that worth it? Let’s think about that for a minute.

After the sprained penis incident, he told me that he couldn’t get an erection for a week and even after it started working again, he was so terrified of the pain, he waited another week. In my humble opinion, one amazing sack session isn’t worth losing out on two weeks of nookie.

All in all though, leg cramps, back injuries and various sprains aside, let’s be realistic and ask, in general, are these crazy forays into sexual positions worth the physical struggle, work and exhaustion it takes just to get yourself into them? Is that toe-curling “O” really that important? Yes, phenomenal orgasms are obviously the goal, but I’ve found that I can obtain them without having to bend my body in ways I never thought possible. And that’s just fine with me.

[Photo courtesy of ThorinaRose.com]