#so disappointed in that one friend whom i've known for 12 years and is the definition of white feminist who only cares about her own issues | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mentally-bevanieu23 · 2 years

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"Connecting w/my 7 years of friendship,hello as my enemy"

October 11th, what a blast, I just got done of doing homework and been studying. Three highlights of my day, 1) Done doing homework, 2) I finally got my period starting♥️ 3) chatting second time w/my girl ex-bff. She have been my best friend ever since high school til our 2nd yr in college. 7 yrs of being friends just ended up because there were too much on our plate that we kinda out balanced our friendship. I was still kinda, not an expert of rules of friendship, I'm a person who has a complicated life that made me isolated for so long that I don't know how to socialize that much on my friends, classmates, and others. Anyway, I'm kinda happy, to chat with her, even if last time she made it clear that she don't wanna have connection on me anymore, I don't know if she's trying to protect me from hurting or, she's protecting herself? Or am I that to burden for her. I didn't ask verbally for I kinda know why she agreed that I wanna end it, how can you be friends with someone whom you felt that, you're not their motivation? Their relief in every stress? Someone, who have seen your flaws, suddenly she changed the way how she treated me, she's different that I don't even know her anymore. But that was before, because of how I was disappointed of her not fighting for our friendship, it's always me.. Or dozens of fight I can never shake the feeling of still caring for her, love her as my sister, became damn dude, it's not that easy to just erase our existence together for 7 years.. She's the best friend that I committed friendship for that long even still communicate rather than my besties that I have befriended for 12 yrs, probably can't remember me for they got dozens of friends or group that they got in touch to, always. She may think that I still didn't change, and still longing for her, she's wrong.. I let her go as soon as I've known, that she let go of me after I said friendship over, it's not toxic you know, that you still communicate to your ex bff, we're not even getting awkward at all. It was amazing, really.. after 2 years of silent treatment we now starting to communicate, and that was great really, it made me move on from the pain that I suffered for the last 2 years, even nightmares they didn't come back anymore, I was so glad. As we chat, we chatted like nothing's happened to us, but we both know our place, so yeah, there's still limitation of communicating with each other lately, I have this really big heart, that I'm a type of person who embraces humanity even enemies of mine, because I believe, that all people have their soft spot and both of us cannot stay that long as enemies or haters of each other, after all, love is the most powerful thing ever. So we, shared each other's major events in life, we joke around for a while, and then I was the first one saying I have to sleep now cause it's almost 12 am, still have classes tomorrow hehe, so yeah, that's all guys! One thing about me? Is that who am I to her, won't change unless it's a good thing, and it's a part of me, I would never be ashamed of myself or feeling sorry of having such a big heart to anyone else, you can y'all say it's toxic or I might get taken advantage of it and get a negative feedback for being too kind. Well, I have limits you know, and I only show that part of me to a person whom I've grown up with, and comfortable to be with♥️ this GIF symbolizes me and my ex bff, for we want to reach out for each other, but secretly and has boundaries good night!

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hellomynameisbisexual · 4 years

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When I first met my husband, Neal, I thought he was gay. Maybe that's because he told me he was gay. So while I was attracted to him, I figured he would just be my gay best friend. Then, one night, we wound up in bed together, and let's just say that he did not act like a gay best friend usually acts. In fact, he seemed more comfortable with my body than plenty of straight men I'd dated had been. And after a hot-and-heavy weekend, I knew a lot more about Neal than "gay" had hinted at: He'd been married before (to a woman), and he was (still is) attracted to both sexes. Since his divorce he'd mostly dated men, so he'd gone with "gay" over "bi" when we met, but deep down that's what he is: bisexual. I was not entirely surprised, and I was definitely not disappointed.

However, I did have some concerns. Early in our relationship, which got super serious, super fast, I was anxious: I worried Neal would change his mind, say that he was actually truly 100 percent gay after all, and leave me for a man. (Maybe you've heard the joke? A man who says he's bisexual is gay, straight, or lying.) Another part of me worried whether a bisexual guy could ever really be monogamous. Also, didn't being with a man who was interested in men and women mean that I was competing against everyone in the world for his attention?

I just wasn't that familiar with bi guys. Bi women are practically mainstream: Megan Fox, Lady Gaga, Anna Paquin, Jessie J, and Evan Rachel Wood, to name only a few, have all spoken openly about being bisexual. When a woman says she's bi, it makes her more desirable to men. But few celeb men are out as bi—and you never see two guys making out in a bar to get women to pay attention.

Plus, I must admit I wondered whether all the stuff people say about bisexuals might actually turn out to be true—that they're untrustworthy, just going through a phase, or slutty; that they'll break your heart or give you STDs and probably cooties too.

Dating a bi guy, even one as great and as honest as Neal, was daunting to think about.

The sliding scale of sexuality explained

Understanding the basic science of bisexuality helped me a lot. Ritch Savin-Williams, professor of developmental psychology at Cornell University, who has done extensive research into arousal patterns of gay and bisexual individuals, puts it simply: "Bisexual men are attracted to both sexes. They have variations in how much they lean toward women or men." It's important to note that Savin-Williams, like most social scientists, differentiates between sexual orientation and sexual behavior. "So a guy could be attracted to 70 percent men and 30 percent women," he says, "but still meet a woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with and be monogamous. His orientation is bi, but his sexual behavior is straight." Conversely, if someone is having sex with both women and men, then he is behaviorally bisexual, regardless of what he says his orientation is.

What many women struggle with is not the fear that a guy is bi but the fear that he's temporarily bi and will eventually identify as gay. It's not a weird thing to worry about (I worried about it!), since many men have done exactly that. "Before homosexuality was as accepted as it is now," says Allen Rosenthal, a researcher at Northwestern University, "homosexual men often identified as bi in the process of coming out, like getting their feet wet. But it was a disservice to genuinely bisexual men because it left a lot of people with the impression that bi is a transitional orientation." The good news is that the reasons the bi-to-gay move used to be so prevalent—societal and family pressures, fears of being openly gay—are lessening. These days, it's more OK to be gay, and that's making it more OK to be bi. Progress!

So Could You, Should You? We asked glamour.com readers if they'd date a bi guy. The results:

__I'd have a lot of questions,

but maybe.……………………………16%

No way.………………………………..36%

Totally, why not?…………………….48%

In other words, two out of three of you would consider it. Explained one commenter: "If he's into me, he's into me. If he happens to be into guys too, well…we only have more in common!"__

Our little nonsecret

Neal assuaged my anxieties by being so enthusiastic about me that I had no reason to doubt his attraction. I was impressed by his self-awareness too. He realized he was bisexual when he was 20, and he still considers himself attracted to both sexes, at a ratio of about 80:20, women to men. My friends said he was an improvement over more macho guys I'd brought home in the past, and no one really made a big deal about the bi thing. They'd already seen him with men and with women, and we run with a pretty arty crowd. Bottom line: I was in love. As the years passed, I saw that Neal had more integrity and self-knowledge than anyone I'd ever known. And so, reader, I married him. We've been together and monogamous for 12 years, married for eight.

Neal is comfortable with his sexuality. He's "straightish," in the terminology of a gay friend of ours. But he is kind of "gayish" too. He is a performance artist, eccentric, and has—true to stereotype—better style than I do. And if I'm like, "Wow, Mike is superhot," he doesn't stare blankly but says, "Totally. Because of the way he plays guitar, right?"

Generally, we don't tell the world about Neal's orientation (well, until now!). Not everyone is as supportive as our circle, and to be honest, I have zero interest in talking with someone who thinks I'm in a sham marriage just because my guy doesn't go, "Ewww!" when Channing Tatum takes off his shirt.

There have been a few bumps along the road. Early on, Neal confessed that he had a crush on someone else. In the moment before he told me who it was, as my heart sank, I thought: Oh God, it's a man. He's gay. He's going to leave me for a man. I am a fool. How did I not see it coming? How stupid could I be?

Then he told me who it was: a woman. And we worked through it. In retrospect, I think we would have been OK even if it had been a man. In the years since, we've weathered crushes I've developed too, and a million other surprising and not-so-surprising things. I don't think we're any more open-minded than most couples—but the amount of honesty required at the beginning of our relationship has served us well.

Talk, then talk some more

So how do you make it work with a bi guy? "If I were a woman involved with a bisexual man," says Savin-Williams, "I would have very honest communication with him about what he means when he uses the term." Trust me, I asked Neal a lot of questions about what he was into and what to expect as our relationship deepened. Would he commit to monogamy? What kind of boundaries did we need to set up? Be clear about what you're asking, warns Lisa Diamond, professor of developmental psychology at the University of Utah. "The question Are you attracted to men?' is different from Would you want to have a sexual relationship with a man?'" she points out. "Many men might say, It's a hot fantasy, but not one I would act on.'" At that point the question becomes whether or not you're OK with the fantasy. On the other hand, if he says he wants more than a fantasy when it comes to men…then he might not be the guy for you.

No matter whom you're dating, part of love is taking that leap into the unknown. "The only way to be truly sure," says Barbara Hernandez, a family and marriage therapist, "is over time. It depends on the values of the person, and the strength of commitment, and whether both partners work hard at it." Good advice for any couple, even a straight-as-an-arrow one.

At some point, if you're still freaking out about whether your bi guy is really bi, you might need to acknowledge that what you're worried about is whether he's really yours. "We all need to be honest with ourselves," says Diamond. "I wonder if the underlying concern isn't the same one we always have: Does he really want me? Is he going to leave me? That's a concern as old as the hills." With Neal, I came to look at it this way: If he was choosing to be with me, then he was choosing me over all men and women everywhere. And that felt kind of awesome.

Believe it or not, Neal's sexuality doesn't come up that often in our daily lives. My failure to close drawers, his inability to throw anything away, and an ongoing disagreement on who is the more lenient parent are all topics that cause more strife than his sometimes thinking men are hot. Really, who can blame him? Men are hot, especially ones who are honest and confident. Especially ones who, even though they may be attracted to lots of people, pick you.

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sweetsmellosuccess · 5 years

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Sundance 2020: Day 4

Number of Films: 5 Best Film of the Day: Bloody Noses, Empty Pockets

Promising Young Woman: It would certainly make sense that the world would be ready (and awaiting) a revenge thriller in the #metoo era. Unfortunately, this peculiar mish-mash of a film has far too many abrupt tonal shifts — more like a fly zipping around an outdoor picnic — to keep itself together. Carey Mulligan plays Cassandra, a young woman with a traumatic past, who seeks revenge against piggish men by posing as black-out drunk at clubs, going home with one hoping to score, only to turn the tables on them when given the chance. What she actually does to them is strangely vague (in the film’s opening sequence she dispatches Adam Brody’s character in a way that leaves blood spatters on her blouse — but we find out later he’s apparently fine), as is her exact motive, for a time. More confusingly, writer/director Emerald Finnel veers wildly in tone from one moment to the next: One minute, it’s a sweet romantic comedy; the next, a dramatic revenge thriller; before shifting to an archly satiric social commentary, all jumbled up into an unwieldy collage. In one crucial, dramatic scene, a character admits to her wrongdoing, but does so in a living room so notably gouache, with pink carpeting and frilly furniture, the characters actually acknowledge the weirdness of the setting to one another. The plot, which involves several unlikely convolutions, too often works against itself, all the way to a supremely unbelievable (if satisfying) ending. Milligan is strong, and the chemistry she shares with Bo Burnham, as a potential real love interest, is sparkly, but its tonal ambiguity eventually does it in.

Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets: Filming the last day and night of a dingy, hole-in-the-wall bar in Las Vegas, the Brothers Moss imbibe their neo-doc appropriately enough with a distinct ‘70s vibe, in keeping with both many of the clientele themselves, some of whom display a post-hippie vibe, and the concept itself, which plays like something out of Cassavettes joint. We start at the beginning of the day, as Michael, the bar’s chief barfly, is woken up from the counter, goes to shave in the bathroom, and again takes his customary seat at the bar. For the day shift, he’s being served by the genial bear of a bartender, who has a surprisingly good singing voice on those occasions where he is inspired to pick up his guitar and croon. Shortly thereafter, Michael is joined by a bevy of the other regulars, including Pete, a sweet-faced man with a long pony-tail and many stories of past relationships; John, a large Aussie, who bring a heavy, mysterious paper bag with him and tells the bartender to hide it for him. There’s also a former military grunt who gets mildly belligerent, a smattering of younger people who saunter in, and a host of others, at various levels of decay. As the day progresses, and the sweetly fierce Shay comes in to tend bar on the last night, the clients get more and more soused, and things turn drunkenly chaotic. Amidst numerous confessions, admissions, and exhortations off the clientele being “family,” a claim the saucy Michael instantly refutes (“we’re bar friends,” he says sternly, “not family”), the cameras capture the anarchic spirit of the place, even as it exposes the fissures in the nature of their relationships. Michael, the bar’s patron saint and conscience, seems to best crystallize this dichotomy: When he finally does shuffle off the next morning he does it with zero fanfare, as if no longer having to maintain the illusion that the place is anything other than a sad, dilapidated wreck, where patrons get to shut off their minds from whatever pains have driven them there.

The Nowhere Inn: Carrie Brownstein, of both Sleater-Kinney, and “Portlandia” fame, has a penchant for slightly oddball riffs; Anne Clarke, aka St. Vincent, is known for many things, none of them personal, details she protects vigorously. The “documentary” they have made together, along with director Bill Benz, then, is somewhat predictably a mash-up of concert footage (albeit limited), set-up scenes with Brownstein attempting and failing to make a doc of her own, and creative flights of fancy that half play like sketch comedy bits. It’s certainly interesting, concerning itself with issues of performative identity and audience expectation — including, naturally, the film audience — but I found myself less than enthralled with these various manipulations. I understand all documentaries, even ones that purport to be straightforward, are still formulations, but by the end of this one, not only have we not learned much new about the pair, it’s possible we know even less.

The Nest: It has been 12 long years since Sean Durkin has made a feature film. His debut, the brilliant Martha Marcy May Marlene, earned him richly deserved praise, so this was one of the films most anticipated by critics at the festival. He does not disappoint. The film is an exceedingly slow burn concerning wealthy commodities trader, Rory (Jude Law), his wife, Allison (Carrie Coon), a horse trainer, and their two children, as he moves them from a comfortable life in New York, to a huge English mansion outside London. Shrewd and successful, Rory is still moving too fast for his own good, a fact that puts tremendous strain on his familial relationships. Played as it is, a bit like a monsterless horror film — the actual horror being our own alienation from ourselves, as well as the people we love most — Durkin’s careful, precise filmmaking, and attention to character detail, really pays off in the later scenes. Law is brilliant, as per usual, and Coon is a bloody revelation. Ironically, it’s a film that the hyper, inattentive Rory wouldn’t have been able to sit through.

Downhill: Well, we knew this was coming the second this film, an American remake of the remarkable Ruben Ostlund helmed Force Majeure, was announced. Ostlund’s film, about a family on a ski trip in the Alps, where the hapless husband flees for his life when a controlled avalanche seems to head straight for them, deserting his wife and children in the process, is all about the subtle mechanics of interpersonal relationships, and the lies we are forced into believing about ourselves. This film, from comic team Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, eschews many of these delicate details to focus on a more broad comic premise. True to form, Farrell plays his character without genuine delusion — unlike the original, it’s clear to him from the start that he ran from his family, and doesn’t really try to believe otherwise — which makes his denial far less palpable. Meanwhile, they have added in various bits to generate enough plot momentum to carry through to the finish, some of which seem to counter the film’s very premise. There are some funny bits, and enough of the original is kept in place to keep it at least mildly provocative, but everyone is still vastly better off watching the original instead.

Tomorrow: A little bit of a mix-n-match type thing: We will likely begin with the comedy Palm Springs; then switch to horror for Amulet; and take in Assassins for a lighter day.

Into the frigid climes and rarefied thin air of the spectacular Utah Mountains, I've arrived in order to document some of the sense and senselessness of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Over the next week, armed with little more than a heavy parka and a bevy of blank reporter's notebooks, I'll endeavor to watch as many movies as I can and report my findings.

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teenguyen92 · 3 years

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Why Friends With Benefits Are the Best Relationships

Just a nice article to read. It seems true to me though.

In a few days, I’m going to Cuba on vacation with a guy I’ve been sleeping with for eight years, but whom I've never once called my boyfriend. We live on different continents, but inevitably, a few times a year, we find each other somewhere in the world, have a few days of romance, and then go our separate ways. This arrangement would generally be called a friend with benefits, or a fuck buddy, or a romantic friendship, or perhaps even a relationship—with “no strings attached.” But let’s be real: There are always strings, aren’t there?

It was while planning this vacation that it hit me: The two longest relationships of my life have both been with men who I was never officially dating. Boyfriends and girlfriends have come and gone, but my friends with benefits have stood the test of time. I mean, eight years. That’s longer than I predict my first marriage will last. And while I can’t imagine being with my Cuba date “for real”—I mean, he’s a low-key homeless anarchist who once took me on date to his Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous meeting; there are red flags—I still value our relationship immensely. And he actually knows me better than a lot of my partners ever did. So what is it about the friends with benefits dynamic that is more sustainable, and often more transparent, than an actual relationship?

People are skeptical of fuck buddies. They’re like: How can you have sex with the same person, again and again, without falling in love? Or at least, without getting super-jealous and Fatal Attraction–esque? Some assume that one of the “buddies” is always being strung along, secretly hoping that the fucking leads to something more serious. Others dismiss fuck-buddy dynamics as just being compulsive sex that’s devoid of emotion. But why do things have to be so black and white? Surely it’s possible to find a middle ground between eternal love and zombie-fucking a stranger: a place where you can care about someone, have good sex, and yet not want to literally implode at the thought of them sleeping with someone else. Right?Case in point: The most significant romantic friendship of my life was with an ex-editor of mine, whom I’ll call Malcolm. We started “a thing” five years ago and have yet to end it. When I met him, he was 45 and charmingly grumpy, and he would always tell me: “Sex is so perfect. Why destroy it with a relationship?” I’d go over to his apartment for a couple hours in the afternoons, we’d have sex (soberly, which meant I could actually cum), and then afterward we’d drink tea and complain about stuff. It was the best.

There were times when we saw each other frequently, and other times when things dropped off for a while, usually because one of us had a partner. And sure, when he would get a girlfriend I would be a little bummed out—I’m (unfortunately) not a sociopath—but it didn’t cause me to spiral into an emotional cyclone the way I would have if I’d been cheated on by a boyfriend. After all, disappointment comes from expectation.Over time, Malcolm and I became really close. It felt like we had entered this secretive bubble of transparency—we were emotionally intimate, yet free of the burden of jealousy and ownership. We could spill our guts to each other because we didn’t have anything to lose. I told Malcolm about my previous relationships, my fantasies, my heartbreak. Once, he told me this long, complicated story about an affair he had with his cousin, adding, “That’s not something I tell most people.” Probably wise on his part, but I loved that story, as problematic as it may be, because I loved knowing something about him that no one else did. Sometimes it feels like we are more honest with our friends with benefits than we are with our partners.This paradox always makes me think of that Mad Men episode when Betty seduced Don at their kid’s summer camp, well after they had both remarried. Afterward, when they’re lying in bed together, Betty says of Don’s new wife, “That poor girl. She doesn’t know that loving you is the worst way to get to you.” Harsh. But sometimes, romantic friendships can offer a type of intimacy that committed relationships can’t.I was curious to know if Malcolm felt the same way I did about all of this, so last week (for strictly journalistic purposes), I paid him a visit. “Having a friend with benefits is great because it’s just—it’s just less annoying,” he said, smoking a cigar and dressed in an inexplicable beige silk onesie. “It’s more of a low-intensity intimacy. It’s not encumbered by obligations, which just lead to resentment.”He then gave me that look—the one that means he’s about to admit to something despicable and blame it on humanity. “We are all selfish—we all live in this Ayn Rand–ish self-centered world, whether we like it or not,” he said. “When you’re in a friends with benefits situation, you don’t have go to the other person’s awful friend’s birthday party. But if you behave like that within a conventional relationship, it causes problems.

“With [FWB] there’s no illusion about the carnal aspect,” he went on, “so you can be really literal about it: You are two people who like and respect each other—and you like to fuck. There’s beauty and freedom in that honestly. And you can be playful. You can have your sex-power persona, or you can play the super-misogynist pig, or the bimbo, and it’s okay, because you’re not being judged. But if you change that dynamic into being a real relationship, then those games might not seem so sexy anymore.”In other words, your fuck buddy gets all the good stuff about being in a relationship—the wild sex, the cuddles, the juicy dark secrets—minus all of the boring, would-rather-die activities that go hand in hand with commitment, like having to help assemble your boyfriend’s IKEA bed, or having to watch your girlfriend stab at the ingrown hairs on her bikini line while she watches the Kardashians. (That’s me—I’m the girlfriend who does that.)Essentially, you’re taking a relationship and removing the creepy ownership of another human being, which leaves more room for hedonism and sexual exploration. Like, who do you want to bring to the sex party—your boyfriend or your fuck buddy? It’s a no-brainer. I’ve done so many things with fuck buddies that I never would have tried with partners, because I was too much of a jealous monster. (Like once I let Malcolm tie me to a dresser while I watched him have sex with my best friend. Unsurprisingly, it was literally awful, but now at least I can say I’ve done it?)One of the most masterful fuck friends I know is my friend Casey, a 26-year-old Ph.D. candidate in English, who until recently had a FWB for 12 years. It started when she was 13, with a boy whose family spent every summer in the same beach town as she did. (Cute alert.)Over martinis at Cafe Mogador, Casey told me, “When I’m dating someone, my immediate impulse is to be like, ‘Let’s lock shit down! My anxiety will decrease if I know you want to marry me in six years from now!’ Which is crazy and not hot or sustainable. But my longer romantic friendships have been a safe space. They’ve helped me figure out how to relate to someone romantically without the immediate trigger of, Where is this going?” In other words, having a fuck buddy is a great exercise in non-possessiveness.

“The thought of my boyfriend fucking someone else makes me want to wear his skin like a goddamned wetsuit,” she said, eyes bulging. “But with my fuck buddies it’s been like, ‘Oh, my God, tell me more.’ There’s almost a level of titillation to sex stories when it’s somebody who’s not your boyfriend. But why is that? I wish I knew, so I could bottle it and never be possessive ever again.”For all the benefits of fuck friendery, it’s still possible for this dynamic to screw with your emotions. “At different points in our relationship,” Casey recalled, “it was hard to respect the line between friendship and flirting when he started dating someone, because I’d known him more intimately than his new partner. It’s like my morals were thrown out the window, and I felt this gross egotistical sense that I should come first, because I’ve been around longer, like, ‘Girlfriends come and go, but I’m forever.’” Sometimes it’s hard to accept that these dynamics usually have an expiration date, which tends to be when one person gets into a committed relationship. And, unfortunately, not only do you lose the benefits, but you sometimes lose the friend, too.We are taught that all relationships that don’t end up in marriage are failures (because, ya know, hetero-normativity and patriarchal narratives or whatever). But subscribing to that belief ignores the fact that romantic friendships can be extremely fulfilling, enlightening, and straight-up fun. Of course, I’m not dismissing the benefits of committed, long-term, loving relationships. But both dynamics are valuable in their own right. And perhaps the reason romantic friendships are often so sustainable is they lack the soul-baring vulnerability and intense emotional investment.Maybe the coolest thing about the fuck-buddy economy is that it allows women to actually enjoy sex in a casual way, without having to enter an old-fashioned ownership contract. It celebrates female sexual autonomy. It’s a chance to explore ourselves and other people. And in the interim, we can discover who we are and what we like, instead of committing to a pseudo-marriage we aren’t ready for.

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