FWB

In Kindergarten, I loved to play house. We had a whole mini kitchen set-up in our classroom. Anywhere between two and ten of us would crowd next to the stove, boss one another around, and play out social dynamics that would last the rest of our childhood lives. We didn’t listen to one another, and we didn’t care. It just felt good to pretend to be whatever it was we wanted to be.

FWB* situations remind me a lot of when I used to play house. We crowd into the bed, boss one another around, don’t listen and sort of don’t care. We each close our eyes throughout the experience and imagine what we wish were the the truth: that I was her, that you gave a shit about me. It feels good to pretend to be whatever it is we want to be.

Playing pretend seems to be a vital part of actually accepting reality. Only when we embrace our inner desires – even fictitiously – are we able to see them clearly enough to recognize what they are: a wish, nothing more. One that can’t, or won’t, come true.

That sounds fatalistic. I’m certainly not suggesting Abandon all hope ye who enter. Rather, I feel like realizing a wish is just a wish is a fantastic jumping off point. As Kindergarteners, we wanted so much to be adults. But the only answer to that was to wait, to learn, to grow and to move forward. Maybe FWB situations give us the same thing. We want so much for them to be something or someone else (anyone in a FWB situation who thinks “not mine!” is fooling themselves), but the only answer is to wait, to learn, to grow and to move forward.

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*That’s “Friends With Benefits” for the non acronomyical in the room.

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