I feel like I’ve been masquerading as someone else when I’ve really been a clown this entire time.

My insecurities led me to accept poor treatment from people. I don’t know why I thought it would be okay to allow someone who has access to my body, my time and energy—the same pass as someone who is barely an acquaintance. It made no sense until I realized that I don’t value myself enough to treat myself better. I wasn’t in a position yet to know when certain behaviors were not acceptable. I kept making excuses as though I warranted the treatment.

I sought validation from my fwb all the time, and the more time I spent with him, and wishing I was with him, the more it made me question myself. I realized that I don’t even like him! I liked the idea of the person I’ve been sleeping with being this great guy so I held onto all these little moments he showed signs of being great and ignored everything else.

Some people can get their rocks off with the same person repeatedly and not feel a need to connect with them on any other basis, but I didn’t feel comfortable with the thought when I began my search for something casual. I should have stopped it there and asked myself whether I wanted to seek out a relationship instead, because the only other option was to continue being single and pleasing myself.

I didn’t want a relationship initially because my views on relationships had been flawed. I saw them as infringing on my time and what I wanted to do. I didn’t feel ready to share myself with someone else and possibly having to change to accommodate them. This is not what a relationship should be like, but that lack of understanding led me to thinking I’d be better off with a fwb because of the lack of commitment I expected. I didn’t realize I was committing to sleeping with someone I felt comfortable with, and the only way I would feel comfortable was by being “friends”.

Thinking we’d actually work on the “friends” aspect of this arrangement left me feeling empty all of them time, and as though I was doing something wrong for caring about him. I wasn’t needy, and in fact never reached out first or made plans or introduced him to anyone, I let him do all that and yet still, the energy between us never felt comfortable to the point where I felt like we were actually friends. It made me wonder if we should date instead. Hence me wanting all this validation I mentioned earlier.

Anyway, after this deep introspection I thought about what benefits are there to him being my fwb, and honestly there are none. Maybe understanding what I want a bit better, so I’ll give it that, but beyond that there’s nothing I look forward to. So it’s time to call it quits.