FWB ghosted me

Mandy, I agree with you. I think with the relationship you have developed including the friendship prior, the respectful and courteous thing to do toward someone you care about is communicate with them, regardless of what he is going through.

Ladies, just because a woman chooses to have sex with a man does not mean she can’t expect respectful treatment. Seems like double standards where I see women on this forum in an uproar over a how disrespectful a man is for ghosting after a date. A woman having no strings attached by her choice does not make her less than. Of course she deserves to be treated with respect and common courtesy.

I am sorry Mandy you are hurting. I hope you get resolution for yourself as quickly as possible.

Hi-2 brief comments from a 60 year old. Women who sign up for friends with benefits often do themselves a dis-service. No strings sex and friendship is fine,if you can understand that that is all it is-I find it sad that people settle for so little and then are hurt when they need and want more. Personally, I know I could never choose that “half relationship”. Ladies,know yourselves and then you may avoid pain that comes from making choices that will not benefit
you.
About Lane-ladies,young ladies (I am guessing)-Lane illustrates what a balanced life and healthy self esteem look like. You could learn from her if you stopped acting snarky and sounding jealous ( because what else would you be bothered). She has created her life and is happy. ALL YOU NAYSAYERS HAVE THE SAME OPPORTUNITIES TO DO THE SAME.

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This hijacked thread has exposed a pretty interesting dynamic.

Just an overview:
It is not some unknown secret people have strong reactions to things they identify with that have affected them personally – whether that is directed at an OP or afterward to a respondent of the OP’s post.
Seeing examples of those things through someone else’s words sets off that feeling of needing to right whatever they may see as wrong. Often, this isn’t done in the most civilized way and derails to where the original point is still there but buried under insults, sarcasm, and accusations. It’s called emotions and we all have individual stories for what motivates them.

Is it any wonder romantic relationships have so many issues when communication can take such a bad turn?

Opinion – for what it is worth:
It would be pretty boring if all that was said to an OP was, “Talk to so and so.” People write to forums to get advice. With that said, some “advisors” (This is across the board, myself included. This is NOT directed at any one person!) can present their opinion as fact, when in reality, it is only opinion. This “fact”, when put forward without temperance, can often be presented in a negative, dismissive, and biased way. Look, I’m not saying to intentionally sugarcoat things but if anyone really want to be of service – truly think about what an OP is saying before flying off with remarks that may be more about you than them.

“First, do no harm.”

I apologize Emma as your post wasn’t clear as to “who” and interpreted incorrectly.

The mentality comes down to how one is able to “communicate” about difficult subjects. Its a very difficult conversation to have where even if you put it softly or gently “its not you, its me…” its still interpreted that they must have done or said something wrong and if knew what that was, they could change or fix it. The problem is, the lady (or man) is still left in “limbo” whether one has that conversation or not because they’ve developed this ‘fantasy’ in their mind and try to unravel it by going over every conversations, action, date, and time they spent together to pinpoint what it which keeps them stuck v. ACCEPTING the man simply doesn’t want to date, see or have sex with you anymore.

When I initially started to do the online dating thing I began to hate having those convo’s because even if I tried to do it in a gentle way not all of them took it graciously and I was forced to ‘cut them off’ anyway. It really is case-by-case where in most cases we both had no desire to continue and was relieved they didn’t ask me out again as I just accepted he was looking for something else. It’s the bad experiences that makes you very jittery about communicating v. walking away (bouncing) If you know their going to take it badly (needy/clingy types) its best to avoid it because they draw it out, keep asking ‘why” to the point you end up getting harsh or mean with them and find its best to pull out so you can avoid that ugly argument.

Online dating has created this new dating landscape. Both men and woman now do it with A SWIPE so you can’t blame humans for following current technology protocols and norms where you can delete, remove, block or stop engaging with people by simply pushing a button.

I think a lot of men want to avoid drama, so they rather disappear without a word.

If one makes an appointment to have their windshield repaired, or their carpet cleaned, and the person doing the work doesn’t show up, we get mad, right? How dare they leave us hanging?!?

If we’re going to insist on communication when dealing with strangers, I think expecting communication with someone who is definitely NOT a stranger is even more important.

Yes, we older ladies tend to come off like “we know”. And that’s because we’ve quite often been through this stuff multiple times and have a good idea as to where it leads. We’re not perfect – we’ve made those mistakes, had our hearts stomped on, and have slowly (hopefully) learned some lessons along the way.

Times have indeed changed – the idea of “casually hooking up” back when I was young meant someone was just a down-and-out SLUT. Women were expected to NOT give up the booty unless the guy was something special, and if they did they were vilified. Nowadays, there are constant arguments about whether oral sex should even be counted as “sex” (and old fashioned me, I can’t imagine anything more intimate than having someone’s MOUTH on your naughty bits). And the idea of hooking up has become commonplace.

I am guilty of judging women who settle for FWB – because to me, sex is an intimate act that can result in children or disease, and ought not be used as a fun-time toy. It is emotionally fraught for most women, and we tend to catch feelings when we indulge in it. So take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Ghosting is, to me, the ultimate in rudeness. It says to a person “you’re not even worth saying goodbye to, I’m just gone.”

“Anon, who are al these people slut shaming?”

It happens here all the time. Basically, “you weren’t worthy of being treated with respect because you opened your legs too early”. Read back thru these posts and how many blame her behavior for his lack of respectful behavior.

Obviously, a lot goes into creating a relationship; most dating falls short of that. Women should be able to expect being treated with courtesy when the dating isn’t going to be a relationship. Whether or not she had sex shouldn’t factor into that at all.

If both women and men wind up attaching absolutely NO emotional importance to the sex act, then we can say goodbye to the nuclear family unit. And I don’t know that that’s a good move for society. The freedom to play at whatever we want with no consequences is, in my humblest of opinions, just as bad as not having freedom at all.

Some things are MEANT to be serious and important. But thanks to the instant gratification we expect from internet, cell phones, and instant messaging, nothing is truly worth waiting for any more.

If you give someone something for free (for example, giving a teenager a car when they get their license), they don’t take care of it as well as they would if they paid for it themselves. In other words, its VALUE is less in their eyes because they aren’t invested.

Car = relationship. Give it away for free, it has no value.

“If both women and men wind up attaching absolutely NO emotional importance to the sex act, then we can say goodbye to the nuclear family unit. And I don’t know that that’s a good move for society. The freedom to play at whatever we want with no consequences is, in my humblest of opinions, just as bad as not having freedom at all.”

Well, we as a society, in the US, have made having a traditional family into a giant economic burden where both parents MUST work, and created basically bad conditions for women who now must mother and bring in a paycheck, which means she can’t care for the man. So men are understandably weary about starting families, and women are increasingly trying to find the “right” time, which turns out to be never.

What Amy said. Totally agree.

Men and women have changed.

In terms of resiliance, I have to imagine that wives of soldiers who go missing or women who lose their spouses look like they are soldiering on, but are definitely feeling it. I think we still have very strong women in this country- look at all the single working mom’s whose husbands abandon them. They soldier on.

I think a big part of the pain is that a lot of people simple feel alone. If you are already feeling alone, that FWB may have really been filling a void and that player was some hope that somebody cared about you. To have them reject you without notice is far more difficult when you already feel alone vs when you have a rich roster of friends and family.

As a mid 40s woman, I’ve been trying to grow my roster of friends, and that is REALLY HARD. Harder than dating. So we live in a society where we have 1000 social media friends living their best lives, but on a given Saturday afternoon, we don’t have a friend to go get a mani/pedi with.

This is sad, but when my mom died, I posted on social media. Outside of coworkers, only 2 “friends” called me or texted me. One was a guy I was casually dating and the other was a guy I had dated in the past. I have another friend who experienced something similar.

So that said, throw in that probably a good many of these posters have very limited real life support networks and you can start to see why rejection may sting a little harder for some people than others.

According to what has been put out as being the necessary criteria required to check the boxes for life events that constitute more than silly little dating drivel, I dare say I may have been able to grab the elusive bar. As a reminder, we all know the rules – If the bar is in hand, you can’t change the apex.

I was married. My husband died instantly in a motor vehichle accident.
1. Title – wife
2. Proper relationship – marriage
3. Commitment- monogamous
4. “Real” tragedy – death with no warning
I do believe that qualifies as per the requirements set forth.

I don’t disagree there is such a thing as perspective and putting things in what is termed the proper perspective. There is also a thing called loss. The initial physiological and psychological reactions to a loss viewed as significant vary little, regardless of the level others see the loss being on. Labels don’t mean a thing at that moment.

When your body initially reacts to what is perceived as abandonment, it does not differeniate between the other person being gone from this world or gone from your world. Gone is gone. I’m not going to get into all the physical and chemical reactions that affect a person’s mental/emotional state. Go read up on them if you are so inclined.

What I will get into is that I have experienced both “gone from this world” and “gone from my world” in romantic relationships. The first few seconds of the gut punch feeling are the same along with the chemical dominoe effect throughout the body. It is only after this immediate reaction do you start to reason through the difference. There is, however, a point when the reactions in the body haven’t quite caught up with the reasoning in the mind. I’d venture to say that is when most people tell their story and ask for input.

I cannot fathom what is so difficult to understand about this and respond accordingly.
A friend who did not care for my husband said less than a month after he died, “I don’t know why you are still upset. It’s not like he was the love of your life.” (Read: Suck it up, Buttercup.)
Dismissive, presumptuous, or inappropriate comments on here are in the same vein as that – based only on the speaker’s pov with no regard for the subject. How’s that for a bit of “proper perspective”?

Resilience, in the context in which it was referenced, is the ability to recover from difficulties. Logically, in order to fulfill the definition of the term recover, there must first be something to recover from. To call an experience “nothing” and intimate it is not something to be affected by, would render the act of recovery unnecessary. Therefore, rendering the concept of resilience inapplicable to the subject.