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www.quora.com/How-do-I-keep-from-falling-in-love-with-my-fwb/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper
Q. How do you handle a casual sex relationship without developing feelings?
A. You don't. You can't control your feelings. Your feelings will do what they will. When I have casual sex, it's *because I don't have a strong emotional connection*, not the other way around. I don't get into a sexual relationship and then try to keep my emotions casual. I have a low emotional connection to someone with a high sexual connection, so I structure the relationship to be a casual sex one because *those ARE my feelings for them*.
Some people just seem to be wired to have their emotional connections and their sexual attractions linked in some way - either having sex causes an emotional attachment or they can't have sexual attraction without that emotional connection first (see: demisexual).
I am not one of those people. I can have sex with or without emotional attachment and I can have emotional attachment with or without sex. If I start a relationship under one premise and then discover that my feelings about the relationship fall under another premise, I discuss with my partner what our options are. If they are open to renegotiating the relationship to match, then great!
If not, I decide if it's possible for me to just have my feelings while in a relationship that doesn't match. My feelings are my own. They are not the responsibility of the other person to manage, and I do not have to act upon them. I can have whatever feelings I have, I can feel them, experience them, lean into them, and my behaviour is whatever I believe is most appropriate for the situation.
I have had romantic feelings for a number of people who did not return my feelings, so we maintained a platonic friendship for a long time. I did not pressure them to get into a different sort of relationship with me, I did not remind them of my feelings for them (thereby making them uncomfortable), I did not behave in any way other than platonically, I did not pine away for them, I did not plot or scheme to use our friendship as a vehicle to steer, convince, or "trick" them into another kind of relationship, I just felt what I felt, and I appreciated the friendship for being what it was.
Sometimes I have romantic feelings for a casual sex partner that are not compatible with remaining in a casual sex relationship, for some reason. Wanting something different from them makes what I *do* have with them feel hollow or inappropriate. When that happens, I have to end the casual relationship for my own well-being. I do not stay in a casual relationship hoping that, if I just stick around long enough and am good enough in bed, he'll eventually come around and give me the kind of relationship I'm really hoping for.
You can't control your feelings, you can only control your behaviour. You can't stop yourself from "catching" feelings, if that's just what your feelings want to be. You can reduce exposure to certain activities that might encourage emotional bonding, such as not having any in-depth conversations, not going out in public together in ways that feel like "a date", meeting at neutral locations, not meeting their parents or friends, etc.
But if your feelings are going to develop through sexual activity, there's nothing you can do about that. Have a conversation with them to see if they'd be amenable to a more emotionally intimate relationship with you if that happens.
If they are not, you choose - continue to have a sexual relationship without a reciprocal emotional attachment from them and enjoy it for what it is without pressuring, cajoling, convincing, coercing, or hoping for something "more"; or end the sexual relationship if you are not happy having one with them where they don't reciprocate your emotional attachment.
But the best way to minimize the odds of developing an emotional attachment to a casual sex partner is to not get into casual sex relationships when you have an emotional attachment to them in the first place. Get into casual sex relationships *because the feelings you have for them are casual sex feelings*. Those are legitimate feelings to have for a person.
It's not a "lack" of feelings, it's a particular type of feeling. You may still catch teh feelingz, but, for most of us, if we're capable of having that particular kind of feeling in the first place, we are less likely to be the sorts of people who develop emotional connections just because we're having sex with someone. Our sexual-attachment-without-emotional-connection-feelings are real, valid, legitimate feelings in their own right.
People who tend to develop emotional attachment through sexual relationships tend not to really feel that low-emotional-attachment-high-sexual-connection in the first place, so they are always fighting the development of what's more natural for them to feel. I don't have to fight that because I am already feeling the feelings that are appropriate for the relationship style that I'm in.
So, have the feelings first (or at least, recognize the potential of what your feelings might want to become), and then structure the relationship to accommodate. Have casual sex relationships *because you have casual sex feelings*. Trying to structure the relationship first and then force your feelings to fit the structure is often a recipe for disaster.
Q. How do you handle a casual sex relationship without developing feelings?
A. You don't. You can't control your feelings. Your feelings will do what they will. When I have casual sex, it's *because I don't have a strong emotional connection*, not the other way around. I don't get into a sexual relationship and then try to keep my emotions casual. I have a low emotional connection to someone with a high sexual connection, so I structure the relationship to be a casual sex one because *those ARE my feelings for them*.
Some people just seem to be wired to have their emotional connections and their sexual attractions linked in some way - either having sex causes an emotional attachment or they can't have sexual attraction without that emotional connection first (see: demisexual).
I am not one of those people. I can have sex with or without emotional attachment and I can have emotional attachment with or without sex. If I start a relationship under one premise and then discover that my feelings about the relationship fall under another premise, I discuss with my partner what our options are. If they are open to renegotiating the relationship to match, then great!
If not, I decide if it's possible for me to just have my feelings while in a relationship that doesn't match. My feelings are my own. They are not the responsibility of the other person to manage, and I do not have to act upon them. I can have whatever feelings I have, I can feel them, experience them, lean into them, and my behaviour is whatever I believe is most appropriate for the situation.
I have had romantic feelings for a number of people who did not return my feelings, so we maintained a platonic friendship for a long time. I did not pressure them to get into a different sort of relationship with me, I did not remind them of my feelings for them (thereby making them uncomfortable), I did not behave in any way other than platonically, I did not pine away for them, I did not plot or scheme to use our friendship as a vehicle to steer, convince, or "trick" them into another kind of relationship, I just felt what I felt, and I appreciated the friendship for being what it was.
Sometimes I have romantic feelings for a casual sex partner that are not compatible with remaining in a casual sex relationship, for some reason. Wanting something different from them makes what I *do* have with them feel hollow or inappropriate. When that happens, I have to end the casual relationship for my own well-being. I do not stay in a casual relationship hoping that, if I just stick around long enough and am good enough in bed, he'll eventually come around and give me the kind of relationship I'm really hoping for.
You can't control your feelings, you can only control your behaviour. You can't stop yourself from "catching" feelings, if that's just what your feelings want to be. You can reduce exposure to certain activities that might encourage emotional bonding, such as not having any in-depth conversations, not going out in public together in ways that feel like "a date", meeting at neutral locations, not meeting their parents or friends, etc.
But if your feelings are going to develop through sexual activity, there's nothing you can do about that. Have a conversation with them to see if they'd be amenable to a more emotionally intimate relationship with you if that happens.
If they are not, you choose - continue to have a sexual relationship without a reciprocal emotional attachment from them and enjoy it for what it is without pressuring, cajoling, convincing, coercing, or hoping for something "more"; or end the sexual relationship if you are not happy having one with them where they don't reciprocate your emotional attachment.
But the best way to minimize the odds of developing an emotional attachment to a casual sex partner is to not get into casual sex relationships when you have an emotional attachment to them in the first place. Get into casual sex relationships *because the feelings you have for them are casual sex feelings*. Those are legitimate feelings to have for a person.
It's not a "lack" of feelings, it's a particular type of feeling. You may still catch teh feelingz, but, for most of us, if we're capable of having that particular kind of feeling in the first place, we are less likely to be the sorts of people who develop emotional connections just because we're having sex with someone. Our sexual-attachment-without-emotional-connection-feelings are real, valid, legitimate feelings in their own right.
People who tend to develop emotional attachment through sexual relationships tend not to really feel that low-emotional-attachment-high-sexual-connection in the first place, so they are always fighting the development of what's more natural for them to feel. I don't have to fight that because I am already feeling the feelings that are appropriate for the relationship style that I'm in.
So, have the feelings first (or at least, recognize the potential of what your feelings might want to become), and then structure the relationship to accommodate. Have casual sex relationships *because you have casual sex feelings*. Trying to structure the relationship first and then force your feelings to fit the structure is often a recipe for disaster.
