Can I go from being friends with benefits to just friends—more like a dependable older-brother figure?
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I’ve been friends with benefits with a man about 12 years older than me for around two years. We first met through a papa-katsu app, and I initially received money from him, but eventually we started going on regular dates and staying at hotels together. We had feelings for each other, and he even confessed his feelings to me, but I turned him down because of our age difference and because he strongly wanted children. I continued seeing him casually. I was also seeing a few other men through papa-katsu, and partly because I felt guilty about that, I didn’t want to be tied down as his girlfriend.
However, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started thinking about marriage and would like to have a serious relationship with marriage in mind. In my current situation, I don’t even feel like getting a boyfriend, so I want to end the physical side of our relationship.
That said, I’d feel lonely if we completely cut ties. He’s also very capable in his work, so honestly, I’d still like to be able to ask him for advice when I’m having trouble and meet up just to talk. There’s no formal agreement, but I think he treats me as his girlfriend.
It’s difficult to bring this up, but what should I do?
👤Asked byGuest👩GenderFemale🎂Not stated👑Universe female member
Please just read this as the ramblings of an old guy and let them wash over you.
I’m completely putting myself on a pedestal here, but I suspect that most of the girls asking questions on this site are brain-dead people who can only think for about 15 seconds at a time. I’d also like to secretly prove the law that the speed at which someone takes off her panties is proportional to the speed at which she stops thinking.
Putting that aside, it seems to me that the questioner’s intentions and those of her sex friend are completely mismatched. She wants him to become an older-brother figure to her, but naturally, the sex friend probably doesn’t want her to become anything remotely like a younger sister to him.
Generally speaking, asymmetrical relationships aren’t beautiful, and they violate Kepler’s third law and the law of conservation of mass. In my opinion, the solution is for the questioner to realize that her request is a self-serving proposal that ignores the other person’s wishes, and then communicate it to him anyway. Don’t immediately decide, “That’s absolutely impossible.” Try experimenting with various approaches. You might be able to pull it off.
What troubled Kepler to the very end was that, since everything was God’s creation, the sun should naturally be no exception, and its orbit ought to be a perfect circle—yet his calculations stubbornly kept producing an ellipse. Kepler considered the circle the ultimate form of beauty, but his artist wife insisted that “the ellipse is the ultimate shape.”
Oh, that’s completely beside the point. (Kyohei)
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Becoming friends with a friend-with-benefits… brings back memories.
She brought it up when I was at the absolute height of my excitement, and I ended up crying my eyes out in a love hotel. That was already four years ago.
She’s married now and has had a child. We’re still friends, though. Well, there was one little incident once, haha. That brings back memories too.
Even now, she still uses me whenever it suits her, but I’m honestly fine with that. It feels comfortable somehow, so I’m all for arrangements like this.
That said, she once told me that men like me are pretty rare, so I think it ultimately depends on the guy.
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Thank you for your question. I’ll share my thoughts as well.
> There’s no explicit agreement between us, but I feel like he treats me as his girlfriend.
So, you’ve started wanting a serious relationship, perhaps with marriage in mind, and you feel that this man treats you as his girlfriend. But because you don’t like the fact that he’s twelve years older than you, you don’t want to marry him.
And yet, you still want him to listen to your problems—in other words, you want to use him without being used yourself.
Well, if he finds you attractive, he might continue listening to your problems even without a physical relationship. But after reading this, I can’t help feeling that you’re only thinking about yourself.
> What should I do?
I think it would be best for his sake to end things properly, while cherishing the time you’ve spent together as a good memory.
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UC isn’t a matchmaking club, so it’s best to keep marriage hunting and papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan) completely separate.
That said, if you want to end the physical relationship with this particular man but still have him listen to your concerns and meet up to chat, then you should at least split the dinner bill—or, if you’re the one asking him for advice, you should probably pay for both of you.
I mean, isn’t that only fair? If you want him to do you a favor—sorry, that sounds like a terrible way to put it, but I can’t think of anything else—without anything physical involved, that is.
As Akari suggested, why not be completely honest with him? Say something like: “I can’t see you as a potential marriage partner. But I respect you as a man and as a person, and I’d still love to learn from you, since I’m still immature in many ways. Would you please continue meeting me for meals and conversation? I’ll pay the bill!”
I don’t think many men would take offense at being told that. If a female member said something like that to me, I’d probably be happy to agree, depending on who she was. (Though I’m married, so it’s physically impossible for me to bring up marriage with a female UC member—unless I became seriously fed up with my wife and started genuinely considering divorce.)
If he’s truly a big-hearted papa (a male supporter) with plenty of financial and emotional room to spare, he might even say, “No, I’ll keep paying for the meals like before,” or, at the very least, “Splitting the bill is fine.”
Be honest with him. If he blows up or gets angry, then accept that he’s simply that kind of person and move on.
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I don’t think of her as my girlfriend at all, but I’d really like us to have that kind of relationship right now. It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, though（笑）
Men and women can be so complicated, can’t they?（笑）
I’m an old man, too, so I’m easily persuaded and just keep getting swept along. Today I had a chance to go into town, and I messaged her, “Even when I see young women walking by, I realize I don’t feel anything toward them.” She replied, “Thank you!”
Am I spoiling her a little too much and putting her on too much of a pedestal?
Ahaha（笑）
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I think it would be a good idea to tell him that you’d like the relationship to be one where you can talk things over when you’re having a hard time, meet up, and chat.
If a man has feelings for you and considers you important and needed, he may continue seeing you even if the physical side of the relationship ends. It’s also possible for him to keep seeing a woman after breaking up with her. Men generally have a harder time switching gears or letting go than women do.
If the time comes when you want to resume the physical relationship, you can talk about it then, and it may be possible to rekindle it.
Men’s way of thinking is often almost the opposite of women’s, so I think you should try talking to him without overthinking it.
I also think it depends on how much you need, respect, and rely on him.
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He sees you as his girlfriend.
You don’t want intimacy, and you don’t want him as your boyfriend, but you do want to be able to rely on him.
Put into words, it does sound very self-centered.
Still, I think it depends on the person, so perhaps all you can do is be honest with him and see how he responds.
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You might move beyond being friends-with-benefits, but that would only happen naturally if things happened to develop that way. One person’s wishes alone can’t make it happen.
Why not be honest about what you want and tell them, even if you don’t expect much?
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