Friends Without Benefits

In which The Author makes a late new year's resolution

A few days before Xmas, Rhian, Steff and I were in Thereisnospoon when the subject – for some unknown reason – turned to the fact that I've been de facto single since March 2001. Rhian, of course, was there when the whole Oz Girl situation imploded a few months later (see From a Land Down Under). Steff was't.

Since then, my 'romantic life' (*snort*) has consisted of a brief unconsummated dalliance with Jenny, unrequitable one-way love affairs with a Dippy Bint and a Nigerian Princess, two 'dates' with a born-again God-botherer and drug casualty, an online relationship with a Russian chick who may or may not have been Russian (or a chick) at all, a couple of drunken flirtations with a beautiful and kinky single mother, and a few snogs with a woman my age for whom the phrase 'as mad as a box of frogs' seems sadly inadequate. I'm not necessarily listing them in the right order …

Steff wondered why I hadn't invested more into furthering any of these potential relationships. I told her I really didn't have the time or energy to spare.

The way I look at it, it's rather like (not) learning to drive.

Learning to drive takes ages, costs a small fortune, and – unless you're in a well-paid job or drive a company car – simply adds another financial black hole to your personal universe. Into that bottomless pit of tax, MOT, running costs, insurance, repair bills, parking charges, and so forth, you watch every single spare penny of your income drain away just as surely as Manic Monday follows Silly Sunday.

Even if you can afford to run a vehicle, your social life suffers; you can't have a pint whenever the mood takes you, because that precious licence depends on your continued sobriety. As well as being the designated driver on days out, you become the unofficial taxi service for family and friends, constantly on call for hospital appointments and so forth.

I didn't go any further down that road after failing my driving test in 1983. Sometimes – about once a decade – I wish I had. The Nigerian Princess said she'd love to see the Gower Peninsula, with its spectacular beaches, quaint buildings and mysterious ruined castles, before she went home.

I replied, 'I'd love to take you there, babe. But on public transport, by the time we got there it would be time to come back again.'

Which leads neatly to my next point. Not learning to drive forces you into the grip of private companies like Arriva Trains Fails Wales, Stagecoach and First Group, or transport authorities such as TfL. You're constrained to go wherever they go, and forced to rely on the oldest form of transport known to our species if you want to go further afield. If you need to travel off the beaten track, or at short notice, or outside the normal operating hours, you are (to borrow a technical term from the urban planning industry) fucked to buggery and back.

But you learn to live with it. My other blog Is Your Journey Really Necessary? came about because of the frustrations of living in a place where, as far as the Powers That Be are concerned, nothing whatsoever happens after 6.00 p.m. or at weekends. Yes, it's annoying when there's something happening in Cardiff – which you simply can't get home from. It's even more infuriating when there's something happening in Swansea – which you simply can't get to in the first place.

After a couple of decades, you begin to realise why most people in Aberdare perceive a universe that's bounded by the corner shop, the pub, the local playing field, the betting shop and the takeaway. You try telling them that twenty miles away there are interesting shops, and a whole range of pubs and clubs and restaurants, and cinemas and shows and gigs and plays and museums and galleries and talks and meetings and all manner of events going on seven nights a week, pretty much the whole year … And after a few minutes, you realise that they're about to phone the police to report an escapee from a locked psychiatric ward. This world you're describing is as alien and unfamiliar as any SF scenario dreamt up by the masters of the genre. They can't even begin to imagine living in that world.

In essence, that's pretty much what I've done with regards to 'matters of the heart' over the past sixteen years or so. I've cut myself off from that world, and no longer take any interest when other people talk about their visits there. When I see my friends pair off, settle down, and start a family, naturally I'm pleased for them. Who wouldn't be? For Goddess's sake, we need some genetic variation in the system simply to fight a rearguard action against the fuckwits.

But I really can't visualise myself in that situation. If it was going to happen at all, it would have happened twenty years ago. It didn't. It's a virtual simulation of a world that simply isn't real for me.

Which puts me in an interesting position, as Steff found out when she pressed me on the subject that evening.

'Not even a one night stand?'

'No.'

'Fuck buddies?'

'No.'

'Friends with benefits?'

'No – plenty of friends on benefits, but that's as far as it goes.'

I only found out the meaning of the term 'friends with benefits' a few years ago. I'd probably overheard it in conversation, but – as with Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, and so forth – I'd assumed it was some sort of yoof cult thing. Maybe a weird hybrid of a popular US sitcom starring Jennifer Aniston and a Channel 4 exposé of dole fiddlers. How the fuck was I to know it was an actual thing?

But it turned out to be an actual thing.

As far as I can tell, friends with benefits are people of the opposite sex (usually) who occasionally exchange bodily fluids, but with no commitment to a proper relationship and no intention to embark on one. I don't think I know any people who are in that situation. I expect if I paid more attention to the ongoing soap opera Life in Aberdare, I'd find a few people sitting not too far away from where I am now who fall into that category.

But I'm not interested in other people's lives. I'm not in a position to offer a shoulder to cry on when it comes to fucked-up sex lives. Whenever Rhian and Steff have an argument, I'm the one they turn to for advice. Goddess alone knows why. It's hardly my area of expertise. I can help people out with their English grammar and spelling, but why bother asking me about anything else? It's a bit like consulting King Herod for childcare tips.

Fuck buddies are even more mysterious than friends with benefits. I don't even know whether fuck buddies are supposed to be friends, or whether their sexual encounters are as transient as the mating of foxes along the banks of the river. The whole fuck buddy phenomenon seems to be another manifestation of the sex-obsessed culture we've built for children over three decades of music videos, easy access to online pornography (in spite of what the ISPs say), the wide availability of fairly effective contraception (not that everyone uses it), and the general I Want It All And I Want It Now mentality we've been instilling in society since I was a teenager.

I know a number of people who fall into this category whenever they're with the opposite sex. (Or maybe not even the opposite sex – this is Aberdare, remember, where most young people seem content to fuck pretty much anyone.) In fact, I think I was out with one of them on Thursday night.

Oh yes, my friend Barry Normal's summary of The Incredible Vanishing Girl 2 turned out to be amazingly accurate – especially the last bit.

The text I'd been expecting (from a number not in my contacts list) arrived at about 2.30, asking me if I fancied going to the Lighthouse in the evening. In the event, Chazza arrived at Thereisnospoon only about half an hour late. We had a bite to eat, chatted about the latest development in her romantic roller-coaster ride, and then went over the road in time for karaoke.

Phillip was there, naturally, but Clare was at home nursing a cold. The place filled up slowly before Tara arrived to set up her gear, but then the snow started. At first it didn't look as if it would come to much, but by about 9.30 p.m. it was piling down. Tara lives in Tonyrefail, two mountains away. Deb the barbint lives in Maerdy, only one mountain away, but still impossible to get to if the roads are closed. It looked as if the evening was going to be cut off in its prime.

Before we baled out, Chazza had made a point of showing off her latest new phone – not the one she'd had for Xmas, apparently, but a more recent acquisition again – to everyone in the pub. A gang of lads in their twenties had come in – trendy haircuts, beards, beauty products, off-the-shelf 'designer' clothes, cutting-edge gadgets – and Chazza had latched on to them straight away. After taking selfies with them all, she spilled half a pint of beer and decided she wanted to move on to the Bush.

I wasn't keen on the idea from the outset. As I've said previously, there's too much testosterone and way too much white powder in the place for my tastes. But we haven't sung together for ages, so I agreed to call in for just the one. We were in Commercial Street when Chazza spotted two youngsters she knows, one male and one female, ducking into a doorway out of the snow. From what I gathered from the brief conversation, the girl had been involved in a fight in the Bush – I wasn't really listening – and the police were going to get involved and someone's father was coming up to sort things out (know what I mean?) and there was a restraining order in the mix somewhere …

I had a brief flashback to the drug-addled lowlife I met in Aberdare Library five years or so ago (see Not Born Beautiful), so I made my excuses and left. I told Chazza I was going to the Prince for a pint, and that I might see her later on. She started arguing, but I told her I was too old to get involved in an Excerpt From a Post-Teenage Soap Opera.

I left them to it and finished the night in the Prince. It was quiet, unsurprisingly, and Chazza and I had a brief argument online about the way the night had panned out yet again before my battery died. At one point she asked me how she was expected to get home if the snow kept falling.

I replied, 'Same way I am – walking.'

When the snow falls, there are precious few taxis on the road. When two people are heading in opposite directions, trying to share one is a waste of time.

Then the Incredible Vanishing Girl 2 vanished once again. I thought I saw her walking past the window a little while later, but if it was her she didn't call in. Since then, nothing. As usual. Did she go home on her own? Who knows? I certainly did.

Just the day before, I'd been crashed out of bed by Clare, who was trying to smash my front door down at 7.27 a.m. A couple of days ago she'd told Gareth that it was over between them. Even though they'd never been 'a couple' (according to her, anyway), he was fine as a fuck buddy for a little while. Once the novelty wore off, she fell back to Plan A: Good Old Steve. She wasn't feeling particularly well, and she'd had an argument with her family, so she'd left the house at the crack of dawn and landed outside the only place where someone might be awake. I wasn't feeling particularly well-disposed towards her after she'd launched into what sounded like a fucking police raid, but apparently she'd tried ringing me beforehand. My phone doesn't stay on overnight. Now you know why.

After breakfast in Thereisnospoon we caught a train into Cardiff, and went for a walk around the bay to blow the cobwebs away. We crossed the barrage, and I texted Rowland to see if he could recommend a decent pub in Penarth – or, even better, join us for a pint. We walked into Penarth, visited the town's eight (or possibly nine) charity shops, and had a quick catch-up with Rowland before we all caught the bus back to Cardiff. Clare and I went to the cinema, then called into the Rummer for a pint before she decided to head home. I stayed in town for the duration, but I didn't miss a great deal again.

While we were walking around the bay, I wanted a photo of us against a strange alien landscape which the wind and water had carved out of the shoreline. Luckily for us, we met a couple from Tyntetown who were happy to help us out. It was especially breezy on Wednesday, as you can see.

Now, bear in mind that we're just friends. Clare made that perfectly clear a couple of months ago, remember. However, the number of people in Aberdare who think we're seeing each other continues to grow. I don't know how many times since October that Clare and I – or both of us – have been asked if we're an item. People have even started saying things like 'See you, both' when we leave the pub. It's a bit like that running joke in Torchwood: Children of Earth, where Ianto has to tell Jack every time someone sees through the facade and realises they're a couple.

But look at the photo again.

I know she's much younger than me, but most people don't believe how old I really am anyway. Check out the way we're dressed. To all intents and purposes we look as though we're together, don't we? It even looks as though we're holding hands. (We weren't, of course. It was blowing a gale, so Clare kept her hands inside her sleeves.) And – most importantly – neither of us would ever feature in a glamour magazine, never mind a porn shoot.

As I've said before, Clare's an attractive girl, but she certainly isn't the prototype for the Robert Silverberg 'Caliban'-style clones walking around Aberdare every weekend. With her black leggings, black top, black jacket, slightly spiky dyed hair and unusual tastes in music, she's certainly far closer to my type than the rest of the Thereisnospoon/ Rasputin's/ Judges crowd. In fact, before we set off for Cardiff she asked if I could lend her a collar for the day. She didn't put it on until we got to Thereisnospoon in Penarth, but then she wore it quite happily for the rest of the day, and all day on Friday as well. We even found a pair of lace gloves online, which I gave her yesterday as a late Xmas present. When we walked into the Cambrian last night, with Clare going more Goth than usual, everyone assumed that we'd finally bitten the bullet and decided to make it official.

On the way there, we laughed about the number of times we've had to disabuse people of that idea. The last time it happened was in Thereisnospoon on Saturday afternoon. (It still wasn't as funny as a woman in the Lighthouse over Xmas asking me if she was my daughter.) I teased her that maybe we should start saying 'yes' whenever anyone asks us if we're an item. She thought it might be a good idea as well.

Then, of course, we got to the Bonki – where Gareth was DJ'ing – and things changed. Even though she'd said she only wanted to go up there for karaoke, I knew that she was really still hung up on her latest fuck buddy.

In fact, on Thursday night, she'd texted me (when I was in the Prince on my own) to say Gareth was on his way into town.

'Why should I care?' I texted back. 'He's your fuck buddy, not mine.'

A few minutes later she told me he wasn't her fuck buddy any more.

But we still had to haul ass to the fucking Bonki on Friday night, simply so she could sit in the corner with me and smile knowingly at her non-fuck buddy while he tended to the sound system. Then she took a phone call from a 'friend' (with or without benefits, I’m not sure) in Pontypridd, whom she'd met for lunch in the afternoon. She spent about an hour talking to him while I sat there like a spare part at an orgy, and then wondered why I couldn't be bothered to get involved with the karaoke.

We went out for a pint on Saturday afternoon as well, but as soon as we were in a pub with WiFi, she spent the rest of the time on her phone, messaging a string of 'friends' on dating/chat sites. You can probably understand why I'm starting to get a bit pissed off with the entire situation.

Clare's certainly the nearest I've come to meeting a girl who's my type for a number of years. We get on well, we make each other laugh, and we enjoy spending time together. We like the same sort of style, and everyone thinks we would work well together. But – as I said in You Don't Know What You've Got Till It's Gone – I can't possibly compete with the endless parade of tattooed chavs vying for her attention whenever she's connected to the Internet. She's got this idealised picture in her mind of her 'perfect man', and she's not going to be happy until she meets him.

The fact that he's a former rock star who would be about my age now (always assuming he's still alive) doesn't enter into it. Similarly, I could decide to stay single until the remote possibility that Clara from Doctor Who walked into the pub and fell head over heels for me. It's as likely a scenario as Clare's ideal bloke deciding to pop in to the pub for karaoke on a Thursday, after all.

It's slightly different with Chazza, who (in spite of being all loved up) chases anything with an X chromosome when she's pissed. It's sex addiction, pure and simple. I wouldn't dream of giving some random stranger my phone number – much less adding them on Facebook. I don't accept friend requests from people I might know, much less from friends of friends whom I've never met and probably never will.
On the other hand, As far as young people are concerned, simply brushing against someone in a shop doorway is enough to elevate them to instant 'friend' status. I've got about five hundred friends on Facebook, only about half a dozen of whom I've yet to meet in the flesh. Kids have thousands of 'friends' online, and they wonder why they get into scrapes all the time.
(Incidentally, shortly after I'd posted this entry I read this story on the Daily Mirror website: Teenage girl found dead 20 minutes after being reported missing 'had gone to meet man she met online'. Go figure …)

Here's my reading of the situation. Most of the guys these girls – and others – meet online are just looking for another fuck buddy, in the guise of offering true love to a gullible female who's never experienced true love before and who keeps getting short-changed as a result. Then we (i.e. men in general) have to put up with the constant barrage of misandrist memes posted by silly bints who've allowed themselves to get hurt in return for a quick fuck behind Judges at stupid o'clock on a Saturday morning.

In the early hours of that very Saturday morning, I logged into Facebook from the warmth of my bed – with no random bint snoring beside me – and posted the following status:

In an alternative universe not recorded in the Bible, the Garden of Eden scene ended differently. God came to Adam while he was on his deathbed, and said, 'Adam, I created woman from your rib, to be your helpmate and companion, so that the two of you would populate the world. Now you're about to die, and there's still no patter of tiny feet. That didn't go according to plan.'

And Adam replied, 'Lord, you have only yourself to blame. If you hadn't created mobile phones and equipped the garden with free Wifi, I might have had a shot with Eve. Instead, she's spent the last eight hundred years blogging, updating her Facebook status, playing Candy Crush, and posting selfies on Instagram - "Do these fig leaves make my bum look big?" and so forth. I never stood a chance.'

And on Saturday morning I commented on it myself:

Incidentally, Eve's only Facebook friend was this serpent she'd met randomly one day, and she still had a crush on him. She only ever liked Adam as a friend.

When Clare left the Lighthouse just before 6.30 p.m. on Saturday night – going home, apparently – she said, 'See you Monday?'

'Yeah, probably,' I said.

But there's no guarantee I'll see her today.

There's no guarantee I'll even be available to take a message from her. Or from Chazza, for that matter. It's the next stage of Project No More Mr Nice Guy. Progress report to follow …