Should you have sex with no strings with someone who is in love with you? Is that fuck even possible?

What if you have had really clear conversations about how you feel and where you are in your life? What if you have told her a hundred times that you really care for her, that you love spending Law & Order evenings with her, that, though the sex with her reduces you to babbling, you are not in love with her — you do not see babies and porches and wedding rings in California? In short, I love the way you eat my twat, but what the fuck? You are like my vibrator. You help me get off really well, but I do not want to introduce you to my father. I really only want to be friends with you.

Having been on both sides of this travesty, I must confess that neither of the positions makes me come (cheap pun) to any place of good feeling. When I am being dumped, or rejected, or plain told that I am just an effective booty call, I ache as much as when I have to deliver the confounded speech.

Being the tellee is hard on the ego. You have to sit there and grin and listen to some fine-ass specimen of lesbian genius (because I only date smart women) saying she doesn’t want you to take her to Paris for the weekend, or Rome for the summer, or even Huntington, West Virginia for the day. You inhale her perfume, or her pheromones — you gasp at the way the fine hairs curl seductive at her temples, you take in her made-for-fucking fingers and something inside you shrivels and rots and dies.

You want to beg her, ask her if things could change with time. You want to offer her every dime in your wallet, in your bank account, to make her see what a HUGE mistake she is making by passing you up. You want to wrestle her to the ground and rip her panties off, you want to enter her in places you know would make her reconsider, but you do have some pride. Plus, you are a feminist and you really struggle with the wrestling her to the ground issue, because if she says no, you would have to stop, and that may be a little awkward with her panties in your hand. So you suck up your pleading inclinations and say you understand. And when she asks if you can still be friends, your voice goes up seven pitches higher and you say, “Sure, I would love to have you in my life — as a friend! Of course, I’m cool with that! Yeah. We should definitely remain best friends for life.”

But inside you are plotting how to best make her regret her stupid and uninformed decision. She really does not know what she is missing. You dress up. You dress down. You sleep with her sister. You flirt with her aunt. But you still cannot get her attention.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the tracks, the teller has to seek the fine balance of compassion and firm resolve. Never mind that the little twit can eat a pussy like nobody’s business. Never mind that she makes more money that the idiot you are attracted to. Never mind that she has her own high-rise apartment in the city. Never mind that she speaks three languages and gets along with your mother who is the biggest homophobe in the world. Never mind that your friends say you are a fool for dumping her. She just does not have that thing that makes you want to spend your life with her. And every time you get your period, you wish she would get shingles and die. So you invite her over and make her a wonderful dinner. Never mind how pleased she is that you made her a home-cooked meal. You press ahead with telling her that it is over.

It’s not that you are not perfect. You are. It’s really not you. It’s me. I just have some issues to look at before I can take on more than a sexual interaction. Please, please don’t cry. Oh, I thought you were crying. I would still love to have you in my life as a friend — no, not a friend, we’re more like family, you and I.

Things settle and brew. Feelings are contained, and friendships are maintained. Then somebody has a bad day. And Wham Bam! You end up in your apartment together. Three bottles of Trader Joe’s Cab-Sauv later, you are neck deep in her cunt, she is elbow deep in your vagina and you are both in deep shit. The next morning, nothing is said. But she ends up spending the next five months in your bed. And soon, the cycle of the teller breaking the heart of the tellee has to be replayed again.

So, no. Don’t fuck her if she’s in love with you. And if you do and you actually ever find the balls to leave her, make sure you do not revisit the space. It never ends well.

Are there other similar scenarios out there?