Booty Calls, Friends With Benefits, One Night Stands and Other Modern Relationships

So its 6am, you open your eyes. Your head hurts. You look around at strange surroundings and start to remember where you are and how you got there. You turn over to see what’s lying next to you. Do you feel pride or shame? Were they better looking in the dark? What was the name? You creep out of bed, searching for your underwear, you arrange your disheveled self as best you can. You long for the comfort and familiarity of your own bathroom, wishing you carried a toothbrush, but the best you can do is chewing gum! You take a last look. Do you wake him/her? Do you leave a note? Perhaps you choose to tip toe out as quietly as you can, trying not to trip on the carpet or bump into anything on your way out. Ready for the walk of shame, you make your exit.

The elevator arrives at the lobby and you realize that you do not even know the floor or the suite number from where you just came (Just in case you forgot something). You avoid the knowing stare from the concierge as you escape into the early morning air. You walk the street hoping to catch a cab and get back to your life as fast as you can. You see a man coming out of a building wearing the rumpled tuxedo he wore last night. So you’re not the only one. Where was he? What was his night like? You keep walking. Hopefully your experience was worth the awkwardness you now feel.

New York, more than any other city in the country, and perhaps the world, is a place where people come for their careers and where we live to work rather than work to live. The decadent 80s and 90s have come and gone. Hell’s kitchen is spotless and Times Square now resembles Disneyland but its hypocrisy. We are just as deviant as ever before, just in the closet and on the internet.

We don’t necessarily want or are able to devote the time and commitment to build normal, traditional long term, monogamous relationships. The rules dictated by conservative patriarchies are no longer sufficient for the majority So we leave ourselves open to a brave new world of possibilities without adhering to certain principles set up by previous generations.

More than anything, communication is key. If we are honest with one another, the margin to hurt each other is diminished. Let’s clarify some of the categories before we continue.

Friends with Benefits – You are actually friends with this person. This is the person you might have sushi, chit chat with, gossip about your lives and the moment of silence before you get it on is less awkward than usual.

The One Night Stand – This is the person that you met last night that you know you will never see again.

A Booty Call – It’s like a long term one night stand. You can call them in the middle of the night to relieve your urges and they will provide. But you won’t chit chat or gossip, you’ll just get it on.

Modern intimate relationships in the city can be tricky, confusing and frustrating.

The goal here is to set up some modern protocol so that these relationships can continue with greater understanding and pleasure. There are open relationships, affairs and polyamory that run the gamut of arrangements. It is important, whatever the relationship, to be honest and open about the expectations, limits and boundaries. Occasionally, these relationships can progress into something more serious, but don’t bet on it. Just because these trysts are nontraditional, does not mean we can’t take a few examples from codes of chivalry as models to follow. Here are a few of them that I feel still make sense.

Know their name, address and phone number. (I suggest checking that the number works before running off into the night with that person.)

Use a condom! Safe is polite!

Leave a woman a little better than when you found her. This can mean happier, satisfied, fed, hydrated, etc.

When leaving a woman, make sure you give her the twenty to forty dollars necessary for her safe passage back to wherever in a taxi.

When in your presence make sure that your companion is not hungry or thirsty. If they are, remedy that immediately.

I still expect men to open doors, pick up tabs and give their arm when walking down the street.

Do not make silly promises or fill their ears with words of love that are not true.

Be kind, open and honest; it will help keep you human and make the experience, whatever it is, better for the both of you.

Make no mistake, I’m not passing any judgments here. I’m simply trying to set up some polite guidelines for the world of modern sexual encounters.

For the city that never sleeps, here’s to happy bedfellows!