Everybody wants to believe that they can be in a “no strings attached” situation without catching feelings, but it rarely works for most people. We are not the emotional savages we pretend to be on social media. Tucking feelings isn't something that's easy to do. Most have psyched themselves into thinking they have it mastered only to later find driblets of feelings have slipped through the filter. Even the coldest of individuals are capable of falling victim to “feelings” at some point. Honestly, it’s okay to admit that "friends with benefits" is not the life for you. This list should help you do just that. Here are 4 understandable reasons why women are terrible at being in "no strings attached" situations.
SOCIETAL PRESSURE
Yea, I said it… societal pressure. It’s weird how pushing women to get married and settle down is a dominant social construct. On the flip side, the bachelor-for-life mantra is pushed just as hard. Who are the heterosexual women supposed to marry then? With this being in place, whenever a woman does anything contrary to the marriage and family narrative, everything and everyone questions it—applying pressure for her to conform. This is another reason why women engage is so much social media posting about relationships. We are trained to "prove" how much someone loves us openly. That makes it rather difficult to maintain a no-strings attitude when everyone literally expects you to want/demand more.
WE’RE TERRITORIAL
While men may be competitive with one another, we tend to take it to another level. We may be fine with the no strings situation if we never know of another woman in the picture. If there is another woman, we can’t help but try to compete. Once you start competing, the “strings” start to appear. We would literally have to be okay with sharing a man. When you put it like that… it’s a hearty “no thanks”.
WE LIKE EXCLUSIVITY
Similar to the previous point, we don’t want to feel like someone else has the exact same thing we have. No woman wants to go to an event and see someone wearing the same thing as her. It’s the same across the board. We don’t want a man that is giving someone else the same attention and treatment that we receive-- period. There’s nothing special about that! It’s rare that we deny exclusivity and a no-strings situation does just that!
EMOTIONS
I was gonna shirk this one because women are always painted out to be an emotional wreck, but we tend to connect physical acts with emotions. While there are several men that are crybabies (yea, I said it), they have the ability to detach a little more than women. When something makes us feel good, we start to connect positive emotions to it and seek it more often. Every time we need stress relief we go to a salon/spa or something that we have made a positive emotional association with. The same happens in a no-strings situation. We begin to default to it for stress relief, etc. creating emotional dependency. This then positions the situation as a “need” and not just a fun time.
While I’m sure I could drum up more reasons why no-strings just doesn’t work for us women, these reasons are evidence enough. Denial is rich on this topic, but good emotional health is acknowledging your weaknesses and being proactive in avoiding situations that highlight them. No-strings is more of a selfish concept and women tend to fall victim to it while hoping to maintain some form of physical attention. The best thing to do if you MUST try it out, is to know these 4 things going into it.
