Sleeping around is great if it’s your bag - power to you and all who sail in you (while having sex). If, however, it makes you cry on the phone to me every Sunday at 3am and hate yourself - like a friend of mine - then probably check yourself before you emotionally wreck yourself.
The friend in question - let’s call her Gwendolina because you never read about girls called Gwendolina - has been single and sexually mingling since I met her at uni (we’re now both 25). At first, the anecdotes ('A Spaniard in a dungeon! Three guys in one night! The cloakroom guy at the club! The cloakroom!') were both hilarious and aspirational. I’m crap at casual sex, and she seemed really, really good at it. It made for intriguing conversation.
But then, it became apparent that such 'hilarity' came with a price. A self esteem shattering price that isn’t worth the late, relatively joyless nights and bleary mornings she spends trying to find her way home without a phone (who pauses a bang-a-thon to ask where the plug sockets are?) or any clue where she is. So, eventually, I couldn’t stand to watch it happening anymore and stuck my Friendship Oar in, and now she thinks I’m a slut-shamer. Which btw I’m really not.
Thing is, while constant shagging is all well and good, there has to be a point where you evaluate your enjoyment. Just like if you, for example, started eating broth regularly. You’re loving the broth. You’re going broth-mad. Then, there’d be a point - six years in - where you’d ask yourself, 'Oh [insert own name], am I enjoying eating broth each night, or has it started making me cry?' and you’d either respond 'Oh yeah! I keep crying! I’ll stop eating this broth!' or 'Nope, keep sluicing that brothy nectar down my neck-hole, m’lady.' If it’s the former, then action must be taken.
It’s no secret Gwendolina sleeps with guys because she’s insecure (I said 'why do you sleep with so many guys?' and she said 'I think I’m insecure'). And whilst I love her to bits, it’s recently become a lot worse: she’s moved onto guys within our social circle. The last (sex) straw was just before Christmas when she shagged a mutual friend with an adorable girlfriend of four years. Despite my rage at both of them for being so stupid, I managed to utter something remarkably supportive like 'well that’s not solely your fault, it takes two to tango' although with less cliche, because I deserve a Nobel Prize. She then put her head in her hands and whined: 'But I did it! He told me he loved her but they were arguing, and I then insisted on getting into bed with him for a cuddle and spent an hour persuading him to have sex with me even though I don’t fancy him because he was drunk and I knew he would.'
Please tell me how I should have responded to that. 'Don’t worry mate, we’ve all been there' doesn’t cut it because a) I haven’t been there. Nobody has, except his girlfriend for the last four years and b) Why would you persuade someone them to have sex with you when you don’t fancy them and are friends with their girlfriend? Instead of asking those questions, we had a drunken heart-to-heart with her crying about being a terrible person and how she needs help - and me unsuccessfully trying to explain the broth metaphor. She naturally became confused as to why I’d changed the subject to liquid-based soups, but I got there in the end
Expect then came her response: that I had 'slut shamed' her, which was insane because I’d never called her a slut or looked down on her nightly activities - I just wanted her to stop doing stuff that made her unhappy.
When she’s sleeping around, she describes it as 'acting'. Like she can, for one night, be a sexy, confident, beautiful woman rather than a waitress trying to make it as an actress - except the preamble is always better than the actual sex part. The sex part is empty, and she 'just can’t wait to get it over with and go home.' The disgust with herself sets in, usually, halfway through the actual sex and gnaws away at her for weeks afterwards; she still recoils at memories from years ago and there doesn’t seem to be a limit on the number of new memories (read: hollow sexual experiences) she’s going to rack up.
Her sex life is having other - most worrying - consequences too. Her dabblings with bulimia are way worse when she’s 'on one' (as she puts it) and she can’t go to parties unless mega-drunk for fear she’ll run into someone she’s slept with or, worse, their girlfriends. Sadly this means that when she does run into people she’s hurt, she’s always battered and liable to cause a massive scene. I’ve had to break up fights, chase her down the street, and drag her away from uninterested guys who are baffled by her drunken advances.
We haven’t spoken in a couple of weeks after she told me to get out of her house and I had to get two night buses home. It was frustrating, sure but probably for the best. She’s a good mate and it doesn’t matter if I understand it or not - it’s probably better to have a proper chat than a drunken screaming match. But now I'm stuck as to how to do that. I want to help. I want to wean her off broth and get her trying, I don’t know, stew or hotpot or something. In moderation. Not because she’s a slut, but to stop her running herself into the (sex) ground. Any advice welcome?
Follow Stevie on Twitter @5tevieM
**Picture: Rory DCS **
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.