Facebook friends with benefits

What's with all the hookups on Facebook? There are fan pages and blogs devoted to the FB hookup. What is a hookup? Hanging out, making out, or a one-night stand? And why is it all centering around Facebook?

It seems that reconnecting with your old pals from high school has turned into high school drama all over again. It's been a LONG time since I was in high school. I had drama. Heck, I generated drama. My besties (see, I'm reverting to HS and FB language in this post already) and I were hellions. I'm gonna have to leave it at that, but if you knew me, you know what I'm talking about. But when we graduated, we left behind the drama of our teens and moved on the drama of our twenties. The drama changed from which kegger to go to and what guys were gonna be there, to not being able to pay the rent and getting fired from jobs. I will admit that as I get older, the thought of a do-over in HS is a very intriguing thought. If I knew then what I know now, hilarious is what HS would have been.

So T and I were talking about how FB is changing our social connections - sounds so intellectual when I put it that way - when she admitted that she has over 300 friends. A lot of them are from high school. And men. They seem to raid each other's friend lists looking for potential hookups. She gets men-requests daily. Sometimes multiples. Which in itself must be somewhat empowering. Of course, T is this gorgeous woman, all legs and big hair. And a smooth forehead {ha!}.

They strike up a private chat with her and try to get her to go have “coffee”. Un huh, right. One guy was at least honest, “T, you seem like you could use a massage, let’s do a tandem one and afterward, I’ll take you to dinner…” Now, I’m not saying T is naïve, but she really thought the massage was legit. Of course, it was inevitable she’d finally accept an invitation for “coffee.” Hey, is a suddenly single girl after 40 expected to do otherwise?

So she met up with an old HS friend she found attractive and it was mutual. One flick of her big locks and one flutter of her lashes did him in. They decided to be Facebook-Friends-With-Benefits. It was casual and fun. Until it was no longer casual and fun…

Apparently Mr. FBFWB decided it was a little more serious than she did and began texting her and calling her, and posting on his wall a lot. This was the equivalent to passing notes in study hall and whispering loudly by the lockers about the hookup. Not ok. Back in your late teens you could have casual sex with a friend and leave it there. Today in your 40s that just aint so. The only benefit to a FBFWB is that you're getting a hookup in the first place. The downside is that at our age, there is no free lunch. You gonna play, you gonna pay. When Mr. FBFWB began stalking her wall, she had to cut him loose. No more wall contact, no more skin contact. She'll miss those benefits, but they were really outside the policy she purchased...(insurance humor!)

High school romance is best left for the tweens and teens – and they recover faster from an all night kegger. T sticks to men she meets at gas stations now. Especially that one that looks like Jason Aldean...