The constellation noise chimes on my phone. I roll over and stretch to read what is prompting the buzzing that woke me mid REM sleep. His name lights up my vibrating screen, and my heart skips a beat. Who am I so excited to see calling me at 2:34 am? None other than a fuck-boy.
Fuck-boys are discussed almost as much as zodiac signs today. We hear about fuck-boys acting up on Twitter, we snicker at fuck-boys during class, and most of all, we fall for fuck-boys on the reg. I don’t think I ever denied it happening to me. I don’t think I didn’t believe in them. I definitely saw them, and understood how horrible they were. But I never realized how lucky I was to refrain from falling for a fuck-boy until recently.
I guess the guys I spend my time around are pretty polite. And I hadn’t fallen for a guy since I ended things with my ex (who wasn’t even close to fuck-boy status, THANK GOD.) So I guess it was just about time. After 22 years of living fuck-boy-free, I finally endured what everyone else seems to be complaining about. I fell for a fuck-boy. And nothing was ever the same.
Everyone has casual sex today. Everyone has some sort of friends-with-benefits type of relationship at some point. While decades ago, it was taboo for women to be so open about sex, to have too much sex, and to admit how much they enjoy/want/need sex, today it is not. A guy might call a girl a slut or whore, but these words don’t mean anything to us. Girls are no longer fazed by these insults. Girls are fine with having sex with no labels, with going through a variety of guys. Girls are just as quick to have a regular drunk hookup. So what has this done to guys? The fact that women are so okay with being who they are and doing something they enjoy has ultimately made men upset, of course. Because for whatever reason, guys always need the upper hand. And sex was their upper hand, but not anymore.
In order to gain back their power, men need to make women feel terrible. They need to feel wanted because men are brats. What guys hate to admit is their love for clingy girls. Guys want attention almost as much, possibly even more than girls. But they can’t say it. Enter: fuck-boys.
So a true fuck-boy does not only fuck girls. No, that’s too simple. Instead, he’ll lead her on to think he wants more. He’ll be charming and sweet, bat his beautiful eyelashes and cuddle you really tight. He’ll ask you questions like, “Why do you only hit me up when you’re drunk?” and say things like, “You never text me during the day.” When he’s doing the exact same thing. Why? Because he wants you to start acting like you want a relationship. He wants you to think he’s interested in you like that. So you’ll drop your other hookups, decline potential partners, and dedicate all your time fantasizing about him. He gets more attention, and you never get a date. Meanwhile, he’s off kissing other girls, and you’re at home, shaving, excited to spend a night with his half-hard dick and alcoholic breath, all to Uber home early in the morning before he has work.
You’ll continue this for a few months, dry texting conversations, “wyd” text messages, and best of all, 2:00 am booty calls after a night of drinking. You’ll keep thinking he’s truly interested in you. That soon enough you’ll be in a relationship and everything will be fine. But you won’t. Fuck-boy will continue living his life for himself, he’ll continue with the mixed signals. But your heart will skip a beat every time his name pops up on your screen. Then you’ll see him kissing another girl. And your heart will break.
What the fuck happened to me? You think. You started this with zero intentions of a relationship. You were having fun; you KNEW this kid was a douchebag! How could you be so dumb?! You think. But the fuck-boy knew how to get to you. He knew how to crack your walls down so you didn’t just view him as a fuck buddy.
Acting like a fuck-boy has actually nothing to do with sex. Fuck-boys have their own issues with self-esteem and need to fill a void by getting attention and validation from girls. With every simple fuck-boy move they make and get away with, they feel better about themselves. What fuck-boys don’t realize is how this affects girls mentally. If I see my fuck-boy flirting with another girl at the bar, or in a relationship with someone new on Facebook, my first reaction is Why not me? What is wrong with me? But that’s our first problem. We blame ourselves when these boys are doing this to legit everyone. You think that maybe if you looked different or acted different he would’ve dated you. But that’s not the case. These guys cheat on every girl they date, and every girl they interact with gets played the same way.
Worse than that, after realizing a guy’s a douchebag, we think we can be the special girl that changes him. We’ll think irrationally and give so much and are willing to go crazy lengths for validation from these boys because we think we’re so close to dating them, when we aren’t a second thought in their mind. People don’t change and fuck-boys don’t discriminate. They’ll treat every girl like shit until the day they decide to get it together (if they ever do.) It doesn’t matter how pretty, smart, or talented you are, the only person a fuck-boy truly likes is himself.
