How to Make Love to a Friend - Part Three: Agape

 

Part Three: Agape
Once you and your friend have shown each other that you are both able to handle the complete, all-inclusive version of friendship that so few ever attain, the fun can really begin. Believe me when I say that until you've made love to a friend, you've never really made love. You may have glutted yourself with one-night stands or marital bliss till it came out your nose, but you've never made love like this before.

At this stage it's crucial to be as clear and as deliberate as possible with your friend so that no mixed signals are sent in either direction. When you are in the mood for making love to your friend or not making love to them, let them know in terms that are not uncertain. One of the biggest benefits in friends with benefits is the absence of mind games. Instead of using sex as a way to secure intimacy with your partner or using friendship as a way to try to get into their pants, you now have the opportunity to  experience both friendship and sex in their pure, unadulterated forms. But it's up to you to keep it that way. Mind games are forbidden.

Although it is important to be deliberate about your actions, it's not necessary to be crass. You can demonstrate to them your intention without trying to sound like a porn star. For this third stage, once again I recommend that you both be sober and sane. Men and women alike, have some balls, and show your friend that you are not afraid to touch them with loaded fingertips, to lie with your faces close together and carry on an electric conversation laced with risque and spices.

This is the stage that will set the tone for the rest of your friendship, so be careful, and be crazy. Be what you want to be; don't hold back - that IS what friends are for. For god's sake, though, don't be timid. If you are timid, you will ruin the entire point of this proposal. You are FRIENDS. You're allowed to make a mess, break stuff, throw stuff. Do things and say things that you probably couldn't with a regular partner. Leave the lights on. Maintain complete dominance of every one of your senses for the breathtaking relish that these moments of discovering each others' final frontiers will be.

Take full advantage of the fact that this a friend with whom you are making love.

Agape is the word for unconditional love. It is a combination of all the various kinds of love mixed up together and thrown into one. It means that you love every part, parcel, and facet of your friend no matter how small or how taboo. It is simply impossible to experience this kind of love in any other kind of relationship. You can't wrap up your family in this word because there are parts of who they are and what they do behind closed doors that just gross you out. You can't plunge into this word with your spouse because you secretly hate the thought that they might ever be attracted to anyone else besides you, which is a routine part of human existence. You can't get hopelessly lost in agape with your platonic friends because you've erected a fence around essential parts of you to keep them out.

Although you may be able to tolerate every part of the other people in your life, sadly, you will probably never embrace them as the complete people that they are. In some cases, it's true, it's better not to. But when it is possible, it is paradise.

Stay tuned next Monday evening for some of the dangers of making love to a friend.


How to Make Love to a Friend is an exclusive special feature of this blog. Visit us Monday evenings for new episodes in the How to Make Love to a Friend series.

If you would like to read the other parts in this series, you can find them at the following links:
Part 1: Eros
Part 2: Philos
Part 3: Agape
Part 4: Dangers