Welcome to dating review, the online site where we give you trusted reviews of the best online dating websites. Today I am going to be focusing on casual dating, and how it can potentially transform your life. I am going to be covering the basics of what it is, to bring any of you new comers up to speed. I will talk about how it works. I will then focus on what it can do for your life. How it can really make things better for you in ways that you may not have considered. I will conclude by summing up the pro’s and con’s, and by arguing that if you haven’t tried it and you are single, then you should. Casual dating is something that everyone can benefit from.
What is standard dating?
The easiest way to understand what casual dating is, is to start with what it is not, which is standard dating. So standard dating is where you date someone, and if you see them for more than 2 or 3 dates, there is an understanding that you stop dating other people. The dating is also with the view to something long term. You are enjoying the moment, but if you felt that there was nothing in it for the future you would say so and end the dating process.
Where standard or “normal” dating hit issues
People have been dating normally for a long time in this way, and there is nothing wrong with it at all. As long as both parties are on the same page, with the same understanding, all is well. The major problem came when people wanted different things. What if one person was just wanting to have fun in the moment with no long-term intentions, but someone else was very committed to the long term? The issue here was as this was the only way to date, the person wanting something casual had nowhere else to turn, no other arena in which to “play”. This was a huge problem for both sides. The person seeking something for fun only was forced to still date under the old rules, and thus the person looking in the long term ended up with someone incompatible. This is where casual dating was born to rescue both parties.
What is casual dating?
Casual dating is where there is an understanding that both of you are there for fun, without a commitment to the long term. You are both adults, with adult needs, and you want to fulfil those needs. Casual dating allows people to come together under this understanding, clearing up any confusion that was causing people pain or hurt, and helping people to find like-minded individuals to hook up with.
Some basic terminology
The language has evolved. Here are the main terms you will come across, defined:
- Fuck buddy – someone that you are having sex with, but nothing more. Often, there is not even any dating as such, you go straight to the bedroom every time.
- Friends with benefits – this grew out of having a friend, and agreeing to sleep with each other as part of the friendship. This often ends when one person finds someone to date, when someone gets too attached causing a break up, or occasionally it ends because they fall in love and get married. It does happen!
- Hook up – this is most used when you sleep with someone when you meet them for the first time. It also extends to having a hook up person, which is someone you can booty call (see below).
- Booty call – when you phone someone to come over to yours explicitly for sex, and nothing else.
How can it help you?
The primary reason people reach for casual dating is because they want to have sex. That is their aim, goal or purpose, and so causal dating focuses on this as the reason. This means that when you meet up with someone for a causal date, you both know that the reason you are there is because you are looking for sex. This means that rather than spend the time working out if you can have meaningful conversations for 25 years, you focus on deciding if you want to sleep with the person.
So causal dating can help you get laid quickly. It can help you get back on the circuit. That is the reason that people casual date. However, what they get out of it is so much more. It can transform your life in so many ways as a result of its nature.
Helping you get back on your feet after a messy break up
Break ups are hard at the best of times, but messy break ups are the worst. They can leave you cripples and stilted for years later. The only way out is to “get over it” which is easier said than done. Casual dating can provide a much needed slave for the pain and the hurt, helping you to return back to the person that you were before it all started.
Casual dating does this, by allowing you to hook up (see definitions above) with someone without having be fully yourself again first. It also means you can be honest about who you are and where you are in life. The other person is not looking for a long-term relationship, so they really don’t care about whether you are in a healthy place to commit – they don’t want the commitment! The best way to get over someone is to get under someone. Sex with someone else always helps to reset the clock and the internal feelings. Casual dating is perfect for this, as it allows you to sleep with someone without the pretence. I highly recommend it for anyone that has just come out of a difficult sexual partnership. It will transform you into a new you!
Casual dating keeps the sex great - even a year on
In a more standard “dating” set up, the pressure is on you to perform, regardless if you are the girl or the guy. You are also looking for more than just sex, so if the other stuff is going well, you are encouraged to not question the sex as much as it is only a part of the whole. With Casual Dating, the sex is the primary purpose. You are there to sleep with each other first, and everything else is ancillary to that. This places the sex as the pryamry objective. If that is not good, the dating will end pretty quickly. This has a couple of key effects on the situation:
- Motivation to be good in bed is high
- Motivation to be good in bed remains high for the entire length of the dating. You never find the person “phoning it is” even after a year or more of having sex.
- Motivation to make an effort around the sex is high – doing things like massages, or other creative foreplay.
- Motivation to make an effort remains high for the entire length of the “dating” – so you will still find that the person is coming up with new sexual tricks and games even after a year or more has gone by.
Is this sounding attractive to you yet, because it does to me! In addition to the above, one of the key things that it encourages, is sexual honesty.
Sexual honesty
This is something that can be surprisingly hard to come by. I have spoken to people in more normal dating environments who have *never* told their partners about some of their fantasies. This appals me, because in a monogamous relationship, your partner is the only person that you can sleep with. This means that if you do not tell them about it, then you will never have a chance to fulfil that, leaving you sexually unsatisfied. I believe in trying to live your dreams, but you can only do that with honesty, something that is often in short supply in a standard relationship. So how does casual dating fit into this?
In a casual dating environment, you are much more likely to be honest. You move to the sex at the start of the “relationship”. If it does not go well, you are never going to see the person ever again, so you may as well be honest about what you want, and how you are feeling.
Sex is also considered extremely normal when casual dating, it is why you are there, and so it often comes up in conversation early on. This allows people to quickly eliminate anyone who is clearly sexually incompatible with them. It means that should anything ever grow into something more permanent, you can be sure that the person that you are with is someone that you are going to be capable of having a long term sexual relationship with that is truly fulfilling. If the sex doesn’t work, if the chemistry isn’t right, then you are off the hook before it even starts, before any level of emotional commitment or bonding begins to develop.
There are some key areas that this honesty will transform your sex life. I would like to address each one in turn.
Honesty that makes them you their perfect sex slave, and them yours.
If you want to be good at something, the only way to do it, is to do it, a lot. If you want to get great at something, the way to do it is to get feedback and refine your technique over time. When you have sexual honesty, you can tell the person exactly what is working for you and what is not. Even better, you can direct the other person to improve their technique too. This means that over time, you both become the perfect lovers for the other person. You become a sex god, and they your goddess. The other way to phrase it is that they become your perfect whore, able to please you in ways that only a professional should be able to. They become your personal, professional, hareem girl/guy. It is a wonderful thing to have, and so few people get to have it, despite how achievable it is.
Live your sexual fantasies
Most people have sexual fantasies. Many of them are formed when we are quite young, and they come from our experiences during puberty. They are from the films we watched, the stories we read, the tales that we were told of from other people’s conquests. We don’t really choose them, they seem to develop over time – though we do have a choice as to what we decide to indulge and what we don’t. A sexual fantasy can grow to epic proportions if we enjoy it, and allow it to grow in our imaginations into something bigger than that which is started out as. To give you a sense of it, here are some examples of common sexual fantasies:
- Sex with a stranger. This is extremely common, and can easily be filled through casual dating start. Stating it on your profile might even attract someone with the same fantasy, allowing you to both fulfil it, without ever saying a word to each other in person if arranged right.
- Sex in a lift. I am not sure where this came from, but it is now a fantasy shared by a fair few people.
- Sex in a church, temple, or other “holy” place.
- Sex outdoors.
- Sex in the office, either their own desk, or sometimes over their bosses desk. This comes from the list of general workplace fantasies that include sex with the boss, secretary, DHL delivery person, client or even job applicant.
- Rape fantasy. This is much more prevalent than you might think, so much so that it is considered very normal. Please note, this is not actually a desire to actually be rapped or rape someone, but a fantasy about having it happen. So a desire to create it is exactly that, playing at it, but not doing it for real.
- Sex with an employment type. This includes sex with a nurse, doctor, teacher, fireman, plumber, tv repair man… the list is pretty endless here, and will continue to be added to for as long as new job types are being created.
Fantasies are exactly that – made up imagined scenarios. Quite often people wouldn’t actually want to go ahead with the reality of the fantasy, as the reality is not congruent with the fantasy at all. The rape fantasist doesn’t actually want to get rapped, any more than someone really wants to have sex with a job applicant at their company… they just like the idea of playing it out. Like it is a film, scripted, set up, with a strong level of consent running underneath all of it. That is what they want.
You have a chance to fulfil your fantasies through casual dating
For many people their sexual fantasies remain just that, a fantasy. However, is this out of choice, or is it out of lack of options? If you are in a monogamous long term relationship, you may not have the courage to be able to ask your partner, or the dynamic to raise these things. Even if you do, there is a strong chance that your partner may not up for doing it with you. At this point you are stuck. You are never going to have a chance to fulfil your sexual fantasies.
With casual dating, this is simply not the case. The sexual honesty that we spoke about earlier means that you can discuss it. They ae motivated to help you be sexually satisfied because the sex is the primary reason that you are both there, and even if they are not up for it, you can simply find someone that is. You are not tied in. I wonder how much of them understanding and knowing this plays into their continued motivation to stretch out of their comfort zone with things like this? I suspect it may be a critical factor.
What if you fantasy involves more than one person? This would simply be off the table completely in a monogamous relationship. However, in a casual relationship, nothing is off the table. You could find someone else who wants a threesome, then message some people online that you like the look of that are looking for the same thing. Before you know it, you are living the dream and fulfilling your fantasies.
If your fantasy is at all obscure or off the track, the best thing to do if put it on your profile. Other people searching for someone with the same desires will quickly find it, and then you can live out your fantasies together. It is the ultimate win-win, and it could transform your life.
Fetishes
Fetishes are similar to fantasies in many ways. The way the word fetishes is used in modern language crosses over with the word fantasy, in that the word is misused a lot. A fetish, is generally a fixation on an object or a part of the body, for example feet would be a foot fetish. This has been expanded quite a lot. To give you a sense of it, here are some examples of some types of fetishes that exist currently:
- Foot fetishes. People perform acts known as “feet worshiping”, and find pictures of feet a real turn on. This has in the modern age been expanded to high heels as well.
- Being filmed. The addition of the smart phone has made this very easy, and had popularised it as more people have a go at trying it. Interestingly, it is the filming of it that is the turn on. The watching back tends to leave people disappointed as it is filmed in an ameture style, and we would compare it to a professionally filmed sex scene from a film. Naturally the playback never lives up, but the act of filming it is really fun.
- BDSM. This is now openly popular, though I think it may have always been popular. Playing with status roles, and having someone be the dominant person actively is something that many people enjoy. The inclusion of things like rope play, gagging the person, or restraining the person in another way like the use of handcuffs, are all modern fetishes.
- Latex, rubber and leather. Again I am not sure the roots of this, but it is certainly a fetish. The extreme end of this is where you have people in full latex gimp outfits… but it doesn’t have to be taken this far at all. Many people simply enjoy their partner being dressed in that style, and find it a turn on. There are certain advantages, it is very “wipe clean.”
- Spanking or being spanked. This is a very popular one, and has its roots in both psychology and physiology. Mentally it arises all sorts of emotions, from being spanked as a child (if you were), through to the heavy power play that being spanked can cause. Strong emotion is keenly tied into your sexual experience, so something that brings out a strong emotion is something that can be a powerful sexual tool. Spanking is definitely one of these. Physically, it is also thought to help arose the area by brining blood flowing into the region that is an erogenous zone.
- Cross dressing for a lot of people is a fantasy that sits firmly in the fetish area. This can be for both men and women, though it does seem that it is more about the men dressing as women than the other way around.
- Watersports. This is when you pee on your partner. I have never met someone as of yet who has this as a fetish, so I have yet to have it explained to me. I can confirm that some people love it.
- Swinging. Switching partners is a fetish. This is very easy to achieve on the casual dating circuit but is not done formally. Casual dating has eliminated the need for this to a degree, as you are welcome to have sex with more than one partner without the need to have to “swap” with someone else to make it legitimate.
- Exhibitionism. This is similar to sex outdoors, but it is a little more. With sex outside, it could take place somewhere private, with little or no threat of being caught. With exhibitionism there has to be a display element. They want to be on show. This happens a lot at fetish clubs, where people will go and have sex in a place where other people are eager to watch.
If you have a fetish, then casual dating can really save you from having to hide or repress it. You can easily find someone that shares the same fetish to you, then explore it to your hearts content. If you have a strong fetish and you supress it, you will never have the chance to be sexually satisfied, not really, and you know it. So it is worth making the effort. Get out there and find the ying to your yang, and be happy. Remember, they will be as happy to have found you, as you will be to have found them.
Casual dating and confidence
Confidence in life is so important. A study at Goldsmiths University in London, by psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzicm, found that confidence plays a bigger factor than raw intelligence. It was less about what IQ you have, and more about your confidence in your own ability to perform and deliver, which also correlated to your ability to knuckle down and do the prep work that was going to make you successful. Your sex life directly effects your confidence levels. The more you having sex, the greater your self-esteem, and thus the higher your confidence levels. This has a knock on effect to other areas of your life:
- Your work life. Greater confidence means putting yourself out there more, taking the initiative, meeting clients and winning more work. Ultimately it means performing better, which in turn will lead to you making more money, which leads to greater confidence. It is a self-fulfilling prophesy once it has started, so have sex and get that started now.
- Your home life. Being able to take control of your personal life and make the things that you want to happen, really happen. That is what greater confidence will give you. The ability to book that holiday that you have really wanted, to take that evening class, to join that club. Whatever it is, the extra confidence from getting regular sex from a friend with benefits could push you past the tipping point.
- Casual dating is really fun, and will take up your time. This reduces time you have for your other fiends, forcing you to evaluate who is really important in your life. If you only have time to see 50% of your mates, are you going to see the ones that are pessimistic, miserable and drain your energy? Or are you going to let these people drift out from your life due to lack of time, thus making your own life better? Remember, your increased confidence also helps you to realise that you don’t need such people in your life anyway. They are a drain, they are not good for you.
- Casual dating can also give you access to a new social network. If the person you are seeing takes you out with some of her friends, you have suddenly doubled the size of your friendship circle. This again compounds the confidence, as you use the extra boost to meet other people and talk to strangers more.
I have known people to quit jobs and find better paid ones at more grateful companies. I have seen someone make a career change. I even know someone who emigrated out the country like they always dreamed about, but hadn’t had the courage to do so until they started casual dating.
Casual dating can really transform the way that you view yourself and the people around you, helping you to make your own life a better place to live in!
Monogamy and casual dating
The generally accepted approach to dating is that past an unspecified number of dates, you stop dating other people. Certainly when you start to sleep with someone, there is an expectation of monogamy. With casually dating, this can be the case if you want it, but it is not mandatory. It is not an iron clad expectation. You have a choice about whether you want to become monogamous or not. As this remains open to discussion, if you do want to carry on dating other people, you can do this.
What this allows, if for you to sleep with someone whilst still being open to other people. As you are not closing any doors, it lowers the expectation from the person you are sleeping with. They do not have to be “your all”. They do not have to fill every gap in your life, and the wonderful thing is that the same is true for you. If you don’t want to go to that concert that you would find tedious and boring, don’t go. If spending an evening with her friends seems like torture, you don’t have to do. It allows you both to lead your lives the way that you would like to. It also has certain ancillary virtues, that I would like to talk about now.
Improve your sexual prowess
Your sexual prowess will increase due to a few factors. The feedback is honest, and we discussed this in length above. In addition to this:
- You can try new things with different people. Every different person will bring something different to the table. They will all have different likes, wants and desires. They will have different tastes and fantasies, allowing you to experience a full range of sexual experiences. The greater the breadth of your experiences, the better you will become in bed, as the range of what you can draw on increases.
- It allows you to take risks in the bedroom. When you are dating casually, you are expected to take more risks with the other person and be forgiven for any errors. Even if you are not, it is casual anyway, so it doesn’t matter. The consequences are so much lower, so you really can afford to not play it safe, to push the boat out and try something that may fail, but has the potential to be awesome. Greatest never came from being safe.
- They will bring new things to the table you can retain. Be it a new technique, a new idea, or even the introduction of a sex toy! The best way to learn a new sexual position is to try it with someone. Once you have learnt it, forever more will you be able to do it in that way. Great, right?
Help you work out what you want – by comparison
Part of our issue is that we don’t know what we want from someone. So many people end up in unhealthy relationships because they began them when young, they had no idea what they wanted. With casual dating, you can refine your tastes by comparison. How do you know that chocolate ice cream is your favourite if you have never tried the other flavours? You can’t know. Casual dating will allow you explore full everything that is on offer, and lead you to finding your perfect partner in the long term, if that is your goal. It will transform the rest of your life as it helps shape your sexual choices, allowing you to have a more discerning nature as you find your partners.
Help you locate your exact market value in the sexual market place
This is something that no one likes to think about, but we all have a “value” in the sexual market place. Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie can date almost anyone they like, their sexual market place value is so high. The only way to work out who you “can” date, is by putting yourself out there and finding out. Casual dating is the best way of doing this. You put yourself on the market, date multiple people, and find out for yourself.
More sex is good for you
This is worth a quick mention, though I don’t want to dwell on it. You will have more sex when casual dating, and that is just straight up good for you. Sex helps with:
- Calorie burning. It takes energy and using the body, it is a form of a work out.
- Healthy hormones are released whenever you have sex. This has a positive effect on your immune system, raising your ability to fight infection. It also can stave off depression, lack of motivation and other states of being that ultimately make your life worse!
- Happiness. Sex makes you happier. What is not to love?
Fits into a busy life
Many of us don’t have time for extensive dating. Casual dating can fit into a busy lifestyle, transforming your sexless life from lack of time, into one where you can have your cake and eat it.
Destroy neediness through abundance
One of the greatest attraction killers is a sense of neediness. Let’s look at job interviews. If you are desperate for a job, if you really need it and are begging, no one will give it to you. Neediness destroys the appearance of being a winner, and we like to be around winners no whiners. The same is true when dating. However, when you are dating a lot of people, or when you have several potential people that you might date, the feeling of neediness goes away. You no longer feel it, so you are more attractive to other people. Destroying a sense of neediness is one of the big ups of casual dating.
Casual dating – just do it!
If you haven’t done it before, I am telling you now, just do it. Casual dating is one of the best things out there if you are single. It can still lead on to something long term, but without the pressure of standard dating. It makes you happier, healthier, better in bed, and ultimately will make you more attractive to the opposite sex. It really can transform your life. Get involved.