Amateur cuddlers: Upkeep or friendships?

Runawaycuddles

My earlier post about bestie cuddles got me wondering how many of my fellow amateur cuddlers prefer to keep cuddle partners separate from the friend category, and how many of us prefer to build friendships 🤔

Personally I prefer to treat it more like a friendship where we just happen to cuddle, but for many the emphasis is more on meeting the cuddling need, and that's totally valid too.

What do you prefer?

PrettyLuv

Friendships for sure.

OhioMike

@PrettyLuv I agree 👍 I joined CC to make friends after a long marriage. When you get divorced after being married a long time you look around and realize all your friends are married and do the married group things. I was like, I gotta make new friends now. And CC has helped do just that. Cuddling is secondary for me personally. I really enjoy though getting to introduce CC members to each other! That's always a blast! 🤗

oberon

Love a good fwb. When the benefit is cuddling

BashfulLoner

I hope friends is on the table, because i mean that's part of the enjoyment. BFFs not necessary, but friendly enough to start to know each other.

pmvines

Many of my cuddle friends I don't even cuddle with but some of the time when we are together. If I'm going to spend time with you, then I have to like you as a human and have some kind of connection. Just cuddling then bye bye feels very transactional, and we are humans who need more than that to sustain an intimate relational dynamic regardless of context , otherwise we will become bored and unsatisfied with that person . We aren't mere forest creatures trying to stay warm.

KingsportCuddle

Definitely friendships, at least to some degree. I can see where some might not be looking for a new BFF, but the danger of going too far the other way is that if you completely eliminate friendship from the equation, the warm, nurturing aspect of creating human connections through platonic touch can start to feel cold, hollow, and transactional.

EDIT: Basically exactly what @pmvines said seconds before I hit "Save" LOL! 😆

SunsetSnuggles

Always friends, for me.

I've yet to meet a female enthusiast who feels otherwise (except in the opposite direction, when they're here to date, or scam).

Male enthusiasts can sometimes seem more apt to be fine with the concept of a warm body, and nothing more. No thank you, they can hire a Pro. I'm here for genuine connection.

~ Sunset Snuggles

🦄 Enthusiast 🏞 Travel Fiend 🐘 Animal Lover

Lovelight

Given its hard enough for me to find a good cuddle partner, I'm rather lucky to just get that. Though even that I've yet to get for all kinds of reasons and I'm not complaining about it, just saying what is.

Though I did use to have a friend in 7th and 8th grade who I sort of a cuddled with, we used to be quite affectionate with each other. Which was really amazing. So if I happen to find a connection like that then why not and if I also win the lottery which I never play(ed) then even better!

DaveFromSussex

Definitely friends for sure.

Hasn't exactly happened yet mind.

Lynden

The people I have cuddled with from cuddle comfort have been very friendly and I have enjoyed their company. At the end of it, it has only been transactional. They list themselves as professional to get paid, with no intention of forming any kind of friendship outside of the paid sessions.

Runawaycuddles

@KingsportCuddle & @pmvines That barrier to connection in utility based cuddles is the bit I always get stumped by when I have attempted to make it work in the past 🤔
In my experience you tend to run out of things to say so you end up repeating the same banal conversations every time because any real conversation topic leads to learning more about the other person - which builds intimacy, so interaction loses a lot of it's natural flow and it becomes difficult to fully relax.

The point is to be platonic, but I wonder how many people correlate platonic cuddling with something emotionless, cold and unfeeling, which isn't even how the pros do it 🤷🏼

I'd prefer real friendship, but I'm not in a position to be turning down the other kind. At least, not yet.

MonkeyNeedsAHug

I have bandwidth for both.

palmgk

Hopefully friends

KingsportCuddle

@Lynden & @Runawaycuddles - Those are both excellent points. And I think there's a distinction to be made between "friendly" and "friendship".

If one of the cuddlers is a pro, maybe all they're looking for is to provide a "warm body" (to quote @SunsetSnuggles) and be friendly while maintaining a discreet emotional distance. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that. After all, they may interact with a lot of people in any given week and/or may prefer to compartmentalize their cuddling as more of a business for earning income. Likewise, many people might just be happy just to get their platonic touch needs met in any capacity as @Lovelight indicated. In addition, some people have personalities where they simply prefer friendly over friendship and don't want to engage in a lot of small talk. As an introvert, I can appreciate that mindset. I find casual small talk challenging and I need to recharge my battery when in situations that require me to socialize for too long. I enjoy deep conversations. But to @Runawaycuddles point, how do you engage in anything other than banality with someone you just met? And even if you managed to, some would find deep conversations equally draining which could potentially take away from the relaxation experience.

At the same time, many who come on here are looking not to just have their physical contact needs met, but their emotional connection needs met. And while I'd doubt many people on here cuddle with the intention of hanging out with each other socially outside the context of cuddling, some degree of feeling like you're spending time with a friend is paramount for a good number of people on here.

I think a lot of it comes down to the personalities of the two people cuddling. If they're two people who under different circumstances probably wouldn't be friends, it's likely "transactional" is the best that come from a session between them. But if they have a number of things in common or have personality types that work well together, genuine friendship is much more plausible.

I think @MonkeyNeedsAHug hit the nail on the head and that there's enough bandwidth for both types of people. As long as two people have good cuddle chemistry, that's the most important thing.

Jova114

I'm here for friendships!
😁

JessieKitties

I'm open for both, why not

Bear

Ideally, I would say both. Just a regular avid cuddler. Also somebody that would be part of my social circle.

I can remember years ago when pre-Covid we were going to color parties, and sometimes the day before to the local Korean spa and sometimes cuddle in the seating area with close friends

pmvines

@Runawaycuddles it might be easier to think of it as cuddling being secondary to friendship. Most of my cuddle friends are not nearby ,so we may be chatting a year or more before actually meeting and by then we're old friends. So cuddling ends up just being a secondary activity. Even if we meet soon after we start to chat, it's still good for them to be someone you'd want to hang around and have a connection with first or comfort level .

JasonCuddles

I personally don't have a lot of extra time right now so maintaining a friendship isn't something that will work well. Actually I am not even looking for a cuddle buddy right now.... Unless they're like next door maybe. I can enjoy talking to people sometimes though.

CuddleHugs01234

I completely agree with @SunsetSnuggles.

TxTom

Cuddlers whom are also friends,
Friends with whom I also cuddle.

thawktrue2

The emotional connection...just speaking for myself.....is something that I crave just as much as the physical side. It makes me feel rejuvenated to have an actual connection. Generally I do not feel that in any shape or form. So for me this is allowing warmness in an otherwise cold place inside my life. Take nothing for granted you never know when it all goes away type of thing. It's the best thing that I can attain right now. It means something to me but I think that comes from losing everything. A genuine moment with a beautiful person's heart is at the top of the awesome list. I dunno maybe I'm just weird lol

Runawaycuddles

@KingsportCuddle Absolutely nailed it!! Nothing more to add, just to point at it and say "What they said!" ☝🏻😂

Runawaycuddles

@pmvines Agreed. For me, I care about the person first and the cuddles second, even to the point where if cuddling no longer works or fits what each of us are looking for that's completely fine by me and doesn't change the relationship on an emotional level. Cuddling is an awesome way to connect with people, but it's not just about the touch for me, it about building a connection with awesome human beings ☺️

pmvines

@Runawaycuddles I've been on road trips and vacations with friends from the site where possibly 10 to 15 percent of the time was cuddling , though there was plenty of pats and hugs in between . It's just one of the many things that I enjoy doing, and I want to have multi faceted experiences with the other person as well . More to experiencing somebody than just a shared hobby like cuddling. That being said there have also been times where I've been glued to someone for so long I forget what day it is . So it just depends on the mood and the person and what we feel like at the time. Being flexible and going with the flow.

Runawaycuddles

@thawktrue2 Absolutely. Building that connection with someone and sharing the touch based intimacy of cuddling all at once is such a beautiful experience I just don't want to have to make less beautiful by sticking to only the comforting touch side of things.

quixotic_life

Huh...??
After reading through the responses so far, I think I may have misunderstood ~ but here goes anyway...

"I prefer cuddle partners that are also my friends socially" ~ This only resonates in that I've been fortunate to see those within my cuddle circle at meet-ups, and indeed we were all social there. But as an introvert, I don't do "social" very often, and outside of this community, I tend to find most group socialization situations to be exhausting.

"I don't want cuddle partners to be involved in the rest of my life" ~ This rings true for me in that I don't really like the idea of introducing someone, who I've only really hung out with one on one/for cuddle time, to the rest of the characters and chaos in my life. I just like my ties to this community being separate from my day to day.

All that said though, other than my partner, the people I most long to cuddle with are really far away and it could be quite some time before we cross paths again. So, although I consider them friends, I wouldn't describe them as, "my friends socially".

Runawaycuddles

@quixotic_life In my view the friendship aspect can take many forms, meeting other friends of mine or theirs isn't a goal or requirement at all, it's referring to each other a friends, building that friendship between the two of you and connecting throughout and about daily life in ways that aren't available in a strictly physical cuddle interaction.

For me, I'm an introvert, which doesn't mean I hate all social interaction, just that I tend to recharge alone or with people I feel very comfortable with instead of out on the town or in big groups like extroverted people do. When I do connect with people I enjoy the time most when the conversation is meaningful and the connections are intimate and genuine. I find friendships that consist of "how's the weather/wife/kids/work, good? Great, let's do this again sometime" to be incredibly draining, not because those topics are bad ones, but because there are very strict "acceptable" things to say and they are always incredibly surface level and banal. An interaction where someone asks "How have you been?" That can only be answered properly with "I'm great!" feels completely inauthentic and rehearsed to me, and while some find that repetition calming, I find it hollow and frustrating. When I ask how someone is I actually wanna hear how they are, not just some canned, habitual response to complete an arbitrary social ritual, and that's what I mean by friendship in a social sense. It's possible to be social without breaking that typical ritualistic standard of interacting, but I don't view those relationships that can ONLY do that as friendships. 🤔

I think there's room for both and different people enjoy different things and to some a "hi" "bye" encounter is perfect, that's just not me. I prefer to go deeper and finding connections where we can both get comfortable getting to know each other. ☺️

quixotic_life

Nicely put @Runawaycuddles!!
YES ~ All of 👆 that!!