Have you ever used anyone?

Using people in my experience is mostly because the 'victim' gives somebody the opportunity, either through unquestioning devotion or a strong crush or some vague hope of professional advancement, to take advantage of their offer without any commitment on their part. It's never particularly ill-meaning on the part of the 'user' and part of the blame in my mind will always fall on the 'usee' for not having the guts to demand a straight answer.

Anyway.

--Kate

Kate is being hard on herself here, perhaps, but that's the way I'd see it too. She knew it wasn't going anywhere but let herself get hurt anyway. I'm sure a lot of us have done that. I think maybe Millar is mainly right.

They should sleep together if they both want to and are both mature enough to cope with a casual relationship.

A should not sleep with B if A thinks that B will get clingy. B will get upset. A will be hassled. I wouldn't necessarily say that A is using B(if they were to have sex) but I would say that A is a fool if A sleeps with B knowing that B will want more than sex.

But in the course of this thread - which I did not start, and which has happened while I have been offline - *I* feel incredibly used.

It's one thing to post an example of your own life which you wish discuss. It is quite another to start picking apart another person's life without their knowledge or consent.

maria speaks the truth. is a casual relationship just 2 pople using one another? are 2 poeple who are using one another for something other than sex in a relationship?

if it makes kate happy we can use an example from my life.

That *is* cynical. Is it not possible that both people can exchange things freely, and then accept only what is given rather than just trying to take whatever it is that they need?

I do apologise for making any judgements about your actions Kate - it's not my business. It'd have been a lot easier if I hadn't heard the story at all.

Like... *you* obviously have something on your mind, but you don't have the guts to open up your own life to discussion, so you exploit me. The difference may seem miniscule, and it may even seem hypocritical, but it bothers me.

Anyway, for *MY* take on it, I have to say that Horton and I both used each other. What bothered me wasn't him using me for sex when I clearly wanted more - that is just the way the battle of the sexes works and has always worked. Men portraying women as trying to entrap them into relationships with sex and all that crap. That was a very definite "you pays yer money, you takes yer chances on the ride" situation - both of us knew the score, and both of us were playing our own games.

The using that really bothered both of us was the careerist stuff. Him using me to get press for his band. *AND* me using him as emotional grist for my creative mill. I think ultimately, that's one of the things that bothered him - me writing songs about him, and the raw emotional honesty with which I portrayed him in the article were things he was not prepared for, and I think *he* felt slightly used.

I don't know. These are things I'd like to talk to him about, but it doesn't seem likely.

There is sometimes an emotional equivalent of "The first one's free" drug dealer scenario. Who is the victim there? The person going "Oh, go ahead, use me" or the person getting seduced into addiction by a nefarious person with an ulterior motive?

Regarding our hypothetical friends A and B above, it should be noted that B is "using" A for companionship (or attempting to at any rate)just as much as A is "using" B for sex.

But really, what human relationship, sexual or otherwise, is entered into without one or both parties hoping to get something out of it?

laugh i guess