Faux Friendship Footsie

Faux Friendship Footsie is Sugar’s name for an emotionally charged relationship disguised as friendship, in which romantic desire is acknowledged but kept within rules against touching or disclosure. The phrase captures the mismatch between the label of friendship and the intimacy and expectation underneath it; Sugar’s advice is to stop sustaining that ambiguity and seek a relationship that can be openly chosen.

Meaning and Circumstances

In her reply to “The Friend,” Sugar describes the correspondent’s connection with a man who has a girlfriend as sexually repressed and mildly deceitful, closer to dry dating than ordinary friendship. The two are already having what Sugar calls an emotional affair, while avoiding the directness that would make their feelings and choices explicit. She calls their arrangement a game of faux friendship footsie: its tension depends on desire being present but not openly acted upon.

The Three Possible Paths

Sugar lays out three possible ways the situation could change. The man could end his relationship so the two could explore their feelings without deception, but the correspondent cannot control whether he does that. They could have an affair, moving beyond the emotional relationship, but Sugar notes that the correspondent has already decided against being deceptive. The remaining choice is to end the friendship because the correspondent is falling in love with someone unavailable. Sugar presents this last course as the correspondent’s own decision, rather than one contingent on the man’s actions.

Desire, Honesty, and Resolution

For Sugar, ending the connection is difficult precisely because the man seems appealing and the correspondent wants him. But wanting him is not the same as wanting a partial, hidden version of him: a friendship maintained alongside unspoken hopes and a relationship that cannot be openly pursued. Sugar argues that getting what one wants in a romantic relationship requires saying what one wants—a partner who is free to fall in love in return. The separation might prompt the man to make his own life available, or it might show that he is unwilling to pay that cost. Either outcome replaces the suspended game with clarity about what is possible.