The day after hooking up with a good friend we met for a beer at our normal spot. We chit-chatted a bit but obviously there was a tension between us, and I could tell she was feeling vulnerable and scared of possibly being used. I knew I had to clear the air but didn't know how. In a low point of the conversation I just blurted out "So... what do you think?". She looks at me all blank and says "What do I think about what?" Shit. I hoped she would lead the conversation. Despite broaching the subject I'm a pussy at heart, so I say "Uh, you know, uh, how about last night?" Now I see she knows what topic I'm on but she has that face like "he's going to start bragging", so I jump in with "I mean that was really fun but I've heard horror stories about friends cracking apart from hooking up. I never fucked a friend before so... " She looks relieved. She says "Yeah, I've heard that too". I guess I look vulnerable too so she adds "it was fun though." Two awkward minutes pass while we're both like "yeah...uh...so", and finally I say "it would be cool... with me... if we could hook up sometimes without altering our normal style. I don't know if that's possible or what." She says "yeah I don't really want to change things or get all clingy on you." Clingy! Up until now we had a very bro-style, beer drinking, insult trading, almost brotherly sort of relationship. We drank homemade wine from a plastic bottle under a bridge. It hadn't crossed my mind that she could be the clingy type. She was looking at me sort of skeptically - I saw that she didn't want me to get clingy and was just trying to avoid the insult! I tried to put her mind at ease. "No, fuck no, we're just both single right now but we're both on the lookout. I'm not looking to get tied to you." She says "No, of course not, I don't want to have any expectations, either." Finally I realized that, out of the two of us, she was worried that it would be me with the problematic emotions. So I lean back, kind of wave off the whole topic, and say "well it was fun one time, we were both drunk, water under the bridge." She nods. "Maybe when we're drunk it's ok".