Friends with benefits: Two friends who have a sexual relationship without being emotionally involved. Typically two good friends who have casual sex without a monogamous relationship or any kind of commitment. – Source, Urban Dictionary.

About a year and a half ago, a close friend of mine started on a ‘friends with benefits’ journey with a member of the female persuasion. A nice diversion from his ongoing chase of another girl, and an easy ‘go-to’ for – well, you know. The girl in question seemed on board with the agreement. And to his defense, he was always very up front about what ‘it’ was – and what it wasn’t.

Well, he never got that other girl. But a year later, he’s deeply in love – with the ‘benefits buddy;’ his girlfriend.

Is his situation normal? No. Not even close, in fact. And here’s why.

You see, in a friends with benefits situation, someone almost always has feelings going in, or develops them rather quickly once the ‘agreement’ takes on life. The notion that we can separate our emotions from our sextivities (go ahead, you can use it) is a bit shortsighted. Just ask anyone who had a friend with benefits, and ask them why it ended. Most of the time, it’s because one of the participants started asking the ‘what are we?’ question.

And to the person who ends up asking ‘what are we?’, remember this – there’s a reason you aren’t more than what you are; the other person doesn’t see you that way.

Look, on paper, it’s awesome. Just like Communism and government. Theoretically, it makes a lot of sense. You’re not seeing anyone, he/she isn’t seeing anyone and you both have natural, sexually driven desires. So how about teaming up and get that taken care of?

But just as in Communism and government, logic doesn’t always pan out in reality. The heart has its own agenda and the genitals have theirs. If they were both on the same page, for both of you, then you’d have never agreed to being ‘friends with benefits’ in the first place.

So go ahead; label your fun as ‘no strings attached,’ but know full well what you’re (literally and figuratively) getting in to. For one half, the risk might be worth it. But for the other half, it ends with a bruised ego. Or some good old fashioned heart break.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 22nd, 2013 at 3:16 pm and is filed under Columns, Just Blogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.