When I say, “Friends with benefits,” what comes to mind?
For quite a few of you, I’m sure there’s a voice inside your head screaming “DANGER!” and with good reason. Friends with benefits situations are definitely dangerous. Not in the you-could-die sense of the word, but certainly in the you-could-get-really-hurt sense.
A few months ago, I had been strongly considering getting myself into a “friend with benefits” scenario. I did the normal girl thing and talked to my friends about it, and just about all of them said the same thing: “DON’T DO IT.”
In a way, it was kind of sweet they all said that, because really they were just trying to look out for their friend — or make sure I didn’t get any – but I doubt it’s the latter. Being as stubborn as I am, I didn’t listen to them and did it anyway.
A lot of you are probably thinking this ended horribly – those kinds of thing never work out the way you plan them, someone always gets hurt. And you would all be wrong. To borrow a line from He’s Just Not That Into You, I must be the exception to the rule. At least, in this particular case, I was an anomaly.
The guy in question is no longer a friend with benefits, but he is however, still a friend. Our arrangement came to an end on its own and it wasn’t because someone got feelings, or because it was getting too hard to handle (that’s what she said), it was actually a matter of scheduling and not having enough time to see each other.
Now I know, contrary to popular belief, it is possible to have a successful friends with benefits relationship, but it’s not always going to work out like mine did. It took me a long time to agree to even go ahead with our, what I called, “adult arrangement.” I took the summer to really think about how it could change things and decided our friendship would be fine.
I wouldn’t recommend taking these kinds of things light-heartedly unless you really don’t care about a lost friendship. In my situation we had been friends for four years, we trusted each other, we were attracted to each other, and neither of us was getting much of a certain kind of desired attention. It turned out to be a “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” kind of thing and we were very open with one another.
As in every kind of relationship, communication is beyond important. If you’re going to give FWB a try, you have to understand that as soon as you get feelings or have doubts, you need to talk about it, no matter how awkward it may be.
That open flow of communication may be the thing that saves you from complete and total heartbreak. Because let’s face it: FWBs have a reputation for turning sour and breaking hearts. With that said, when it works out it certainly is wonderfully convenient. All I’m saying is don’t rule friends with benefits out as a definite impossibility.
