‘Friends With Benefits’ Can Turn Out to Be Very Detrimental

What do you do when you’re single with needs?
Or when you want to go out with friends, but you need a date?

How about when someone is interested in you, but you’re not interested in them and need a decoy?
For some it’s simple: you make a quick phone call to that special someone that you can rely on to help you get the job done.

No, you’re not making a call to an escort service or looking for a hooker.
You call your “friend with benefits.”

A friend with benefits is a person that you are not exclusively dating or in a relationship with, but a friend you are able to depend on when it comes to sexual and non-sexual favors, without the emotional attachment.
But there is a good chance that this lovely friendship will be short lived.

At the start you and your friend are having a good time.
You’re going out, having fun and getting the benefits of a serious relationship, without the headache.
Everything seems perfect until the question is asked “Do you think we will ever be in a relationship for real?”

It seems like relationships like these never last because one party will eventually begin to form feelings for the other.
It’s all fun and games in the beginning and it’s easy to keep yourself from being attached to someone, but then after spending so much time with them, deeper feelings arise.

All of a sudden, you begin to feel jealous when they are seeing other people.
You want to have more of an emotional connection or you just get tired of the same old routine and want to be more than just someone to provide sexual relief. In other words, you want a relationship.

Most of the time, people think it’s the female who wants more from the relationship because women are more sensitive and want love.
Although this may be true sometimes, don’t be fooled. There are guys out there who would love to make that girl he’s been seeing  his “one and only.”

They try to accomplish this goal, but usually it just doesn’t work out. Take Richard Solomon, for example. He said,
“I thought I could sex the love into her … it didn’t work.”
“Sexing the love into” someone isn’t always going to work, no matter how amazing you are in the bedroom.

Odds are, that’s why you’re strictly friends with benefits and not in a relationship in the first place.

It’s hard not to get attached to someone that you’ve been so intimate with for a long period of time.
“Attachment always happens …. Unless, you‘re a goon and you’re having sex with more than one girl consistently,” states Christian Perry.

What most people don’t realize is, a friend with benefits relationship is exactly that: a relationship.
Most people don’t see that the boundaries they have set for this kind of relationship will not last. In the beginning, neither party seems to be jealous. They know they aren’t boyfriend and girlfriend and they know that they are free to see other people.

The thing they don’t think about is that the feelings they started with will probably change and they will grow to rely on one another and that, therefore, attachment is likely to happen.

At this point, your friend with benefits could possibly turn into your stalker. Jealous rages are not the most attractive thing. Marco Lee seemed to know quite a bit about this, stating
“I had a friend who I fooled around with from time to time, but we made it clear that we weren’t dating. She went crazy if she saw me with other girls. She started making up rumors about me and telling people that we were dating so that other girls would leave me alone. She even sent herself flowers and said they were from me. I ended up changing my number and switching out of the class I was in with her just to avoid contact.”

If you’re still daring enough to enter a friendship like this one, just be prepared for what you’re getting yourself into and don’t be surprised if the relationship starts to go sour.
Good luck loving!

Dominique C. Barchus can be reached at dominque.barchus@spartans.ut.edu