Why it is a Bad Idea to be "Friends With Benefits"

So you are a single adult and you don't feel like staying sex deprived until you are ready to meet your next serious partner. One night stands are not really practical. You have an attractive trustworthy friend who is available for low-key sex and you're like "why not?"

I will tell you "why not?"

1. The last thing you want is unrequited feelings.

Why it is a Bad Idea to be "Friends With Benefits"

Avoid as much as you want, this is inevitable. Bad news is, it is much more likely to happen to women than to men. Ladies, our bodies produce an abundance of chemicals in anticipation of and in response to sex, creating mood-boosting properties similar to anti-depressants. These include, but aren’t limited to, oxytocin, vasopressin, and norepinephrine. And the more often we have sex with any one partner, the more of this Chemical cocktail our bodies release. And guess what? That cocktail is highly addictive.

Meaning? We get stuck on partners even when we don’t want to. While this happens to more than 3/4 women, it only happens to 1/4 men, usually inexperienced/virgin men. Worse, if you're not condom fans and he usually nuts in you, about 97% of what’s in semen isn’t sperm; it’s biochemical warfare that gets you uber-hooked on him, but doesn't do the same thing to him. For the other 3/4 Men. Their bodies produce the chemical cocktail, too, but only if they have a long lead-in before sex. Evolutionary psychologists (not me) say it’s a mechanism that protects men from investing their hearts, wallets, and parts further south in temporary women who are likely to cheat; factually, she who is Hard To Get is usually more faithful post-commitment, (according to them) so genetically, men are primed to value the chase.

So long story short, ladies, sex will make you catch feeling that your partner will not be happy with in 75% of the cases.

2. You will never communicate enough, which automatically means it will not last.

Why it is a Bad Idea to be "Friends With Benefits"

You don't want to seem vulnerable, weak. You don't talk about your link, you don't discuss your relationship. You are afraid your honesty will freak your partner out or push them away. You don't ask them to stay over although you want them to. You kinda just want to cuddle but they might misinterpret it. You don't talk openly, you supress your feelings and don't express yourself. You end up frustrated. It isn't good for your mental health.

3. By the time you start being friends with benefits, you stop being friends.

Why it is a Bad Idea to be "Friends With Benefits"

Yes it's cool at first, you hang out and laugh and be great friends and just have sex when you feel like it, but then things change. In a relationship, you are your partner's only gf/bf, they make time for you, and it is psychologically reassuring. In a friends with benefits thing, you are not your friend's only friend. Eventually, they will go and spend time with their other friends and do their thing and only hit you up when they are horny. At this point, they become your selfish fuckbuddy instead of friend, and you start feeling used, and it crashes your self-esteem, and ruins your link.

Eventually, after your thing ends, you have very little chance of re-establishing the friendship you had in the past.

4. You probably don't want the drama of an non-exclusive relationship either.

Why it is a Bad Idea to be "Friends With Benefits"

Your partner is free to see other people and so are you. You probably don't want to ask them to avoid seeming desperate but you have high risk of catching an STD when you are in a non-exclusive relationship. Let's not imagine the dramatic question of "whose baby could this be?". Yup it happened before. It could happen to you too.

5. You deserve better than that.

Why it is a Bad Idea to be "Friends With Benefits"

Yes. you deserve better than a person who is not willing to make the slightest effort for your wellbeing. You deserve someone who thinks you are enough. You deserve someone who thinks you deserve to be committed to. Anyone else is a waste of your youth. And if you are a person with commitment issues, do not take them out on another person. Heal your commitment issues and insecurities Individually or they will spread like a disease in your togetherness.

Gentlemen, do not waste your best testosterone years on lame girls. Ladies, do not waste your best boob years on lame guys.

3 10

Most Helpful Girl

  • You're neglecting one VERY important thing, here -- specifically, that sexual interaction ••IS•• "communication".

    And it isn't just any old form of communication, either.
    In the bedroom (or on the kitchen floor, or dragged into a restroom, or in the folded-down seat of a car... but I digress), people's TRUE SELVES are every bit as naked as their bodies.

    From just ••minutes•• of getting physical with someone... you can get to know things about him that you might take months, even years, to find out in more "conventional" ways.

    • You can discover how he REALLY feels about women, and intimacy, and vulnerability, and ••connection••.

    • His empathy (or lack of)... his intuitive ability to "read" a woman (or lack of)... how giving he is (or isn't)... how much of HIS pleasure is rooted in ••mutual•• pleasure...
    ... All on display.

    • If he's full of bluster and fire and fury (heh)... you'll pretty quickly get to see what's rlly underneath it all.

    Etc etc.

    __

    Sexual interaction is INCREDIBLY high-bandwidth communication.

    It's communication on so many levels that pretense becomes impossible. Even if the boy TRIES to put up a front... he can't do it on all those levels at once. You'll ••definitely•• see right through to his real self.

    Oh yh you will.

    __

    I wrote more about this here (woman's mho):
    www.girlsaskguys.com/.../q2066783-are-there-guys-willing-to-wait-until-marriage

    But... srsly.
    You're not REALLY presenting "communication" as something that only happens when WORDS are exchanged, are you?

    I mean... communication is what? 10% words, and 90% nonverbal?

    ... mmhmm.

    __

    Even "meaningless" sex involves so MUCH communication -- and such unintentional honesty -- that, tbh, I don't blame people for being kinda scared to go there right away.
    High risk, high return, etc.

    • wow hose definitely rationalise the most fancy excuses to justify their actions. if sex wasthe highest form of communication all nymphomaniacs would be enlightened gurus and we'd send porn vids to the aliens at the Voyager golden record, and not Bach's recordings to give them a picture about Humanity.

Most Helpful Guy

  • I'm glad you see it this way! It seems like everyone is hyper consumed with sex. You pointed out the reality of it.

Scroll Down to Read Other Opinions

What's Your Opinion? Sign Up Now!

What Girls & Guys Said

14 43
  • To each their own. I've tried it but it didn't work for me.

  • Someone always catches feelings and in my case it's always the guy.

    So I've stopped with it and if I'm gonna go for anything it has to be a normal relationship.

  • I tried a friends with benefits thing once, but we both ended up with feelings for each other and started a romantic relationship. I prefer to be in a serious, devoted, monogamous relationship rather than just having sex with a friend.

  • While all of those situation are possible pitfalls all but number 1 can be either migrated or avoided entirely.
    It *is* possible to communicate enough.

    Also, regarding those scientists you mentioned...
    Let's just say that some of them should look a bit more at things like epistemology among other things...

  • Okay, never become friends with benefits with a real good friend, rather with a person you met not that long ago and who you like but can live without because I know no f+ that worked out so that in the end they stayed as good friends as they were before.

  • I have never had a friends with benefits relationship and I doubt that I ever will. However, I have read hundreds of posts on this site concerning friends with benefits and I have listened to some younger friends talking about these things. My perception is that quite often, one of the participants really wants much more than friends with benefits but is afraid to discuss that openly. When the other partner expresses interest in a friends with benefits relationship, the first one thinks, "Great! We'll start having sex and being close and this will turn into a relationship." And, occasionally, that does happen. . . but more often, when it becomes obvious that the one is "catching feelings" (I gate that expression; it sounds like getting a disease!) the other will react and say, "Hey! We agreed this was casual NSA sex! I don't want a commitment." So the one either settles for staying and just having sex (which is horrible for their self-esteem) or they say goodbye and retreat so that they can try to mend their broken heart.

    All of this could be avoided by direct and honest communications but, within the advent of digital communications and "talking" by text instead of really talking, the ability to communicate clearly and honestly is becoming less common.

  • I'm in a friends with benefits situation now. We met on a hook up site where you can see who one another has hooked up with because people get verified. We met up last year and had a break now meeting up again. Inevitable I got jealous hearing/seeing about other people. Last weekend I took a break yet I could see things on this website. But I processed the jealousy. And I think sometimes sex makes you think you feel one way but it might be another. Now I hope I've at least made a good friend. Neither are in a real situation where a LTR is desirable. You just have to do what works for you.

  • 100% agree. I experienced a friend with benefits type situation with a guy long time ago, even though we didn't call it that or even thought of it. In the end I was crushed and left heartbroken when he decided to dump me. I was just a summer fling to him and not much else, I know it sounds crazy but that boy took hold of my heart for 3 years until I finally got over him. Thankfully he did not get my virginity, but from then on I learned a huge lesson. Life is to short to give your time, body, and love to someone in the end who will not give the same back to you. If a man does not want to pursue a serious relationship or be commitment, then I'm out the door quickly. I don't have time for you to waste my time and youth while you play games with my emotions a mind.

  • In my experience it all just comes down to the fact that one person ends up wanting more than the other is willing or able to give.

  • I'm in an open friends with benefits relationship. We enjoy each others company, but only seldom go on a date. We do get together 2-4 times a week for some athletic sex which is fun!

  • I have tried the "friends with benefits" a couple of times and it just doesn't work out. I am a relationship guy. sure I could have sex without putting emotion into it, if it is once or twice. But any woman I am seeing multiple times I am going to fall for, or start thinking I have feelings for, eventually. I was just doing the friends with benefits thing with a woman I dated for 8 months in 2015. I was very happy with the arrangement. But then I started feeling like "maybe this can work, she seems like she has changed". Well we had a serious miscommunication and all of a sudden I find she thinks we are officially together and I think we are still open to dating others but hooking up and seeing how it goes. Problem is I didn't find out until almost a month after the "talk" we had that got so screwed up. By that time I knew I was really wrong and I was glad we stayed just friends with benefits... well then when she made the comment "do your son's know we are dating again?" I was like WTF? so when I talked through it with her she went off the handle and doesn't even want to hook up for sex anymore. Honestly, that is probably better for both of us. I had no intention of looking for anyone else because I don't really want to be with anyone but I do love pussy and blowjobs...

  • Sometimes people just want to have sex. There's no need to complicate it beyond that.

  • dat ending tho lol

  • mm... after my girlfriend broke up with me, we started being friends with benefits... and now, years later, we are still friends.

    So I am not quite sure about that "you stop being friends" part. Tho I am not sure either, if my experience does count, because we went from couple to friends with benefits and not from being regular friends.

  • Friends with benefits usually means on going intimacy and is more complicated than some would think.

    When lovers are in a naked embrace and they are physically and mentally stimulating each other. When the quality of intimacy is so high they are putting each other first.

    Then if an emotional bond, develops with one lover and not the other someone is going to get hurt.

  • Agreed

  • It's their choice

  • It isn't. One must understand the rules of engagement and accept them without expectations. God i wish I had this. Just pleasure no pressure.

  • This was an engaging read, thank you for sharing!

  • 1. If you are incapable of separating sex and emotion when necessary, don't have FwBs. Simple as that. For those of us who can, this is not an issue.

    2. This only happens if you ignore 1. and proceed anyway.

    3. This does not have to happen either - you can maintain a perfectly good friendship and be your own people with the benefits on the side. This whole frustration thing stems once again from the fact that you caught feelings and shouldn't have tried this in the first place.

    4. You have a higher risk, for sure. Take precautions. Get tested (both of you). DISCUSS THIS with your special friend and agree on what the rules are.

    5. And so we get to the real message behind this post: OP got inadvisedly started an friends with benefits relationship, caught feelings, and therefore decided that all friends with benefits relationships are bad too.

  • Show More (37)