19
Feb 12
Friends with Benefits
Just as we have seen in the couple of recent movies such as No Strings Attached or the Friends with Benefits, those kinds of relationships just don’t work. Speaking from my own experience and many of my friends who had tried it, it seems that while both people maintain that friendship, one of them or both in some cases develop feelings. I believe that you can only remain being “ just friends” for short amount of time even if you make yourself very clear that you have no interest in being in a relationship, the other person will still want to be more than friends hoping you might change your mind. It makes sense as to why the relationships most often fail, when two people enjoy each other’s companies and are obviously sexually attracted to each other but not dating, it is bound to turn into a disaster. Has anyone been in this situation where it has actually worked?
Every part of me wants to believe in the Hollywood ideal of love developing through friendship regardless of the situation. At the same time I know that movies are design to evoke an emotional feeling so that people can relate to the characters and reflect upon their own life.
I don’t want to hijack this topic but been curious about something similar. I’ve been through something similar (excluding the friends with benefit aspect) where at least someone in the friendship has had feelings toward each other. Basically can males and females (I know this is bias since it doesn’t include LGBT, marriage, couples, but the general idea) be friends without having any sort of attraction towards each other at least some point in the friendship.
I personally don’t think its possible.
I have to say from personal experience that it is possible. Though I will say that it is probably rare for these kinds of situations to work. I met a guy in high school, whom I later became friends with and than became romantically involved with… To make the story short, we were friends with benefits, even though a lot of the time it was hard to decipher the difference in our relationship as to whether we were boyfriends or just friends with benefits. This took place mid freshmen year and sophomore years of college. To this day (three years later) we are still very close. With the exception that I moved away two years ago. The absolutely only issue we ever had was the fact that I am out and he is closeted. Aside from that issue, which is big, we have never even had an argument.So yes I believe it is possible for friends with benefits to work. I think there is a certain set of factors that make things too difficult for most other situations to work. Which I don’t want to elaborate on unless someone wants to know what I mean exactly.
I have found that these kinds of relationships don’t work, but not only is it because someone may gains feelings, but another reason they do not work is because our society puts so much pressure on the idea of sex outside of marriage that it makes the relationship that was there in the first place, akward. If it does not make the friendship weird, there is a chance someone will get upset if the other is “seeing” someone else or ends the relationship for emotional feelings – toward someone else.
This is a terrible idea, but if someone can make it work, more power to them!!
I have a friend with benefits but i guess my situation is a lot different. I met him, we were in a relationship, he was a total alcoholic and i hated it so i left him. Other than his constant need to go out and get shit faced he was a pretty cool guy and amazing in the sack. After we broke up we remained friends and i really wasn’t interested in dating anyone. We became friends with benefits and it totally works for both of us. I don’t want to be in a relationship with someone like him and he knows that hes never going to change so being in a relationship would just be toxic, but i also didn’t want to go find some random to have sex with. I guess we’ll find out how it works out when one of us finds someone that we’re interested in dating…but for now it totally works for me!
I have been through the same experience with my roommate. She thought they were just friends with benefits and at first I thought she would be the exception to the rule. They started off as just friends with benefits they both agreed that they would not be officially dating and were allowed to see other people. This worked out great for them until, she got emotionally attached. She started getting jealous because he would hang out with other girls. She would cry because he would hang out with other girls and she even got to the point where she thought they were actually dating because they were friends with benefits. It actually got kind of scary because she was acting a bit delusional by thinking they had something when they never did. The whole friends with benefits concept does NOT work. I have seen many people try it and eventually someone end up getting emotionally attached and the other person thinks they are too clingy and just leaves them.
I was with a girl for about four months, then I realized I just wasn’t ready for a relationship. So I ended things, but at the same time I didn’t really because we agreed to still sleep together. We both found each other sexually attractive, and I didn’t particularly want my ex girlfriend to be hooking up with other people, so I saw this as a good solution. We agreed no emotions involved and just sex, as you can imagine this did not work out as well as I had planned. It made it so the both of us couldn’t move on. We did this for about three months, then eventually I realized I either had to be with her or end it for good. I chose to be with her, and I have been with her since the end of December and it’s been really good, and things are much better now and a lot healthier. So overall my attempt at friends with benefits ended well.