It sounds like a great idea when you want to get laid but don’t want a boyfriend. He’s there, he’s available, you two already get along… it won’t get weird, right? Wrong. There’s no true way to have a friend with benefits without the accompaniment of pain and heartache.
- It’ll warp your friendship. You cannot — I repeat, cannot — add sex to a friendship without changing it. There’s no way around it! If you think for one second that everything will be just like before, you’re delusional. If you two are really close friends, be prepared to perhaps lose that friendship entirely. Even if you manage to salvage it, it’ll never be what it once was.
- Someone will develop feelings. Honestly, there’s usually one scenario — one person suggests the FWB setup because that person wants easy and convenient sex. The other person agrees because that person secretly harbors some more-than-friendly feelings for his or her “friend”. That’s the way it goes. Unfortunately, because women are more emotionally driven when it comes to sex, the person with feelings is usually the female. AKA you.
- It’ll make everything weird. Suddenly there’s all this strange tension and unspoken stuff between you. You can pretend to be chill as hell and not care about anything, but you’re going to see each other in a different light. It’s inescapable. After all, you’re friends who now share the most intimate parts of your bodies with each other. Sex affects everyone in some way or another whether you like it or not. You just aren’t going to be so easy and free with each other emotionally anymore. What, are you gonna talk to him about your crush while the two of you are naked together? Awkward.
- You’ll lose the ease of totally honest communication. You can’t be brutally truthful with each other anymore. Someone’s feelings are going to get hurt. Before it was no big deal to tease or jab at each other. Now there’s this other element that confuses all that. You’ll take it personally if he criticizes you, and he’ll feel like he can’t talk freely for fear of hurting your feelings.
- You can’t be yourself anymore. You have all the weird constrictions and boundaries of a relationship without the boundaries of one. Suddenly you have to worry about what you say and do, or if your FWB is into anyone else. You have to think about the possible awkwardness of one of you finding someone to date and breaking it off, leaving the other high and dry. Gone is the easy fun and silliness of being just friends.
- You have to protect yourself. Even if you don’t think you’ll develop feelings, you worry about it happening. Because of that, you start building walls just in case. You have to take care of your heart, so you keep a distance between the two of you. There’s no way to keep the closeness of your previous friendship when you do this. It’s impossible … and that sucks.
- If you’re vulnerable, you’re screwed. Say you throw caution to the wind and decide not to take any precautions. You’re spending time with him, you’re sleeping with him, and you’re letting yourself be just as open and affectionate with him as always. You’re almost guaranteed to start developing stronger emotions towards him. It’s just a fact. He’s great, he’s cool, he cares about you, and you’re obviously sexually attracted to each other. If you aren’t interested in anyone else, you’ll start caring about him more than you intended.
- He’ll never be on the same page as you. Now that things are different and you don’t communicate the way you used to, you have no idea where he’s at on the situation. Even if you promise each other to keep the lines clear and speak honestly, you can’t know that he’s telling you the truth. You could both be acting cool as cucumbers while secretly feeling confused and frustrated. That would be the best possible scenario, honestly. It’s more likely that only one person feels this way while the other is blissfully happy with your hookup arrangement.
- One of you is going to make it weird. It’s going to happen. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but somewhere down the line. He’ll say something awkward or you’ll let some feelings slip that you’d rather he not know about. One of you will make a joke that offends the other. You’ll have some really weird sex that you don’t want to talk about but also can’t forget. You’ll try to address the situation and “where you stand”, or if you don’t, he will. Ugh.
- It’ll never end well. This is the bottom line that you absolutely have to think about before you enter the disastrous FWB situation. This NEVER turns out out okay. There’s a tiny, eensy weensy chance the two of you end up together. There is zero chance that you just stop hooking up and go right back to being the same friends that you were before. It ain’t gonna happen. If you value this guy as a friend and also value your own heart, just DON’T DO IT!
