Has your friends with benefits setup started to feel a little messy lately? Are you wondering if you’re both starting to think and feel differently about each other? If you think you might be moving towards something deeper, answer these questions to know for sure. Take this quiz to figure out if friends with benefits is where your relationship ends.
- Do our friends know the arrangement? You may think that telling your friends about your situation is confirmation that your relationship is strictly sexual, but it’s the opposite. When you’re just friends with benefits, you sneak around behind the scenes. You may hint to your friends that you’re regularly hooking up with someone, but you definitely won’t tell them who. The minute you tell them who you’re sleeping with, they’ll will start asking about them. You wouldn’t tell your friends about each other if you didn’t have something more between you.
- Do we go out in public? Similarly, friends with benefits do not want to be seen together. It would be too messy to explain if you bumped into anyone you know. You’d avoid going anywhere where you might have to explain yourselves. If you were only friends with benefits, you’d stick to each other’s apartments, almost always at night. Otherwise, the implication is that you don’t mind being associated with each other.
- Do we go to bed without sex sometimes? Any relationship that is solely based on sex would not include sex-less sleepovers. If you hang out sometimes and decide you’d rather watch a movie and fall asleep together than get frisky, you’re more than friends with benefits. Not wanting to have sex is a sign that you enjoy each other’s company for non-physical reasons. You may not think you’re heading toward being an actual couple, but your behavior suggests otherwise.
- Do you leave toothbrushes at each other’s places? Friends with benefits operate on an undercover basis. They often enjoy the transactional nature of their arrangement and get a thrill out of the anonymity of it. That is why they do not tend to share their possessions or leave things at each other’s houses. Doing so would wreck the fun of being casual and illicit. If you and your supposed friend with benefits are stashing your toothbrushes in the other’s bathroom, you’re more serious than you think.
- Do they send texts that aren’t booty calls? Do you ever have full text exchanges that never once stray into sexual territory? Do you send them cute memes just because they’re the first person that you can think of to send them to? Do they text you to check in on how you’re doing even though you don’t have plans later? Friends with benefits rarely message each other unless they’re coordinating a sexual rendezvous.
- Do they initiate cuddling after sex? There’s a difference between the standard lingering in bed post-sex and a luxurious post-sex cuddle. The former is just a combination of sluggish satisfaction and good manners, while the other indicates a feeling of closeness after sex that hints very heavily at emotional attachment. If your friend with benefits is initiating cozy spooning, your relationship clearly strings attached.
- Do you miss each other when you’re apart? How you feel when you’re apart is the giveaway. While you may be able to pretend with each other that you’re nothing more than casual sex partners, your solitary selves will tell you the truth. If you feel sad when they leave and can’t wait for your next date, you’re not seeing them only as a friend with benefits. Feeling emotion when you’re apart proves that there is something deeper going on.
- Do they want to spend time out of bed with me? This should be a clear sign to both of you that your arrangement is getting more complicated. But you might be overlooking it. You won’t necessarily be asking each other out to dinner at fancy restaurants for this sign to be present. Maybe you just plan to get a bite to eat before you go back to your place. Maybe you spend the night and carpool to a few errands together the next day. Sneaky little non-bedroom-related activities are an irrefutable sign that you are more than just a hookup to each other.
- Have you sensed… something? Sometimes you can just feel attraction in the air even when the sexual tension is taken care of. Sometimes you catch each other’s gaze and your eyes linger just long enough to make it awkward. Sometimes when you say goodbye, you hug each other for a few seconds more than usual. And when you’re together, you just feel like your connection has become deeper than either of you will admit.
- Are we more than FWB? If the answer to all these questions is “yes,” why are you doubting yourself? It’s obvious that your relationship runs much deeper than a casual arrangement. If you answered “no” to most of them, there still might be something lurking beneath the surface. If you feel like something is there, you’re probably right. Trust your intuition, and when in doubt, talk about it.
