What Happens When You Start To Develop Real Feelings In A ‘Friends With Benefits’ Relationship

Friends with benefits is a tough relationship to maintain with someone. You need to set the boundaries loud and clear to ensure that no feelings are developed or else someone gets fucked in the end (no pun intended). It gets more complicated when you actually have a good friendship with this person, when you hang out with them all the time, when you actually sleep during sleepovers, because essentially that’s what friends do. But when you mix sex on top of all of these things, then is it still a friends with benefits relationship? Or is it gearing towards an actual relationship?

So now you’re left with one party who wants more from this arrangement while the other wants nothing more than a consistent lay and company to cuddle with at night. When this roadblock comes, both parties usually reconvene and discuss what should be done. While both know that this arrangement should end because if they continue this any further the one who has started having feelings will dig themselves into a bigger hole of insecurity, both decide to brush it off and pretend that it is not an issue for the sake of still having each other’s company, and of course, for sex.

So where does this leave us now? We’re left with one person resenting their friend, for never being able to reciprocate the feelings that he or she desires for them, as well as hating themselves for not having the self respect to walk away from someone who isn’t willing to completely commit to just him or her. It also leads one to question just how much the other values and respects not only you as a person but your friendship as well because why would they continue this if they know it’s hurting you?

I guess my entire point of all of this is, be the bigger person and walk away. Have self-control. Your friendship might already be compromised, but try and salvage whatever is left by ceasing this to continue any further. You deserve someone who is willing to attach to you completely if that’s what you want and don’t settle for less. I know it’s hard, especially when you have a consistent fuck just right there in front of you, not to mention the fact that you’re already friends so it’s comfortable, easy, and convenient.

But I think the main problem with friends with benefits is that you get lost in the sex, and the intimacy, and the connection, and it turns into this desire to be with this person that only festered because of raging hormones. And sometimes, that’s how relationships start and kudos to you if yours began this way and is thriving. But for the rest of us, it just leaves us confused and overthinking and questioning the intentions, motives, and actions of our counterpart.

You can’t change people. You can’t change their thinking. You can’t change their feelings. You can’t make someone like you if they don’t, regardless if their actions speak otherwise. And that’s okay. It’s hard not to take it personally when they’re going for someone else and you have a great catch like yourself just standing there with open arms. But do you really want to be with someone who doesn’t want you wholeheartedly anyway?