New Research Suggests Friends With Benefits Relationships Don’t Ruin Friendships

Great news to all you guys who have wanted to tell a friend you liked her but were afraid she might drop the dreaded “I don’t want to ruin our friendship” line. You can now point her in the direction of science, which proved banging your buddy is unlikely to destroy the non-sexual relationship you have.

Psychology Today recently broke down a study from the Archive of Sexual Behavior, which took a look at 1,000 college students who had engaged in friends with benefits behavior to see what happened after the sexytime stopped. Turns out, things pretty much stayed the same.

Among the 300 who had an FWB in the last year that had already ended, a full 80% said they were still friends. What’s more, 50% reported feeling as close or closer to their ex-FWB partner than before the benefits started.

And these are immature college kids. If you are out in the real world and want to sleep with a friend, just imagine how much better the two of you will handle the situation. It’s guaranteed nothing bad will happen (note: not guaranteed).

Here’s a graph that illustrates the full spectrum of emotional responses from respondents.

So there are less than 1-in-5 odds your friendship will suffer irreparable damage. The key, the study says, is the strength of the friendship before hooking up begins.

If your non-sexual relationship is strong to begin with, adding a sexual component to the mix is unlikely to change that.

So… go for it.

[Via HyperVocal; Man and woman via Shutterstock]