Friends With Benefits: The Why and How

Friends With Benefits (FWB) relationships are not rare. In fact, they have been depicted in major movies such as Friends with Benefits and No Strings Attached. A common premise of movies and shows depicting FWB is that the non-romantically involved couple falls in love and lives happily ever after. Though storylines like these romanticize these relationships, researchers have offered a different (and more realistic) understanding of FWB.

One study by Hughes, Morris, and Asada identified the motives for FWBs, or more specifically, why people said they engaged in these types of relationships.

Based on their analyses, people reported being in FWB relationships for the following reasons: relationship avoidance, sex, relationship simplicity, emotional connection, and wanted FWB relationship (p. 56).

Relationships take work to sustain and researchers interested in this area study relational maintenance behaviors. (I have previously written about that research.) In a similar vein, Hughes et al. identified the maintenance behaviors for FWB.

Based on their analyses, they identified the following rules for maintenance: negotiate rules (e.g., have rules), sex (e.g., safety and other partners), communication (e.g., amount and topics), secrecy (are others allowed to know about the FWB?), permanence (e.g., this is not forever), emotional (e.g., not escalating emotional intimacy; jealousy), and friendship (e.g., friends first; p. 56).

Though movies and television depict these relationships in various ways, studies like Hughes et al. help us better understand the real-life ways in which these relationships occur. For more information, I encourage you to read their study.