Friends with benefits
 

Anyone care to share some friends with benefits stories/advice? I just started school and have already obtained a friend with benefits. The thing that helps me is that I have a girl back home who I love and want to be with. Still, its tough not to get a little jealous when i see other guys talking with her. Its just in my demeanor I suppose. Anyone else shared simliar experiences?

Yeah. I was an arse.
I met this girl once, with a friend, spoke to her for about 5 minutes and got her phone number. After talking to her on the phone for a couple of hours a week for about a month, we decided to meet up, go to the cinema. So, in the cinema I put my arm round her, she was alright with it. We then walked around Leicester Square (soho/cinema place/china town in London) for about 3 hours, arms round each other, talking. When we decided we should go our separate ways, I walked to the underground station with her, we waited on the platform (getting the same train) and I tried to kiss her. She didn't seem too pleased with that, but invited me back to her house. I was feeling a little off and said I'd better get home for some reason or another. We got the same train up to where I had to get off to get another, and that was that.
Basically, after that I asked her out a few more times, we went out a few more times, and it culminated at her sleeping at my house after a Christmas party, and shortly after, me sleeping at her house. I had asked her if she wanted to go out with me on a whole boyfriend/girlfriend basis, she said no. After that, I felt pretty bad about it, but we continued to meet up, go back to her house and essentially use each other. We were quite good friends before I asked her out, but after that we still went out to eat together, went shopping when we needed company etc. but it just wasn't the same as before.
Where this is leading is that we just ended up using each other, but feeling kind of bad about it. She then got a boyfriend, painfully enough a friend of mine. Since then I haven't phoned her once and might speak to her on MSN Messenger occasionally.
Probably the most painful bit was that a week before she got a boyfriend, she gave me her MP3 player which had stopped working. I opened it up, soldered up the PCB where it had fallen apart, fixed it up and when it came to giving it back to her I had to give it to a mutual friend, i.e. her boyfriend. Really painful.
I wouldn't do it, it's just too complicated. You'll end up feeling something more for this friend and chances are those feelings will be crushed. I wouldn't do it again.

It's been my experience that one of the "buddies" is interested in becoming more than a buddy. Then the thing goes off the tracks. I'm not saying don't try it. Just be aware that it'll probably end in tears.

I've never had a friend-with-benefits, so I wouldn't know what kind of advice to give on the subject.

I pulled it off successfully. The typical problem with friends with benefits is that, at some point it becomes more than friends for someone. However, a friend of mine was leaving town in a month, and we'd both fairly recently broken up with our SO's, and she was just looking for some....'company'...for the remaining 30 days of her stay. We agreed not to keep in touch when she left, and that we wouldn't be more than friends when she got back.

So...we had lots of sex, and then she left. Worked out nice, and we're still friends. The thing that made it work was a non-negotiable end date.

A friend w/benefits can work, as long as you both continue to keep it that way. I had one, who lived w/her boyfriend. It went find for quite a while. Then she wanted to know why I never said I loved her. (?-still w/bf) She lost sight of the fact that it was what it was. I'm not saying you can't change the situation (to exclusive), but you still need to consider anyone else involved. In my case, she wouldn't leave him, so I didn't bother.
Bottom line - you have to keep your emotions in check, which sounds easy. It is, at first. The longer it goes on, the harder it will be to do.

Has anyone been in a situation where their friend with benefits became a SO? I'm kind of at a crossroad where I know I would be able to do the friends with benefits thing but I think I might want a little more out of the relationship.

I had a roommate with benefits for a year. She was a blast. She also had a boyfriend, so I had to learn real quick to get over the jealous feelings when I saw them together. I eventually had a girl of my own, but me and the roomie would still have sex whenever the mood hit us (after all, the person you're dating isn't always there at 2AM when you're in the mood for a romp).

It was fun and we both knew that we were being used by the other one and we were both cool with that. When we went our seperate ways, it was simply because I needed to move for a new job. The relationship was built entirely on the fact that we lived under the same roof for cheaper rent and that we got along well enough to be friends. The sex was just this cool bonus thing. Keep that attitude, don't try to ever say the words "I love you" and it'll all be cool.

NO!!!

This is the exact situation that we are saying to AVOID when trying to set something up like this...One person really looking for more or wanting to date is all it takes to turn it into drama.