FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS

Oh friends-with-benefits relationships, why some sync the context can be different but for our purposes we're defining a friends-with-benefits relationship as two individuals who occasionally or often sleep together and are not in a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship.

What do we know about it? We know that it's common. In 2013, 30 to 60 percent of American University students engaged in a friends-with-benefits relationship. Is it sustainable? It's arguably not meant to be. It's more like halftime in a sports game or intermission at a theater; free time to reload on your favorite snacks, quench your thirst, and clear your head before the next serious part begins.

Approximately 20 percent of these friendships do join masts and sail away together, pre-iceberg Rose and Jack style, whilst the others don't make room on the floating door and their relationship sinks, never being more than a no-strings-attached flame. Why? That's the question.

A study from 2009 found that the top reasons for ending such a relationship were the development of romantic feelings and negative emotions such as jealousy. In conclusion, emotions. However, Tendrá Night, a communications professor, conducted a series of interviews of 25 students who have had a friend with benefits and found a pattern in their relationship endings: communication and lack thereof.

Ground rules, crowds fun setting up expectations and rules for the arrangement was perceived as effort or relational work that is expected to be absent. Thus, talking about the relationship defeats the purpose of having it. And so, they didn't. Better to stay cool about it, right? Like Jack in the North Atlantic sea, losing face. One student didn't talk about the relationship out of fear of seeming too invested, thereby highlighting the side of self-protection.

Because when you got skin in the game, you stay in the game and thus admit there is a game to lose. And yes, that was a Hamilton quote. The founding father of friends-with-benefits. Granted, they were both married, so friends-with-benefits is all it could ever be. And he did technically pay her husband in order to not let out the secret, which he then did later himself anyway. Moving on.

So call me never. Most of the students would feel uncomfortable with their friend with benefits talking or flirting with others but were unable to bring it up as they didn't feel their reactions were part of the deal and valid. Shh. Some did attempt to speak to their friend but in order not to complicate the situation, they got shut down. The common denominator here is whatever reason leading up to it, the lack of communication kills the situation, whether that's through being silent or being silenced.

So how do you keep your friends with benefits situation afloat? Communicate. Don't play it cool, make the whole thing hot. If it sets the ship on fire or you decide you don't like being on it anyway, well at least the water will be warm.