A quiet night in; drinks with the girls; letting your leg hair grow; keeping your box of tampons in plain sight; not having an argument every time you buy a pair of shoes: these are the things that go with a single life, and sometimes it gets better the longer it goes on. As you finish your work week and stop on the way home to buy a bottle of wine for one and rent Breakfast at Tiffany’s just for you, it may strike you how nice it is to be by yourself. Boyfriends aren’t for everyone at every time, and the pathetic “singleton” and “old maid” labels no longer really apply. As you make your way home, looking forward to a solitary cocktail and the ability to sleep in the next day, you may realize that you need just a little something more. Though men aren’t necessary for everything, there is one thing that can only be fulfilled by a member of the opposite sex. Bluntly put, you have needs, and the sight of empty battery packages on your night stand as you walk in the door contribute to the sensation that perhaps something else is required to make the night perfect.

Enter “Friend With Benefits”, a form of relationship once shrugged off as an impossibility, is becoming quietly in vogue and accepted with the unmarried, and uninterested in marriage, late twenties to early thirties crowd. The two of you may be acquaintances or good friends. Benefits include sex (sometimes the best sex) and the body on body contact you both need as humans. The friends-benefits agreement differs from a boyfriend in that the two of you lead separate lives, acknowledge your equal and honest indifference to a relationship, and in the end fulfill each others sexual needs.


The key to success, as you dial the phone this rainy evening to see if he’s free, is that you don’t mistake one for the other. The friends benefits relationship will supply you with a warm body, occasional affection, and fulfillment of a human need that you’d have to compromise in one way or another to find outside of a relationship. You must keep your head about you, and define what is and isn’t going on. A friends benefits relationship does not give you someone to call when your father dies, or someone to go to the doctor with you. A friends benefits set up is just that and as the phone rings and there is no answer, question yourself closely. Are you worried he’s with someone else? Are you feeling suddenly lonely and just want to hear his voice? Are you tempted to hang up and call from another (unfamiliar to him) line just to see if he’s avoiding you? For a friends with benefits situation to work, you must be honest with him and with yourself. Feelings, however complicated and unwelcome, will hurt both of you. Keep yourself surrounded with family and friends when you’re not with him. Keep yourself busy, he is only providing an opportunity for you to keep living your single life. If you want more, find someone who wants it too. For now, put down the phone. He’ll call if he’s free, grab the corkscrew and remind yourself this is about you and you enjoying your single life; clearly it has it’s benefits!