I'm In Love with My Friend with Benefits, What Do I Do?

[Evelyn]

I've had a great friends with benefits situation with a guy for about 6 months now but I want more from him than just sex.

So I text my friend with benefits who I love of a year and a half that he disappointed me and I deserve better and I was done if he wasn't going to respect me and he said "OK, good and goodbye." I don't want to let him go. I'm in love with him. What do I do?

[Malvin]

OK, I've got bad news, good news, more bad news and then some medium news probably down at the bottom.

The bad news is that it's VERY difficult to turn a "Friends With Benefits" situation into a "relationship" situation (and in a lot of cases it's downright impossible.)

Now, that's not to say that I'm against having a "FWB."

In fact, I have enjoyed "FWB" set ups several times and found them to be really positive experiences as long as everybody involved was honest about what they were looking for and where they were emotionally.

My favorite "FWB" situation was with a beautiful woman 8 years my senior. This is going back a few years now.......

She was recently out of a bad 6 year marriage (where the sexual passion had died just 3 years in) and I knew when I met her that the LAST thing she needed was to start dating somebody seriously and the FIRST thing she needed was to be lusted after, appreciated properly as a woman and ravaged by a man.

So I seduced her.

Not that she complained !

For the next year or so this woman and I had a very simple and straightforward FWB relationship where we got together every week and "enjoyed" each other in every way possible.

And over the course of it we became the very best of friends.

We both came out of that situation better than we went in. And to this day she is My closest "Best Friend". Even though she is married now.

But a lot of FWB situations end badly (catastrophically) because of a lack of communication or because of totally different intentions at the beginning.

So here's a few "Rules" for "Friends With Benefits" situations:

1. Never get into a "Friends With Benefits" situation expecting it to turn into more.

I get emails all the time from women saying "Well, he said he just wanted to be friends with benefits and I agreed because I thought he would fall for me."

Honestly, it really just doesn't work that way. If a guy says he's just looking for a sexual connection and nothing more he's being honest and no matter how much of a sexual tornado you are it's not going to change his mind.

(The opposite isn't always true. There's a lot of reasons why. One that is biological that a woman has no control over. but women do tend to get emotionally attached to guys they sleep with pretty quickly. nature designed it that way.)

2. Be Brutally Honest With Your FWB From Day One . . .

If you start developing feelings for a guy you're just sleeping with you need to let him know that right away and have a cold, logical, reasonable conversation about it.

You also need to STOP sleeping with an FWB right away if he doesn't immediately return your affection.

3. FWB's don't go on "Dates." If you're having an FWB situation that means no dates and no sleepovers.

Now, obviously, if you're already in a FWB type situation and have fallen for the guy none of what I've said so far is going to actually HELP you.

So here's what I recommend for both of your situations:

If you want to TRY to turn an FWB situation into a dating situation here's what you have to do:

A) Immediately stop sleeping with the guy. Don't be mean about it but just say you can't do that any more.

B) Text him or call him and say something along the lines of "I'd really like to hang out with you with our clothes on some time." Keep it light. Don't profess your undying love to the guy or anything like that but treat him like a guy you've just met who you want to hang out with. You need a "do over" to create tension and establish a real connection between the two of you that has nothing to do with your genitals.

C) Make him chase you and date other guys. Guys only chase if they think you're running. If he thinks you're waiting around for him, you don't stand a chance. You need to be coy, play hard to get and trigger that jealousy response in the back of his brain.

D) Be prepared for heart break.

Yes, this sucks, I know. But In a lot of cases no matter what you do a guy who was a great "FWB" simply won't want to date you no matter what.

In fact, some guys (or women) will actually get mad at you and feel betrayed when you try to change the rules of the relationship.

"Hey, I was honest with you and we had a really good thing going here and you ruined it."

The fact is that guys will eagerly sleep with women who they're physically attracted to but don't have any particular emotional attraction to or who they've disqualified as "girlfriend material" for any number of reasons.

"Well, she's way too irresponsible for me to date and her political views drive me nuts but MAN she looks good in that dress."

And no amount of baiting or trickery is necessarily going to change that.

Long one today but it's a big topic.

[Evelyn]

Malvin, thank you for your advice.