Hello again. It's me, the resident bitch at wtf. This particular column is completely devoted to the subject of friends with benefits. I get asked about this frequently, and it's really a very involved topic, one that can't be tackled in a single paragraph. So go get yourself a nice cherry coke and a bag of potato chips and make yourself comfortable, cause this is going to take a while....

Q: Is the whole "friends with benefits" really beneficial?

A: Yes. No. Sometimes. The entire issue of having friends with benefits is a complicated one. Sometimes it can be beneficial, or even fun. But if you don't watch what you're doing you'll fuck everything up and then nobody's happy.

Firstly I suppose I should define "friends with benefits," for those of you who have no idea what the fuck I'm talking about. Friends with benefits, a.k.a. fuck buddies is sort of an arrangement, if you will. In this arrangement, two friends have sex with each other, but there is no relationship except for the friendship that has already been established. Ideally the sex and the friendship would be two separate states, to avoid complications, kind of like the separation of church and state. Unfortunately this doesn't always work the way it should, but we'll get to that later....

There are different types of arrangements, of course. In my experience, most people agree to just mutually use each other for sex while they are both single, and then cease sexual relations once one of them becomes involved with an outside party. There are other arrangements that can be made, such as having more than one friend with benefits, or sharing friends with benefits mutually, but I'm not going to get into that right now. I just don't have the time or the space to go off on a lecture that long.

The most important thing to remember when entertaining the notion of having a friend with benefits is that one absolutely MUST have boundaries. This is extremely important. If you do not establish boundaries, you are not only risking your emotional well being but also the friendship in question. When I talk about establishing boundaries, I'm talking about rules. For all of you punk-ass rebels out there, these are not rules that are made to be broken. These are rules that were made to be followed for the sake of all involved. Some of the boundaries that must be set are emotional. If you are going to have a friend with benefits, you both must agree not to become emotionally involved. This is sex, not love, and you both need to remember that. If you two are going to make the whole thing about love, then you might as well just date each other, because it would make things a lot easier.

Now I know that a lot of you mushy romantics are saying to yourself "what if you fall in love with the other person? You can't control that. What the hell are you supposed to do then?" If, during the course of your foray into casual sex you fall in love with your fuck buddy, you are quite obligated to hide this fact from the other person. Of course this rule only applies to females. If you are a guy and you fall in love with your female fuck buddy, then by all means, tell her, because females are always falling in love, so chances are she's head over heels for you too, and the only reason she hasn't told you is because she doesn't want to mess everything up.

Alright, now that we have the whole "don't fall in love" thing covered, we'll move on. When considering the idea of friend with benefits, it's important to agree right from the beginning if you are going to tell your friends. Chances are, you two share a lot of the same friends, so it's important to decide this before the secret gets out and everybody knows. If you two decide to keep it a secret, you both must agree to tell NO ONE! There can be none of this "I'll only tell my best friend and her cousin blah blah blah" shit. If one of you tells one person, everyone is going to find out. That's just the way it works. Keep in mind that the people who are most enthusiastic about reassuring you of their secret keeping capabilities are the ones most likely to spill the proverbial beans.

Okay. So now you know the basic rules of pursuing friends with benefits. Go forth and prosper. But don't procreate, for god's sake.

I would like to take this opportunity to invite an exchange of advice. If there is anyone out there who has actually tried the friends with benefits thing and has gained a special knowledge or insight, please send it to smjor@whatthefuck.com and perhaps in a few weeks I will throw out a few of these suggestions in a kind of "interactive forum" sort of deal, k? But hey, do me a favor and spare me all the bullshit stories that you tell your jock buddies in the locker room. I won't be impressed, and I won't bother putting them in this column. Also, I don't want any third party stories about how your best friend's cousin dated a guy who once tried the friends with benefits thing. That sort of hearsay wouldn't work in a court of law and it sure as hell isn't going to fly here.

Okay, that's enough babble for now. I'll be back next week to dispense more meaningful advice. Until then kiddies, remember to keep smiling and never admit that you were the one who set the cat on fire with a zippo and a can of glade.