This past weekend I watched the film “No Strings Attached” which got me thinking a lot about the idea of friends with benefits.

Upon starting this article, I knew roughly why I thought friends with benefits was an unwise concept that inevitably would end in catastrophe, but I had no real foundation to base this off of.

Not wanting to divulge too much of my personal life (not that there is much to express), I thought my ideas would seem somewhat generic. That is, until this morning.

This morning I woke up to a friend request from a female that I had never met before. After perusing her homepage for a moment I looked at our mutual friends and realized we shared an ex along with some of his friends.

Still unsure who this young lady might be, I asked my roommate who she was. She informed me that it was my ex’s current “friends with benefits.”

Feeling completely awkward, I immediately began writing this article.

Now, you might still be wondering how this proves my theory that friends with benefits is an unwise idea.

Well, the whole concept revolves around the idea that two friends participate in casual sex without any of the obligations that present themselves in a monogamous relationship.

Great, right?

Wrong.

If that were the case then this young lady would have not thought even once about adding me. She frankly wouldn’t have cared about me.

Instead, because she is sharing an intimate, personal experience with this young man she feels a sense of jealousy towards me. Jealousy: a strange thing to feel for just a “friend.”

It is nearly impossible to share that much of yourself with someone and not begin to develop some sort of emotion towards them. Eventually, there will be a catalyst for a messy, horrible fallout.

What ends the benefits part of the relationship, anyway?

Who decides when you’re done with the friends with benefits relationship? When one member starts seeing someone else?

Without a concrete understanding between both parties someone is bound to end up feeling rejected in some fashion.

While technically there is no obligation to remain faithful to your friend with benefits, I can’t recall the amount of times I’ve held a girl’s hair over a toilet while she cries and pukes, upset that the man she was sleeping with was taking another girl on a date — or how many times I’ve heard a girl be called a skank because of the same situation.

As long as we have the capacity to feel, there inevitably will be a sense of jealousy towards these friends with benefits regardless if it’s the actual person you have feelings for, or rather if it’s the idea of being passed up for something better.

Friends with benefits is a temporary ego boost that will come back to bite you in the butt.