The Truth About Your ‘Friends With Benefits’ Arrangement That Only This Study Will Show You

A lot of people would warn you against doing the “friends with benefits” thing because someone usually gets hurt, but is it really that simple? Science has finally given an answer of what the true, REAL outcome is most of the time for people trying to make this whole FWB thing work.

In the study, they had 191 people complete two online surveys that were one year apart. The participants were 70 percent female, 74 percent white, and 72 percent heterosexual. The average age of all of them is 30. Each participant knew their friend with benefits for about three years on average before the study.

The first survey had people answer what they want to get out of the casual relationship, their satisfaction, and how much communication they have about the relationship’s “boundaries.” After a year, the second survey focused on figuring out how these relationships had changed.

The results showed that within that year window, 25 percent were still friends with benefits, 15 percent of people took the relationship to a romantic level, 28 percent got rid of the benefits and stuck with being friends, and 31 percent cut of all ties.

Yikes.

Only 15 percent those who wanted things to become romantic were successful.

So it looks like the chances of keeping your friendship in the end of FWB is more likely than hoping it turns into a real love connection.

This post originally appeared at YourTango.