The Bro Blog On Friends With Benefits And Formals

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One of our readers asked the bro blog “Have you ever experienced a friends with benefits relationship/agreement changing into an actually relationship?”

Then we asked them, what do you do about a date come formal season? Who do you take?

Check out what the boys have to say and enjoy:)

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J.P. Bowgen
Mike Mallazzo
Ben Shartar
Northwestern Guy
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We’ve all seen the movies—Friends With Benefits, No Strings Attached—but do all “friends with benefits” turn into a functioning relationship? Well, my roommate now has a girlfriend. So yes, it does work out like that occasionally. If anything, friends with benefits relationships result in stronger real relationships. 

It’s a natural stepping-stone toward having a “label” and realistically, if there’s sex involved, things will get complicated. There is no way to avoid that. If you’re getting into a “friends with benefits” situation, don’t get too complacent. At some point people get restless and you’ll have the “talk.” I’m very confident in saying that there is no way to platonically hook up and not want something more eventually. If that does happen, someone isn’t doing the hooking up part well enough. 

On a sort of similar note…maybe? It’s formal season again and people are looking for dates. They’re awesome, so if you get asked, cancel whatever you had planned and go. I’m personally more familiar with the fraternity and sorority formals and those are great. So, I’m definitely generalizing by saying they are all fun. 

Take this opportunity to invite someone you’ve wanted to hook up with. At the end of the night, it’s nice to go home with someone. Just make sure you’re out of the friend zone before you pick your date. Things can get really awkward when you expect to hook up with your date and they don’t want to. No one likes going in for a kiss and seeing your partner turn their head, so choose wisely—please, for my sake and yours. If you’re not looking to hook up, establish that early on so you can get over that hump. Liquid courage is frequently involved and you don’t want to explain your reasons to a drunk person. 

Again, do me a favor: don’t poach other peoples’ dates. Unless they give you the okay to hook up with their date, stay away from them. You don’t want to look inconsiderate. 

But my biggest piece of advice: live a little bit. Get set up for formal. Blind dates often work out well and it’s nice to see where one night will take you. Maybe you’ll get a new friend out of it. Maybe you’ll get a random hook up—who doesn’t love those? I personally apologize for any bad blind dates that you have. Just kidding, I don’t. If your night sucks, that is a direct result of you being socially inept. So, suck it up and look forward to the next formal. There is always another event that you can get set up for. Don’t just write off blind dates. They’re fun, I promise. It may just take another night for you to see that. 

  
Go to the next page for Mike’s bro blog!
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Hey hey hey girlfriends, 

 I’ll admit I don’t know much about this cool new thing that we call “friends with benefits.” I decided not to watch that movie because Justin Timberlake is a tool and because after Black Swan, any subsequent Mila Kunis sex scenes will be underwhelming. Since I have never really had a friends with benefits relationship, I will defer to Chicago Sun-Times advice columnist Ann Landers who famously quipped, “Friends with benefits? More than friends? Don’t sample the goodies unless you’re willing to risk addiction and withdrawal.” Though her column is no bro blog, this seems like pretty sound advice to me. If you are going to ignore this go with a friends with benefits relationship, I recommend you find a guy that will be a true gentleman and at least provide dental insurance as part of the deal.

Switching gears, I have been tasked with giving the 411 on formals. It’s that time of the year when greek organizations, dorms, and random religious and multicultural clubs are wearing their Sunday best and renting out ballrooms and museums essentially just to get drunk in nicer clothing. Something about taking shots of mango Smirnoff suddenly seems OK if you’re doing so in a nice dress instead of a skanky party outfit. Yet this is far from the only reason formals are great. If you have any dancing abilities whatsoever, formals are great places to truly stand out as most people at Northwestern appear to be having some sort of a stroke when they hit the dance floor. Every one of these things is the same, you’ll have the one guy or girl that’s a professional dancer that everyone loathes, the couple of kids who have taken the ballroom dancing Norris minicourse and can hold their own and a bunch of guys that make Patrick Swayze roll over in his grave.

Even if the sprinkler and washing machine are your go to moves, formals are still a great place to try and make moves. The simple reason is that when you gals take hours to make sure your makeup is just right, you tend to look pretty radiant. For this reason, formals are the perfect occasion to try to woo the friend that you’ve been trying to get some benefits from. That guy that simply wanted to be your friend will change his mind when your cutest dress comes out and a couple of shots of Patron go in. Before you know it, you’ll have access to the man’s 401k. Feel free to interpret that however you wish.

I learned most of my dance moves from Happy Feet,
Mike 
  
Ben’s got something to say… keep going!!!
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A friend with benefits relationship sounds like a great thing. Free hookups without any of the strings or attachments that plague relationships. However, think about one thing. If they were as great and as easy as they seem, don’t you think you would see more of them? Exactly. The inherent problem I have seen is that one person in the relationship likes the other one more than is reciprocated. For a time this person might be content with hooking up with the guy/girl they like, but ultimately it is doomed to fail because something called self respect and emotions generally does not allow it to continue. When the beneficial friendship reaches this point, two things can happen, it can split apart (usually leaving one person hurt) or it can evolve. Reasons it might evolve could be any number of things. It could be he/she needed time to realize his/her feelings, maybe he/she saw something unseen before in you, or maybe there was just a change of heart. WHile there is a chance a friends with benefits situation could progress to more, I would not recommend it. Most times I have experienced a situation like this, it has become really awkward and one person gets hurt (possibly me, possibly the girl, a man must have his secrets). One time I tried it, math class got really really awkward, so if you do try it, make sure it is not with someone you are forced to interact with on a daily basis.

Now on to formals. I have a couple examples of possibilities:

• Invite a person you like: It is pretty simple. Either someone you have been hooking up with or have been flirting with. All you have to do is ask. Without the risk there is no reward, so don’t pussyfoot around the issue and just ask him/her.
• True Blind Date: How much do you trust your friends? Hopefully enough that when he/she says “I know the perfect person for you,” they mean it. THese are risky, and I tried it once and all I have to say is the result was not good, and she was not perfect for me. 
• Fixed Blind Date: These are a way to ask that girl/guy out you have eyes for, but really don’t know well enough or are too shy to ask yourself. You find a good mutual friend to set up an arranged pairing. 
• Invite a friend: Always a safe choice if all else fails. Choose someone you not only are good friends with but you know will be a good date and someone to have a lot of fun with. 
• Go Stag: I wouldn’t recommend it. Not much else to say
• Bring Your Cousin: I would say go stag over this one. Although, I have heard this is a popular option in the south.

If a guy asks you to formal, it can mean any one of the above options, and the best advice I can give you is to think about your interactions to this point, and figure it out yourself which one you are. Or, you can always send in spies to figure these things out for you, everyone else does it. All I have to say is take the person you most want to spend your formal with, and if there is a girl/guy you like, the possible rewards are much higher than the possible risks, so go for it! Dance safely my friends.

Read what “Northwestern Guy” has to say!
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Hey ladies. Enjoying the lovely spring weather I presume. I’m finally starting to see some tans. Those things happen when its not freezing AND the sun is out, two rare and precious occasions in Chicago. Once again we have another reader write-in question that haunts the female mind: Are friends with benefits relationships/agreements likely to change into actual relationships (AKA I want my friends with benefits relationship to become a real one so how do I make that happen)? Answer: it depends. This is what I think and why.

I have had one friends with benefits relationship turn into an actual relationship. We were hooking up because we had it hot for each other, but I didn’t want a relationship. Eventually I caved and we started dating exclusively and it was fun, but like all things it came to an end. However, she pulled the one trick on me that will determine if any friends with benefits will take the next step: making me jealous. Basically she started going out with this total douche, it pissed me off, they broke up, and I went in. So if you want to see if some guy really cares about you, try to make him jealous and see what happens. For example, hook up with someone else, or even one of his friends. And if it doesn’t make him jealous, then don’t worry about it. Keep him as a side, and continue to prowl for someone else. Like I said, don’t kill off the relationship because there is one situation they are an excellent option.

Part 2 of the Bro Blog: Formals.

Going with your F*** buddy to formal is a great idea. 1) You’re getting some action, guaranteed 2) You can just be yourself AKA get plastered because you don’t have to uphold an image for your date. Whatever you do, DO NOT go with someone “just as friends.” That completely changes the circumstances of your date and it won’t be as fun. You are way better off getting set up because the only reason a guy would go to your formal is because he has some level of interest in you, making it more of a date and therefore more intimate, and potentially lead to a more sexually charged night. Yeah, there’s a little bit of risk because the guy could turn out to be a douche bag, but going with just a friend to formal is boring because there is no intimacy, and in my opinion, grinding on my female friends weirds me out.

As for when guys ask you to their formals, it’s because of two things. 1) They’re attracted to you 2) They need to get a date. Even if it’s option two, it doesn’t mean it’s going to be a boring night. He picked you because he thinks it would be fun to go with you, and that you would go with him. Its what you put into the night that you get out of it. If you go to a formal to have fun and get a little wild, it’s going to be a fun night. Don’t ever downplay an event before it ever occurs. It’s like everything in life, the more positive and fun attitude you have towards something, the better it will end up.
 
 
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