In "When Harry Met Sally...", Harry claims that men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way. I'd put it differently: sex can make a friendship more complicated, but it doesn't have to. A 2013 study asked 308 university students what had become of their last friends-with-benefits relationship after the sex stopped: 18.5 percent were no longer friends, 31.5 percent were still friends but less close, and half felt as close as before or even closer. Those who lost the friendship were more likely to say the arrangement had been more about sex than about friendship, and they felt more deceived. The risk is real, but Harry's "always" does not hold up.
Sources
- Owen J, Fincham FD, Manthos M: Friendship after a friends with benefits relationship: deception, psychological functioning, and social connectedness. Archives of Sexual Behavior 2013;42(8):1443–1449
- Lehmiller JJ: Can "Friends With Benefits" Ever Go Back To Just Being Friends. Sex and Psychology, 27 December 2013 (breakdown of the percentages)
- When Harry Met Sally... (1989), Wikiquote