In order to have a successful “friend with benefits”, both of you need to have an almost crazed emotional obsession with another person. Therefore, you’re so focused on getting with this other person that you have no time to look at your friend as anything other than a) your friend, and b) someone who you can get sex from when you need it. My old best friend and I found that this formula works beautifully. While I was determined to get back an ex boyfriend, he was determined to snag this girl who toyed mercilessly with his head. In the end, we both got the other people, and went our separate ways… but I can say that he was one of the nicest “quasi-relationships” I’ve ever had—I could be myself around him, he made me laugh, and we got to have sex on top of it. No commitment. No smothering the other person. Just plain good human connection.