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Casual Relationship and College Students

"Friends With Benefits":

In college, most casual relationships are referred to as a friends with benefits relationship (FWB). Friends with benefits is a relationship between two friends that occasionally have sex.

This type of relationship has been found to neither fit the traditional definition of a Friendship nor fit the mold of a romantic relationship. Instead, it incorporates characteristics from both relationships.

Friends with benefits is a hybrid of friendships and romantic relationships.

A friends with benefits relationship typically in found among college students and as its popularity increases, so doesn't the amount of attention it is receiving from the media and researchers.

College Students and Casual Relationships:

This type of "no strings attached" relationship is most commonly found in young adults such as college students. The shift from childhood to adulthood brings on much exploration in different fields, one of which is relationships and sex. This is the time of their life where they try and master the life skills they will need in the future.

The majority of college students have already participated in sexual intercourse before high school graduation. In most cases Grello's study showed that these sames students who lost their virginity in high school, lost them in a romantic relationship.

After experiencing sexual intercourse, most college students go on to have casual sex with either friends or peers they have been recently or newly acquainted with.

J.A. Lee, author of Love Styles in the R.J Sternberg & M.L. Barnes: The psychology of love journal, has come up with two main types of lovers for college aged young adults. They are "Eros" lovers who are passionate lovers and "Ludas" or "Ludic" lovers, which are game-playing lovers.

"Eros" lovers are lovers that are often struck by "Cupid's Arrow". They often fall head over heels at the first sight of a potential relationship. "Eros" fall in love with the physical attributes of another before any other characteristic. This type of lover is also known to commit to other casual sex relationships.

Because physical attributes are the main reason for attraction, it is very hard to further a real romantic relationship.

"Ludic" lovers are out for the game. They are looking for the feeling of conquest and typically enter a relationship or hook-up with very little or no intentions of establishing commitment. They, in most cases, will have more then one sexually active partner at a given time. They also find it very hard to picture a relationship getting serious.

With both of these types of lovers being open to having more then one sexual partner, it helps explain why many college students participate in a friends with benefits relationships. It allows these young adults to continue to explore and master skills for the future, as well as continue to explore different sexual partners.

Negotiation of Participants in a Casual Relationship:

Many casual relationships establish guidelines or a set of rules. The two participating friends in the relationship will reach an agreement about what each other expects out of the relationship.

The findings tell us that a reoccurring worry in a casual relationship is that sexual intercourse or other acts of sex (oral, anal) may end up putting stress on the friendship. Another major concern, is that one of the partners will establish romantic feelings for the other.

Communication between the two partners is essential to making this type of relationship work and becuase the partners in the casual relationship are often friends before hand, talking to one another is a much more simple task.

Triangle Theory of Love:

Robert Sternberg's Triangular theory of love offers the type of flexibility that may suited in helping this type of relationship become successful.

Maintenance of the Casual Relationship:

Casual relationships, being a mix between a cross-sex friendship and a non-romantic sexual relationship, the partners face many challenges in maintaining a working relationship. Based of the exchange theory, the idea that the partners in this casual relationship become mutually independent with their exchange of resources, knowledge, rewards, and costs of items, they become dependent on one another. The partners may become dependent on advice the other partner gives, or the company they receive when being around one another. This may be a one way street and one partner may not feel this way. This partner that doesn't depend on the other partner normally controls the power of the casual relationship because the partner that is dependent does not want the relationship to end. This allow the less dependent partner to be able to fix and maintain the relationship the way he/she wants it to be. They normally control when they meet up, when they have sex, and when they do things together.

Telling Friends About The Casual Relationship:

Hughes's study also revealed the four main categories of why partners participating in a casual relationship did not feel the need to tell there same sex friends about the relationship. The first category was the fact that the partners did not feel that their same sex friends needed to know this information. The second category consisted of people wanting to keep the relationship a secret and didn't want their same sex friends to know. The feeling of embarrassment was the third category. Many students said that they would feel ashamed or didn't want to e judged by tier same sex friends. The final category is student didn't want to tell their same sex friends because they would not approve of the relationship.

Motivations For Being In A Casual Relationship:

Hughes's study proved that there were five main motivations to why college students wanted to be in a casual relationship. The five main motivators are:

Relationship avoidance:

Students that liked multiple partners at once and wanted to avoid being tied down to one person.

Sex:

Students find each other attractive and figure why not hook up.

Relationship simplicity:

Students get the benefits of a relationship with all the drama.

Emotional connection:

Students miss the intimacy they used to have with ex relationships and want to experience it again with no strings attached.

Always wanted a casual relationship:

Two students that single and want to take of advantage of it together.

Alcohol Consumption in Casual Relationship:

Grello states that, "alcohol consumption appears to have a direct link with casual sex." The more alcohol that is involved the higher the can of a casual relationship forming. Both male and female college students are more likely to engage in sex while intoxicated. Consumption of alcohol increases the perceptions of attraction between partners. Also, with intoxication, low self esteems and symptoms of depression may be adding factors to increase the chances to engage in this type of relationship.