What is the new what? For lots of young people I know…Friends are the new lovers.   I’ll let Brandon McFarland explain.

Brandon McFarland:  You can be friends with another person, have sex with them, and that be it.

That’s right, they’re your friends and you can have sex!  It may sound raunchy, but you have to understand where this is coming from… Today young people seem more cynical about long-term relationships.  Leilani Hopkins explains.

Leilani Hopkins:  A lot of people grow up in single parent homes, so it’s understandable why a lot of people wouldn’t want to have the name, girlfriend, or boyfriend or relationship, but then with friendship things just never really end, there's a security there.

Back in the days of poodle skirts and thunder birds, there was this stereotype of getting married, raising a perfect family, and having a house with a white picket fence.  But for young people in my generation - we see those same couples getting divorced and fighting over their possessions.  So instead of looking for soul mates, lots of teens I know just want a friend, who they can be intimate with – we call these relationships Friends with Benefits or simply FWB. Here’s Brandon again.

Brandon McFarland  This is every guys dream to not have to deal with, exclusivity and all that, when it comes to sex.  If I was that type of person I would have a bunch of fun but I’m not. (laughs)

Sure FWB’s sound good, but they’re much easier said then done. A lot of these friendships are simply utopian dreams. In fact most end up becoming like an actual relationship, filled with drama, feelings, and a break up. A select few have had fantastic experiences, but the rest are left eating Ben and Jerry’s with the broken hearted.  That’s what happened between me and my former FWB Quincy Mosby.

Quincy Mosby:  The main thing that was wrong was the difference in our needs.  You kind of had a more realistic view than I did.  I think that was really my big problem was that I took it way to seriously.

Maybe that’s the problem.  Most young people, me included, take relationships too seriously to begin with.  I mean, how many teenagers stay with their significant others for life?  Plus our brains aren’t even fully developed yet! We’re changing so rapidly that committing to just one person doesn’t make that much sense at this young age.  So we experiment – trying to find ways to make relationships work.

That’s why, at least for now…Friends are the new Lovers.
For NPR News, I’m Jennifer Marshall.