My Lover, My Friend.

“Friends are friends, pals are pals and buddies sleep together.”

An unknown person, perhaps of questionable moral standards to the hypocrites and closet-kittens within and among us, proliferated this old adage. And we’re not talking about an alcohol-induced momentary lapse of concentration.

Oh no! We’re talking about a booty call – a friends-with-benefits arrangement.  An agreement between friends to have sex when nature calls without the drama of a high maintenance love relationship.

Perhaps it is to fill a dateless Friday night, halt the onset of insomnia at midnight or console oneself from a break-up, unrequited love, or a fruitless serial dating stint.

Or maybe it is simply to scratch an itch. Whatever the reason, a booty call promises wild, uninhibited, great sex minus the trappings and emotional rollercoaster ride of romantic love. It is the ultimate modern-day carnal agreement of convenience.

Obviously, a guy invented it!

And in the noughties where a slow but steady resurgence of the swinging 60’s is bringing free love back to the fore, I find myself coming across the subject in personal blogs, late night television commercials, and not surprisingly, dinner table conversations among Gen-Yers, Gen-Xers and baby-boomer friends alike.

In fact, I need only observe a male friend’s recent juggling act and clandestine dalliances with, let’s just say, several “girlfriends”, to know it inevitably comes to an all-too-predictable end: he enjoys it for what it is and she secretly plans the wedding.

And while I remain amused and entertained by this live comedy of sorts unfold before my eyes (after all, social voyeurism is now an acceptable pastime), I secretly wish of throttling the girls just enough to send them gasping for air and sucking up the stench of their matrimonial dreams in decay.

My friend’s questionable forays, however, do not constitute a friends-with-benefits arrangement – each girl thinks they’re in a meaningful relationship!

And that’s where the problem lies.

Women are genetically pre-disposed to attaching emotionally after a good tango. Ladies, let’s face it, more often than not, we set our hearts in motion when we’re on fire. Add regularity to the mix and we have an explosive recipe of love and sex intermingle where they should not. Blame it on years of evolution but even in this day of Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, serial dating, sextexting and cybersex, we are still hardwired to nest and nurture when we mate with an alpha male, or a version of Mr Almost Right from RSVP.

And what about the lies people tell? Especially the ones we tell ourselves.

We lie about our age, weight, height, hair colour, pay and many other things just as often as we lie about our real intentions. So watch out for those motives hidden even to ourselves. Giving your buddy – yes, the one whom you secretly fancy to one day ring your wedding bells – a “free” ride to cloud nine is probably not the best way to make him fall head over heels.

Then there’s the friendship issue. Are you really prepared to ruin a perfectly good bottle of Bordeaux by mixing it up into a relationship cocktail in the boudoir?

So it begs the question: just who exactly benefits in a friends-with-benefits relationship.

Ladies, the only appealing thing about it: we don’t have to fake it!

If you ask me, I’d rather go shopping.