how to ask

Asking someone to be your friends with benefits is the step most people overthink. You know what you want, you have a good sense that the other person might be into it, but the actual conversation feels loaded with risk. Get it wrong and you make things awkward, lose a friendship, or worse, get a polite no followed by weeks of reading too much into every text. Get it right and you have a genuinely enjoyable arrangement with someone whose company you already enjoy.

This guide walks through how to ask someone to be your FWB in a UK context. When to bring it up, how to phrase it, what...