@Rhapsody: I've seen what infatuation, lust, and love do to people. At my age or at any. It seems like a false sense of security. A false sense of trust. A bunch of falsities. I've always seen love as perhaps something too intense to mess with. Of course, I've never experienced love.

That being said, I don't really want to. I don't really need to. I'm my favorite person, and my friends are close seconds. Why put myself out there and risk so much more. Couples in relationships never seem as honest with each other as friends do. And I don't think it's healthy or wise for someone to depend on any one person that much.

There are so many risks to love, and to most people the benefits outweigh them, but not for me. I don't trust myself with love.

Infatuation, if not love, really screws up people's perceptions. I've seen it happen. If you only knew how many girls like my friend Ben... And the type of personality a person has determines the distortions. Like, I have a friend who likes him but is very underconfident. She assumed he liked every girl but her. My other friend who likes him was slightly more secure, and she thought that he liked her. I don't want to know what delusions I would get if I liked someone!

In most anecdotes, a girl wishes she would've waited because at the time she felt she was in love, but it turns out she really wasn't or she only thought she was. Which gave her the idea it was the right thing to do. This is why I see way more sense in friends with benefits. The love isn't there. The attraction isn't there. So you're totally in control, you're not caught up in their expectations and demands.

Sex and love just don't seem like a safe combination.
Sex and friendship seems totally plausible, the more I think about it.