This Is Not Saved By The Bell

The New York Times > Magazine > Friends, Friends With Benefits and the Benefits of the Local Mall

Interesting article in Sunday's New York Times Magazine about how friends with benefits has become a very popular option amongst the high school set in light of the internet and cellphones. I remember when I got to college and first heard about this type of arrangement. I thought it was novel, mature even. And I think that in certain cases it can work, when things are purely carnal. But it's definitely not for high schoolers. Can you imagine Archie and Jughead doing the whole friends with benefits system? I can see it now. Poor Betty getting her heart broken every time she gives Archie her milkshake only to know that Veronica's line was busy and she was second choice.

Why stop there with the revisionist pop culture history? Maybe Saved by the Bell would have been more believable if they had the friends with benefits system. I think Lisa Turtle was the protypical high school Sex & The City Samantha. Into the materials, loved her friends, and very able and willing to get what she needed out of the opposite sex. Screech still would have been a wallflower though.

Teens should have to long for relationships just like the generations before them. All throughout the article you see kids complaining that dating is messy and painful. Well so's life losers. You can't control everything. There are a lot of things worse than that varsity basketball player or the homecoming queen not giving you the time of day. Like trying to get a job.