(fairly) new (but unlisted) "benefits"

[Joel S. Berson]

At 8/5/2011 09:49 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>Browsing through the Google Books hits under
>"friends with benefits" does get rid of most
>(not all) of the references to the movie, but
>I'm not sure how to arrange the hits
>chronologically if it's possible to do so.  Most
>seem to be from the last 5 years, which doesn't
>help.  Alternatively there's Nexis, but they
>keep changing the search algorithms and I haven't kept up.

Successively telling GBooks Advanced Search to
search before xxxx for "[best] friend[s] with
benefits" (quoted; all 4 combinations) arrives at
just 9 hits before Dec 31, 2003, the earliest of
which (that appears relevant) is alleged to be
Apr 21, 1997, in New York Magazine, Vol. 30, No.
15, page 106, a personal ad (a believable source, surely):

"Wanted: Best Friend With Benefits­ I'm an
outgoing, fun, family-oriented 33-year-old (hell
of a catch), with a lot to offer.
Nonanorexic-looking Jewish female, living in
central NJ. I have a lot of plans for the spring
and summer ... I realized I was missing the
special guy to share the good times with. You
should be 31-40, just a bit romantic, ...

[Or does the "just a bit" romantic disqualify
this?  Although there's something appealing about
a possible New Jersey origin.]

Date and page number confirmed from page footer.

Joel

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