Love is always cute…at first

When you have known your best friend from a young age into adulthood, you tend to meet quite a few men.  These men can come and go as quickly (if not quicker) than the months of the year.  Navigating your relationship with these men can get tricky.  If you become to close to the boyfriend, and he becomes the ex boyfriend are you allowed to remain friends with him?  If you keep a distance from your best friend’s new man to avoid drama will you be perceived as a bitch?  Wasn’t it so much easier when it was just you and your best friend in the relationship?

The best way to deal with your best friend’s man is to know your best friend.  That should be easy since you probably know her better than anyone else.  You know what gets on her nerves, what annoys her, and you’ve probably been in this situation before.  Look back on how she acted in previous relationships as an indicator of how you should act now.

That being said, there are some general tips on how to get through your best friend’s latest relationship.  Here are a few situations that can occur, and how to get through them.

1) The Bad Boy

Sometimes your friend enters into a relationship with a guy you know is all wrong, and your girl friend knows it too.  Problem is she doesn’t care.  There once was a guy who told my friend upfront that he was living with someone else when he took her on their first date.  He later told her about how he cheated on every girl he was with.  Throughout the span of three years, he would hit her up every time he ended a relationship.  In the third year he finally came to her with a proclamation.  He claimed that he had realized that she was the one for him, and that he wanted the chance to prove his love for her.  I knew he hadn’t changed, wouldn’t change, and couldn’t change.

The Answer: I kept it cordial with him, but I never got close.  I didn’t spend much time with them as a couple, but when I did I had civil simple conversations with him, nothing deep.  At the start of their relationship I expressed my concern, and gave her my opinion on the situation, then I was done.  I let her live her life, and learn her own lessons.  You can’t make anyone do anything, and the more you express your hatred for your best friend’s boyfriend the more strained your relationship will become.  She learned the hard way that he couldn’t change when she found him in their apartment bedroom with another girl.  There relationship ended, but ours didn’t.

2) The Buddy

In high school one of my friends got with a guy I was already friends with.  As their relationship grew, so did our friendship.  The three of us hung out all of the time.  They were only together for one year when he went off to college, and they broke up.  When their relationship ended, so did our friendship until two years later when he reached out to me.  He had ended his relationship, apologized for being MIA, and wanted to reconnect.  We had always gotten along really well, and I wanted to give him another chance.  He was also interested in reconnecting with my friend, so we planned for him to come with us to a mutual friend’s party.  They hung out at the party, and went to dinner shortly after.  Fast forward years later, and my friend decided she had an issue with our friendship.

The Answer: You can’t always make everyone happy.  In this situation I believed it was okay to remain friends with my friend’s ex.  I think anytime you are friends with both parties in a relationship before the relationship started, you should have the ability to maintain both friendships afterwards.  Her ex hadn’t treated her badly, and he was a very good friend to me throughout the many years of our friendship.  Had she mentioned an issue earlier on I would have possibly ended the friendship, but the fact that she was mentioning it ten years after their relationship ended, felt unfair.  Using her reaction to my friendship with her ex as an example, I never got too close to a man of hers again.

3) The Good Guy

Sometimes your best friend isn’t the one getting hurt, she’s the one doing the hurting.  If your friend isn’t seriously in love with her man, you shouldn’t be either.  Don’t get too close to a guy who your friend isn’t that into.  She’ll end it with him quickly, and expect you to do so as well.  Avoid the drama, and keep your distance.  It’s important to be polite and friendly in his company, just don’t start planning tons of double dates.

4) The Guy You Used to Date

I will never understand this, but some friends get with guys you used to date.  What’s even worse is when a friend dates a guy who bad mouthed her while you were together.  I once had an on again off again friendship with a girl I worked with while in college.  We were good friends in high school, but problems occurred when we started working together.  She started to get jealous, and when I got promoted over her our friendship pretty much ended.  While working together I started talking to one of our coworkers.  I was just getting out of a tricky relationship, and wasn’t really interested.  He was trying a little too hard to get me to go out with him, and it was coming off fake.  He knew I was having problems with my friend, and so he thought by bad mouthing her I would like him more.  I never understand his train of thinking.  I told him that he wasn’t going to get anywhere with me by saying such horrible things about another person, whether or not they were on bad terms with me or not.  Still he continued to say mean things about her looks, her attitude, and her personality.  A couple of months went by, and nothing happened between us.  He finally understood I wasn’t interested, and he backed off.  One day I read my friend’s blog where she wrote about someone who sounded a lot like our coworker.  I reached out to him, and discovered that it was true, he had asked her out.  I couldn’t believe it, but he did.  I tried to stay out of the situation, but one day she messaged me saying that she heard that me and him and dated, and that she wanted to know the details.

The Answer: In that situation I did what I will never do again.  I told her that he had been interested in me, but that things never went farther than that.  I told her that she should be careful, and that he was fake.  She asked me to elaborate, but I didn’t feel comfortable sharing the things he had said.  They were too mean, and I wanted to spare her feelings.  I only said that he had said some awful things about her, and that she should talk to him about it.  She did talk to him about it, and he confessed.  She got with him anyway, and told me that I was just angry that a guy who liked me would like her.  That ended our friendship for good.  A few years later she wrote to me, and confessed that I was right about him, that she should have listened to me, and that she was sorry.  I had no interest in becoming her friend again at that point.  What I learned from that situation is that when a girl wants to be with a guy, she will ignore and resent every negative thing you have to say about him.  Whatever you have to say will come off as you being jealous in some way.  When someone asks your opinion you can give it, but then drop it.