The best friend, a fiend.

We're all beauty kings and queens in search of world peace until you meet your love's best friend who happens to be the other gender. World peace vanishes and you become destructive, you become much more interested in world domination and that means kicking your lovers BFF off your island.

If this is survivor, they are the outcast and you do all you can to kick this waste of space out of the race. Normally you wouldn't be so unkind to someone. You may even be friends in other instances but when she's taking more of your boyfriend’s time than you are, the girl has got to
go!!!

I'd love to say that we're all really liberal and ready to let love in in every circumstance but most girls wouldn't and I admit I'd struggle with the idea of another girl taking up my man's time up. The reason for this is that you never want to be on the outskirts of their in jokes and I'm unsure of what he'd have to share with her privately that he couldn't just share with me. The situation works only if the female friend is taken and unattractive and poses no threat to your partnership.

Interestingly, many men I know feel the same about us women clinging to friendships with men who aren't them when they are your partners. The explanation given to me was that they only befriend women if they think they have a chance of being with them and if they don't desire that, they were at least initially attracted to that person. Attraction must thus have vanished or never existed to begin with.

Knowing that their brains are hard wired for sex and not much else makes men nervous about you letting other men in your life. Knowing that women rarely stick around in a female/male friendship without the thought of a future with this man crossing their mind at least once makes women nervous about these type of liaisons too. We’re no strangers to the pre relationship clause that details an agreement between you and your bestie that reads 'let's marry each other if we reach thirty and are still single." With the throw away comment safely inserted into their unspoken contract, it’s no wonder, the friendship meddles with our sanity. 

Of course this is not a blanket rule for all friendships or relationships. I know many women and men with great neutral relationships, but partners on both sides enter the relationship with caution and tread carefully until the situation is sussed out. 

The friend can't stand it. The girlfriend can't stand it. The man is left standing in the middle.

The competition starts early. This female friend will notice the diversion of his attention from her to you. She'll be everywhere he is and know everything about you. She'll profess her love to him regularly before you get a chance to do so and she'll manipulate the situation to always emerge a little closer, a little more knowledgeable and a little bit better for him than you.

She'll arrange to meet him, she'll offer him her help wherever she can, she'll happily lend an ear for complaints about you and her profile photos will always feature a special guest; YOUR boyfriend!

I get it. She's insecure, she's losing someone she cares about it and their are difficult changes that everyone has to adapt to. Fair enough as long as no sabotage is involved and she stops being territorial. When that line is drawn in the sand, you better hope she stays on her side of the sand.

I hate the sound of how hateful/hurtful this situation can be so I tried to think of instances where this could work and this is what I came up with:

1) if he/she is in a relationship
2) if he/she is happy to have you there and treats you kindly in his/her absence
3) if he/she is devoid of emotion and therefore is incapable of experiencing jealousy
4) if he/she is ugly/nonthreatening and your partner agrees with your assessment of their looks (harsh but true)!

When beautiful women fight for one man’s attention, ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ comes to mind – this scene in particular.

The problem here is that someone will always get hurt, even if it’s just your imagination going into overdrive. This will happen because life would have taught you often that three (in a relationship) is a crowd and there’s a big chance that that friend if not tapping into the physical, will emotionally occupy your partner’s heart. 

For men, it’s a silly idea from the start….trying to date two women will cost a man three times as much….and possibly your relationship in the end. A man cannot serve two masters and a woman would be exhausted with this too. 

This is a sad truth for most but being an eternal optimist I hope to find the better in the other woman (as long as she’s not his mistress).

For every woman or man struggling to accept your partner’s BFF in your life, practice love – as difficult as it can be, no one can ever hate someone who loves them. They may be annoyed by them. They may dislike them but they’ll never hate them. 

 If your man has befriended a girl before knowing you (or during), she’s probably got some admirable qualities (after all, he does have exceptional taste don’t you think ;)). You could try befriending her, you could try to see the good and if it’s still a futile effort, alert your man. He may agree and things will work for the better. 

If you still struggle to meet at a compromise and your insecurities are still stirred by her presence, then step-away from the threesome because somewhere, someone out there is happy to prioritise you and in such a case, his female friend won’t get in the way. If she does, the hope is that she’s Julia and your Cameron in the clip above and the walk down the aisle comes with the realization that her friend is YOUR man. 

Saint Basil said, “a  tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.” With this in mind, love in your heart and kindness in your deeds, you will have successfully turned a fiend into a friend. 

At this point, beauty kings and queens can be re-crowned, cat-fights are avoided and the ugliness of insecurity is safely contained. When every man and woman knows their place on the island, peace can be hoped for once more and no one needs to be voted out.  

The Ex Files

An anonymous reader of this blog asked me this week what are the rules when it comes to befriending your friend’s ex.  

The reader asked “when a friend breaks up with their long term relationship and you’ve made friends with the other party, as a friend do you have a responsibility to end the friendship with their ex? Is the proper etiquette to at least offer to do so? And finally, does it depend on the terms of the break up?

The reader was happy to have me blog on the topic as it’s an issue that is commonly faced by everyone at some point in time. I tried as best as I could to outline the rules according to dating, in the Ex files.

My first question, was for you to consider how close you are to both parties? If the obvious answer is your friend, then it’s a no-brainer but if the relationship has spanned years, the lines of who is friends with who may be blurred, so we move on to the other common factors.

Ultimately, and it's a sad truth in most friendship circles, a friendship with a person of the opposite gender  will dissipate or will at least be less intimate, when the male or female gets into a relationship, so if you are to pursue friendship with your mate’s ex, ask yourself is it worth losing your friend over a friendship that is likely to be over in a few years? This assumes that you have befriended your friends ex purely platonically. The other option is a whole other blog.

The other thing worth considering, is if your friend would do the same for you in return? Has he/she done so, so far? I know that friendship is not eye for eye, tooth for tooth but if you are not naturally receiving what you are giving (without keeping tab) then the quality of your friendship is probably questionable anyway.

I have some very loyal friends who I know would stick by me and have when I discover I have made the wrong decision in liking a guy. Their hatred for the boy stems out of loyalty to me and an intense hatred of seeing me upset. I’ve never requested that they hate whomever hurts me but they’re reaction is instinctive and stems out of loyalty. This reaction of course, is only warranted when a break-up or the end of a more-than-friends-friendship has resulted in my hurt. The same applies for you…if you’re friendship is hurt from an immediately unforgivable act that an ex committed towards them, then you’ll usually find you’re pretty mad at them too for putting your friend in that state. If the break up was peaceful, a different set of rules apply again.

If it was amicable then they are both good people that deserve happiness elsewhere. No hard feelings, but maybe no more feelings (period) is a good idea?

You’re friend may even push for your friendship with the girl to continue. Two sides to that argument are that if your friend wants to look like they don’t care anymore (peace/love/harmony approach) then he or she will encourage you to keep talking to their ex so it looks like he or she is over it. I do think there is always subtext in that. I've seen it done before, where friends go ahead and befriend another friend’s ex to show that their newly single friend is above the pettiness. The danger there is that when friendships develop, they get a little annoyed at their misplaced loyalty because they were there first and therefore should have priority. Will your mate have the same reaction?

 Always ask if your friend minds most good people are inclined to say forgive, forget (in good time) and go ahead and talk to her/him, but at least you'll cover your back if you've got the ok first. 

The option is yours and there is no infallible guideline for every breakup because as we know every relationship is different. I can’t definitively tell anyone what to do but personally, I'd limit my contact to what is peaceful without a close friendship. What makes men gentlemen is that a gentleman is always doing what is kind. It's kinder to be nice to all, but more valuable to be exceptionally loyal to some.

As someone on the receiving end, I've also known how hurtful it can be when an entire group of people stop talking to you because a boy has decided to cut ties. What I learnt from the experience is that most girls and boys won't wait for your friendship but if you're friendly, the ex will appreciate any positive acknowledgement more than a complete disregard of their existence. That’s just rude.

So my advice? Be kind. Be friendly. Be polite, but you have to be selective with your loyalty if the friendship is valuable to you.

The F Word

It’s that word that every woman dreads. It’s the word that compartmentalizes your fantasies, storing them in the Do-No-Open section of your brain, attempting to arrest your dreams and keep them in its protective custody. The angel of freedom guards this room and puts a padlock on the thoughts insisting you let the sentence be served while you roam free. Your thoughts however, are like Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton are to prison – temporary fashionable visitors with bad habits. You sign the release and put your thoughts on parole and as is characteristic, your thoughts stray. Those alarm bells ring rampantly and then the angel flaps its wings as you sift through the shoulda coulda wouldas. 

The word that drives you to this institution is the word friend; where no girl wants to be unless you’re slipping a girl in front of that. We young, confident, desirable women are confused at how after all we’ve done to gain someone’s attention; we end up in the can’t-touch-this file because you’re the buddy, the friend, the mate, the pal. Please!!! This is what our girlfriends are for. Surely you know that we don’t want to discuss you and how poorly you read and receive us with YOU. 

Some men would argue that that in fact is our core problem…that we conceal our emotions and then worry about honesty but the fact is you’ve admitted to liking the chase and a forward woman, while sexually liberated to her gender is less sexually attractive to yours after a while because he masculinity is more assertive than your own and that is emasculating to you and your egos. We stay silent on feelings for fear of rushing you to the f word. You flirt and give off signals and we reciprocate the code but more often than not we’re speaking different languages, reiterating the notion that men are from Mars and women are from Venus and collectively, we’re confused. 

I’m in this situation now – the friend with a dream of more…never directly placed there but my behavior marked the spot and my ‘mate’ – not in the copulating sense of the word, danced around the spot till his footprints created a divide. Before we knew it, we were standing in different places. From where I stood, there was only one view, as an onlooker to his life. Stuck in my circle, I could spin around till I got dizzy , dip my toes in the murky water around me or charge through the mud. 

We’re the makers of our own destiny and I often feel we’ll cling to a fantasy for fear of exploring the unknown. If we don’t like X then whatever will our brains do with all of that downtime? The answer? You’ll think of you. That of course is your greatest investment because loving yourself, not in the vain type, but being comfortable in your own skin is your most powerful ammunition. So load that ego!

In every situation you are given two options; to sink or swim.

These days’ drowning in illusive love is not the tale I want to tell about myself so I’ve opted to swim. As dirty and damaged as the mud may make me, I’ll emerge as the heroine of my own story – not like the drug/addict more like the hero and we all know the wonders of a mud bath. After a nice long cathartic mud wrestle and shower, I’ll have fabulous skin and an attractive ‘friend’ that notices.