You Talking to Me?

The motivation for this post comes from a couple of places.

I happened to be re-reading some old posts at A Brown Girl and saw where Alix had responded to a comment I made on "A Dilemma" Go read the post, it's thought-provoking. My comment was:

Man, this really speaks to me. I feel like this about my best friend who is male. I’m a problem in his relationships and he’s a problem in mine. To outsiders, we look like we’re supposed to be together. We know we’re not, but we truly love each other and we’re each other’s “rock…”

It’s crazy to expect anyone to just “accept” that, but it’s what would have to happen for ANY relationship to work for either one of us. *Sigh*

I’ve been in situations where my boyfriend would say something like “you need to choose…” and I would warn them that they wouldn’t like my choice and that’s all they need to hear, and I can never blame them for walking away. I know I wouldn’t be ok with competing with my significant other’s bestie all the time. It’s not fair, and yet, it’s exactly what I expect.

Alix's response:

Are you in love with your best friend though?

Having a friend that you’re that close to is only a problem if it’s made into one. When you’re in a relationship with someone, it’s your duty to make them feel safe, secure and wanted. Your partner should never feel like someone comes before them even if in reality they do…

I didn't actually see it when she responded, but when I did see it, I got to thinking...

For the record, I'm, not in love with my BFF (if you've been keeping up with "The Series" I call him "O" elsewhere in the site, I've called him "J" -- I use "O" in the series because I call the boyfriend "JD" and I don't want you guys to get confused). But, Alix makes a good point and is so right. When I'm in a relationship, it's my job to make the other person feel safe. One thing I don't think my series will really reveal is how JD was very intimidated by my BFF, and in hindsight, I didn't try to do much to make him feel better. I would always tell myself that was his problem.

The second motivation for this post, was the situation I talked about yesterday -- the one that happened to my friend, B. In relaying it to another friend we got on the topic of what you do when your BFF is cheating...

I may just be really bad at picking friends, but I don't have any friends that haven't either been cheated on, or cheated -- many of them fall in both categories. My experience shows that no matter what my relationship with a boyfriend of one of my female friends is, they will never approach me to ask if their girl is being faithful. This could be for a myriad of reasons, including they don't ever suspect it, or they are too prideful to ask, but I think it's because there's a perception about female friends that some men have that when it comes to them we won't "snitch." On the flip side, though, I've found that females who date my male friends hesitate NOT to come directly to me to find out if their boyfriend is cheating.

I've had this conversation before: You get stuck between not wanting to lie (or at least I do) and feeling a sense of duty to your friend. It took me some trial and error, but I've had enough male friends over the years to discover that my best bet is to stay out of it, at all costs. Yes he's my friend and yes I identify with the girl, but this really isn't about me, it's about them.

One situation in particular comes to mind. A male friend I've had since high school started dating a girl during the sophomore year of college. The situations with his previous two exes is VERY complicated (I may post about it some time) and really isn't worth delving into, but of course she asked him. He was vague and didn't want to answer, so she resorted to facebook. She sent me, and his two exes facebook messages wanting to know what had happened that he was so afraid to tell.

Now, the truth of the matter is, there's nothing to hide as much as what all the parties involved believe to be true may or may not be (do you see already how confusing this is?) My response message was long, but basically I wanted her to understand that her relationship with my friend, D, had nothing to do with me or his exes. I told her that knowing him as well as I did I could understand her frustration with his hesitancy to be forthcoming but I told her she either needed to walk away from the situation or accept it for what it was -- but that I would back him up on whatever he said and that this would be the last conversation we'd have about it.

Needless to say I became her enemy #1 and since then, they've had a child together who I still haven't seen in person (D sends me pics) because of that.

It gets sticky. Do you owe more loyalty to the truth or to your friend? Even since then, I've allowed my response to such situations to evolve into "If you have to ask me, then you've also probably already decided what the answer is... I suggest you talk to your man..."

B's situation with JP and MG brings to light that issue that women have. We always want to be mad at the "other woman" instead of with our boyfriends. Why is that? MG's call to B served no purpose except to confirm that B, another woman who's relationship with JP, as far as MG was concerned was, sketchy at best, actually existed. Why do we do that to ourselves and to each other?

What say the masses? How do you deal when your BFF's significant other wants you to spill the beans?