I once dated a gent who we'll call Mr. Ex. When we were alone he was Mr Perfect who would call me his "Princess" and actually offered to watch the film Clueless on our first date. (Strange, but true.) The trouble, I soon discovered, was that when we were out with his mates, he'd smash beer cans on his head, act rough and aggressive, drink his weight in vodka and ignore me the entire evening. When I questioned his behaviour the following day, he explained that his mates didn't like it when he had a girlfriend so he pretended we weren't together when they're around. "During my last relationship, my girlfriend and I sat home every weekend on the couch," he told me. "I lost all the respect of my mates. It won't let ever happen again with anyone else. Including you" ...
I don't know what his friends were saying (I assume they were angry at him for missing PlayStation evenings and beer smashing competitions) but I've noticed something often goes awry when a singleton's best mate gets serious with a new partner.
Take the case of my friend Petra and her new boyfriend Will, whose best buddy acted liked a jealous ex-girlfriend. The closer her and Will became, the more clingy was his best buddy. He would call Will during a romantic dinner ("where the hell have you been all night man? Let's go clubbing."), during sex (yes, Will took the call) and first thing in the morning to make plans to go to the pub that evening.
"Imagine your supposed hot-red-lover answers a call from his best friend in the middle of a sex session and he says he'll call his mate back soon to spill the details?" Petra said. "What kind of a moron does that?"
But it's not only the men. Women too have been known to become extremely volatile when faced with a girlfriend who's recently found true love, gotten engaged (with a hot ring to trot) and is sending invitations to a fairytale wedding. Suddenly the knives come out, judgements are made and unsubstantiated claims are spread.
"He's not good enough for her," they spit. "They'll never last," they say. "It's all too soon - she should be enjoying her single life." Funnily enough these are the same friends who had sympathised with her previous break-up and promised her that Mr Right was right around the corner and kept the ice-cream coming.
My friends never liked Mr. Ex "He's a player," they'd say. "Dump him before it's too late," they'd beseech. I never wanted to believe them. And when reality hit me like a runaway train (I overhead one of his phone conversations with another woman), I thought they were right. And if I'd listened to them would that have saved me months of heartache, tears, pain and begging - for him to take me back? Perhaps.
Or perhaps the friends were wrong and it was my fault the relationship ended. Eight years on he's happily married with a child on the way. Maybe it was timing. Maybe we were incompatible. Maybe my mates were right and he was a player who's changed his ways. (Yes, it is possible.) I'll never know.
But what if your friends are just trying to sabotage your happy relationship just because they're miserable themselves?
While you might expect such malicious behaviour from a jaded ex-lover or a jilted former fling, the fact that your best mate might be doing it stealthily, yet steadily, is enough to make one cut down their Facebook friends and cancel the monthly girly catch-up. Because bitchy women are powerful creatures. And before you know it, you're fighting with your beau over nothing much but a bunch of ideas that some green-eyed monster has put inside your head.
And then you're right back to eating ice cream out the tub (or smashing beer cans on your head) while your supposed best mate puts on a sympathetic face but in reality is glad that they've got you all to themselves ...
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