I got back from my Christmas break and my inbox had exploded with tales of relationships gone sour and eerily, ninety percent of the emails featured a friend in the starring role of heartbreaker. It caused me to wonder: Are we a bit loose with the term ‘friends’ and masking denial about the true nature of these relationships or, do our friends get all switchy on us when things cross into romance, unleashing a side that we were unaware of?
There are five particular reasons why we have blind spots with friends who turn into romantic partners:
- We expect to be the exception. We assume that because we are friends, that even if we know about less than palatable behaviour with past partners or with coworkers, family etc, that they will be different with us, because we’re their friend. They on the other hand, assume that because we’re their friend and we know what they’re like (often because we’ve played armchair psychologist, been there to catch them when they fall out of the latest bed or romance, and seen ourselves as being oh so different to ‘everyone else’), that we know what to expect from them. They expect to maintain the status quo.
- We assume that because we’re supposed to be friends, that they would not try it on with us, declare feelings, and basically risk the friendship unless it’s serious. This is a bit like when we assume that a person would not have an affair with us unless they were so in love that they are willing to risk their existing relationship or when we assume that someone who has recently gone through a breakup must be over their ex if they’re asking us out.
- We assume that because we’re friends that we don’t need to do any due diligence and that it’s OK to Fast Forward because, well, ya know, we’re friends. We know everything there is to know, right? No matter how well that we think that we know someone as a friend, we need to take time to get to know them in a romantic capacity and we mustn’t be complacent or assumptive. If we value the friendship that much, it doesn’t make sense to try to squeeze a year’s romance into a week or a month because odds are, it will crash and burn, especially when we discover that normality still shows up when you’re friends and that we have to navigate conflict, criticism and this person not being perfect.
- If there are mutual friends, we can fall into the trap of assuming that because we share friends, that there’s no way that they’d run the risk of mucking us around or things going sour and affecting the group dynamic. We assume that they must be serious and that it’s not just a fling.
- The other mutual friends trap is that sometimes, they act as social proof, vouching for a friend or passing on conjecture as if it’s the gospel truth. One friend had natural misgivings when she was approached by her married ex-coworker– her coworkers vouched for this charmer, talking about how badly he had it at home with his wife and blah blah blah and how they’d seen the way he looked at her and how he would not have made a move unless he were serious. Yeah, we all know how that story ended! Her coworkers were mortified about how they had been taken in by him! One particular pet peeve of mine is when mutual friends claim that he/she has changed or is “so different with you” and yet it’s tumbleweeds when it all goes belly up or suddenly, they have a thousand and one stories of their misdeeds. Yeah, thanks for the heads up on that one!
What becomes clear when we consider getting involved with a friend or we listen to the optimism of any mutual friends, is that many of us are us are die-hard romance fans, loving the idea that after all of the heartache, bad dates, booty calls, mommy/daddy issues, and unanswered texts, emails, and messages, that all along, the person were meant to be with was right in front of us. We love the idea that maybe it’s all been about getting our respective bad romances out of our systems and then finding each other and living happily ever after. Hell, some of us will even convince ourselves that we’re in love because we’re willing to listen to all of their drama and complaining about current partners, picturing us as being the one who makes them a better person in a better relationship. It doesn’t occur to us that maybe part of why we’re hanging around this person is about being a Florence Nightingale or even a Buffer and that we get value out of being needed. It might also be that the friendship has been a distraction from having to pay closer attention to our own feelings and what’s going on in our life.
Our friends love the idea of The Good Girl or The Good Guy ‘taming’ the friend who can’t commit or has even been a playa or an assclown. They’re subscribing to the myth that all that this person needs is the “right” woman or man to come along, as if it’s not a question of character and shared values to name but a few things. They want a good ending but admittedly might not want to deal with the discomfort if things don’t work out.
In retrospect, when things take a turn for the worse and it’s all tense in the friendship group or we’re even on the outside of things, we also begin to wonder why our friends thought that we were “such a good match” for somebody who has treated us how they have. Going through the breakup (or breakdown if it the relationship didn’t make it to official), will be a triple blow if we’ve not only lost our hopes for the relationship but the friendship is all weird (or over) and we’ve fallen out with mutual friends or are feeling bruised by them not taking sides.
It’s important to note that sometimes we have very different ideas about what constitutes friendship so we might be holding this person in a higher esteem than they do us plus, we don’t acknowledge that sometimes we call it friendship in order to feel special and different to all of the other women/men in their life who they’re messing about.
There are clearly friendships that do blossom into romance and there are also people who have never been friends who forge wonderful loving relationships, but good things don’t come out of blind spots so it is too much for us to expect things to go well, if we’re not seeing a person and our relationship with them in full colour with our feet in reality.
When friendships go sour after romance, while sometimes it’s about what went down in the relationship and not being aware of certain core value differences that might not have been clear in the context of the friendship, often it’s about a blind spot and the expectations and assumptions that came off the back of these. If we value, not just the friendship but also any mutual friendships, it is important for us to stay grounded because if we don’t and we ignore code amber and red information because, ya know, we’re friends, we will end up with far more loss and hurt than we bargained for. Friendship doesn’t change the need for boundaries.
People love saying stuff like, “The best relationships start off as a friendship”, but loving relationships have friendship in them regardless of whether they started off a friendship because they’re copiloting. Only a healthy friendship is going to turn into a healthy relationship, so pretending that it’s a friendship to make it feel better or ignoring issues or our own boundaries, is a recipe for pain, especially because we need to ensure that we’re ultimately also being a good friend to ourselves.
Your thoughts?
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I cannot believe you wrote this.
I was just ghosted on Christmas Day by a “friend” who I’ve known playonically over 8 months. We shared and supported each other through some non-romantic hard times. I initially didn’t want to cross over to anything more than friendship bevause of our difference in religious values, and the fact that he had been financially unstable for some time. We were great as friends and we were even greater the first month of dating. But after that, I started going through a rough patch personally (minor health issue). He became distant, we had a small spat, and poof, he was gone. I haven’t heard from him since. He also took with him a $400 deposit I sent him for a hotel we had booked for New Years.
Wow! So incredibly needed on point and crystal-clear loved it thank you so much hope it helps others just as much as it help me today!
Great article Nat. I was in a somewhat similar situation a few years back. I worked with a guy who I considered a friend. Although we didn’t work in the same area, we would chit chat and joke around when we would run into each other. Then out of the blue, a girl he worked with told me he really liked me and was getting a divorce! I was a little surprised but excited because I knew he was married but always thought he was cute and seemed like a nice guy.
He ended up asking me out to a bar (1st red flag!) I met him there and he already seemed to be tipsy (2nd red flag) I started drinking with him and he ended up driving me back to his house…(3rd and 4th red flag, driving while drunk and taking me back to his house) The minute we got there, he was already trying to sleep with me. I felt uncomfortable, put a stop to it and went home.
He asks me out again a few weeks later and there I went meeting him at a bar for the second time! Of course he’s already tipsy when I get there..again. Again he takes me to his place…shot down again! This time, I asked him (as if I didn’t already know) what he wanted from me and he being frustrated at this point.. honestly answered that he wasn’t sure what was going to happen with his wife and he just wanted sex. I already figured this based on what had happened but I assumed from what his coworker told me that he actually liked me more than that. Turns out, he was just trying to sleep with me…or anyone for that matter while he was sorting out his marriage issues.
A few weeks later I sent him an email telling him how I felt used by him and so on. He actually apologized but said he thought we both wanted the same thing, something physical. Are you kidding me, I never gave him this idea! Looking back now I realize I probably gave him this idea when I agreed to meet him at a bar and take me home (twice) As if once wasn’t enough…
Since the email exchange, things were awkward because when we’d see each other, we wouldn’t speak or one of us would walk the other way. A few weeks later after that, I ran into him and he told me he was working things out with his wife. I felt embarrassed and a bit angry..but at the same time relieved that I had not slept with him. I pretended not to be upset about it, even saying I’m glad he was working things out with her. Not even a month later, the girl coworker that tried to set us up said he had just filed for divorce said she ”thought I should know”. Then she went on about what a ”great guy” he was. Maybe…but not with me!
I was a bit upset with her because I thought she knew he just wanted a fling with me and nothing more. I filled her in on what happened and she seemed surprised so I don’t know. I found out he was quite an alcoholic as well just by those dates alone. He also was able to drive very well under the influence which was scary…. I felt like I lost my friendship with him and that ”nice guy” image I had of him is now gone. All there is now is awkward run ins at the office. That was my lesson in ”recently separated men”and not to start things with friends, especially at the office!
I should add my first actual red flag was him being married/separated! What was I thinking!
This has come at an apt time. I realise now, not only was my ex was friends with a group of people I always held in high esteem and wanted to be ‘in’ with as a teen, but he was the hot popular guy everyone wanted to get with. The relationship was completely incompatible and I was right to end it. The fact he blocked me and has made it clear I won’t get my things back and so called good friends are hanging out with him and claiming neutrality has really upset me.
In the last few weeks I have realised they are fair weather friends who enable his poor behaviour. I have always maintained contact and shown up for them but the one time I needed some support he was the one who got it. He was thee one who was dumped, he could have done no wrong right?
This post has really helped me from spiralling into another self critical down phase. I am distracting myself from far more important things in my life. These people weren’t really my friends at 16, much less now at 36. Thank you.
Hey Nat
On the nail, as usual and particularly painful for me at the moment. One thing I would like to add is that we should all take care not to take the ‘crush’ too seriously. I’d liked my ‘friend’ for many years and whilst for most of that time I’d got a handle on it, he was cute, funny, principled, our work colleagues made much of how he ‘loved’ me. I deliberately looked past any ‘puppy dog eyes’ as, for the early part of our friendship he was married, so neither of us alluded to it or acted on it but once he’d been single for a while, we got closer and closer without the relationship actually becoming sexual, which should have been a giant red flag for me. Unfortunately, reality showed up for him just as I was falling hook, line and sinker. He took a job elsewhere and became more and more elusive. I was already pretty banjaxed on the relationship front…..I think I’ve had it altogether now. 🙁
Jac, very late reply but can relate to your post. I think what you talk about is very common – sadly it is common for men going through broken marriages/ divorce to collect attention from women. They want to know they’ve still ‘got it’ and also want relationship experiences that they miss – frequent texting, women’s insights and care etc, without thinking of the implications. I recently heard a new ‘friend’, who I’d been romantically interested in, talking about his other female friends, one of whom had offered herself up for casual sex (he declined). I don’t know if he was telling me this to make me competitive or think he’s so desirable, but instead it made me wonder why he’s involving himself so much with a woman he doesn’t want a relationship with, and that he’s being an assclown, be it temporarily while he’s licking his wounds, or if it’s just his character. I know exactly why – validation, and in that sense, I find it pitiful rather than appealing. So it wasn’t the ‘same old same old’ story of being done in by unavailable men, because I realised I have more self esteem than he does.
Don’t give up. I’ve had a huge string of false starts but this latest experience taught me that my heart and head have got closer, i.e. I am turned off by emotional unavailability, I will NOT wait on the wings for a man to become available or compete with other women. Instead of taking this as a cue to ‘win him’, it’s a cue to be emotionally available to myself and the right person. The more he’s got in my heart, the more I’ve looked at what is good in my life and nurtured it, doing the things I’m interested in, appreciating friends etc. I also accept that being hurt is part of life and what makes us human, and that we have to take risks sometimes. I don’t regret giving him a chance to unfold instead of instantly passing judgement, I would only regret ignoring the red flags and neglecting my boundaries and values to try and get the top spot. I’ve met very few people as banjaxed as me when it comes to relationships, but I will keep the blind faith and trust myself, hope you can too.
2nd attempt posting.( Typing from a phone and hit post by mistake too early last time).
This post is great Nat, and I wish I could have read it 8 months ago, when I got involved with a male “friend” 8 months ago. Points 2, 3 and 4 particularly resonate with me.
He and I had been friends for 3 years through being members of the same club for a shared sporting hobby. He wasn’t my typical type, being shy and a bit geeky, but when he started flirting with me via our online chats (which had previously been platonic) I went with it as I realised some non platonic feelings had developed on my part, too.
I did not give due diligence, as I thought I knew him so well already. As a friend he presented as a shy nerdy guy who was anything but a player, and someone who would go out of his way to help his friends in our sports club. This gave me a false sense of security that a) I didn’t need to wait or hold off in terms of sleeping with him and b) that he must have been serious to start flirting with me, and risk jeopardising our “friendship”. Both these assumptions couldn’t have been more wrong.
As soon as I reciprocated the flirting with him, every conversation we had online became about sex and nothing else, something I would ordinarily take as a red flag, but didn’t, because he was my “friend” and I felt like I knew him so well.
After we slept together, he turned cooler. It emerged that he was into dating multiple women at the same time like some sort of tournament where he would eventually pick the perfect “one” to settle down with. He’d already found her, when he slept with me and they’ve been in a relationship ever since.
The nice shy guy thing was an act and he joined our sports club with the specific aim of finding women to date.
This guy was never my friend he was just waiting for an opportunity to sleep with me. The whole experience has now made me want to avoid having any future “friendships” with men, as I think many men just use friendship as a long game strategy to try and manipulate a woman into bed.
This piece is great because you point out that even if we think we know a guy in a friendship context, we know sweet FA about them in a relationship context, so if things turn non platonic we need to give to proceed with the same degree of caution as we would with a guy who we had just met.
“The whole experience has now made me want to avoid having any future “friendships” with men, as I think many men just use friendship as a long game strategy to try and manipulate a woman into bed.”
Maybe I’m just lucky, but I’ve always had very genuine, healthy friendships with men in my life. I used to take this for granted, but I now feel very privileged to have had positive platonic relationships with men as I realize it is rare for many people.
Freedom,
I agree: having a good male or friend or two is a real gift. But it takes diligence, too. I have to extra qualify a guy as a friend because there always comes that time when we have to deal with what I call “the man-woman divide.” Translation: sex or not? Most guys fall out of the running as a friend at this point because they DO want sex, secretly and with hope, that eventually I will be an option. Only two or three men in my whole life have made it successfully past this point and one had to be cut out eventually, after many years, because he DID want sex even though he pretended not to. So, time is the key for me.
Meanwhile, trying to be friends after being lovers has only worked once and that was because the sex was so mutually awful that we simply weren’t attracted! It was fun and easy and we did some business projects together. Other than that, I just don’t find it works to have been lovers and then to try for platonic friendship. Yet hope springs eternal! I recently tried to become friends after two hops in the sack and the guy was hopelessly without self-esteem and sucker-fished onto me. I tried to be cool and stay in touch but he kept busting my boundaries which I am learning is a major red-flag in ALL relationships. I guess what I am learning is to qualify everyone and most especially friends because they get closest to me and into my inner circle where they can hurt me the most, too.
Great post, Nat. And your timing always blows me away!
@LauraG. This! At 31, in my entire life, I have had just 2 close male friends who never tried anything. These guys are the very rare exception, not the rule.
I am currently avoiding forming any new *friendships* with men, as experience tells me that the liklihood that friendship is all they want is extremely low.
For the time being, I’d rather stick to men who are up front about what they want from the outset, rather than guys who want to try and falsely gain my trust by pretending to be my “friend” before they try and make a move.
Brilliant as always! If only I had read this this time last year–but I would never I have listened! I suppose the hardest lessons you just have to go through so you never go back there. thank you for explaining it all so well, i never realised I was so predictable xx
Interesting post; like many, one in which I wish I’d read many years before. “Friends” can be very good or very bad. My ex and I were friends for 8 years before becoming a couple. When we married, it was soon after becoming a couple as we already knew we shared many core values and were highly compatible. Narcboy and I became friends after his divorce; he was very cold, standoffish before that. When he began pursuing me, many of our social circle knew he was a serial cheater, knew he’d cheated on his wife, knew he was involved with someone who lived elsewhere. As a relative newbie, apparently the known fact that I was headed for heartache didnt matter to these folks. Maybe they wanted me to have my comeuppance, who knows. While social proof worked well with my former husband, it was utterly useless in the case of Narcboy. The woman he was hiding had been a friend of mine, the woman he overlapped her with another now former friend of mine, and it was me who wound up comforting a devastated OW#1. What a mess. In small communities where your circle of peers and therefore potential partners are extremely limited, I have learned to keep strict boundaries where friends and potential partners are not one and the same and to choose partners only from well outside my area. With one exception, my ex husband with whom the split was a result of circumstance, not falling out of love, no ex is EVER a friend.
Referring to the linked/related article about buffers and emotional airbags, I ended a 17-year VERY fucked up marriage/relationship with my creative partner (we are both musicians) a year ago and was immediately snapped up by a “phantom from the distant past”. (I’ve called him “Real Guy” as opposed to “Online Guy” on other threads. “Online Guy” is still in the picture but to a lesser extent, and my expectations are MUCH more tempered than before!) Anyway, “Real Guy” buffered me many years ago while I was occupied in a demolition derby with an EUM (the ex before the one I just divorced).
While I want to say that “Real Guy’s” behaviour toward me abruptly changed once the relationship became intimate and ongoing, it has been so many years since we used to hang out and I had so completely lost myself in the abusive thing I just got out of that in all honesty I can’t even remember how he used to treat me. I have on the other hand noted that there is a distinct difference between the way he interacts with me when we’re alone together and when there are other friends with us.
While it has been a very interesting and enlightening experience for me “learning on the job” to navigate a new relationship with the awareness I have developed from a couple years on BR, it is nonetheless clear to me that this relationship is fatally flawed. More interesting still, I finally connected the dots that all three of my most recent exes (“Real Guy” is in the process of becoming one), although they each have an array of traits I am attracted to, they have been essentially the same character in different “packaging” (nationalities): an overload of narcissistic traits, inveterately sexist, conspicuously self-involved control freaks, intolerant of differing views, reflexively try to bully me into line, and all seem utterly uninterested in having a mutual, co-piloted relationship. Now that I have finally cracked that code, I will be hyper-vigilant in screening for these particular characteristics when/if I eventually do get around to meeting “Online Guy” and in sussing out potential other partners.
This article addressing the “friends” dimension is timely, as this is the first occasion where I have become involved with a long-term friend; and another one recently expressed interest, so I am grateful to have this additional awareness of potential blind spots in case I decide to explore that down the line.
P.S. From other comments on this thread I get the sense that men and women have vastly different views and expectations on what constitutes a “friendship”.
I really wish I didn’t have to have learned everything you say the heard way on this!
My friendship turned romance even went as far as marriage – a disastrous one that cost me dearly both emotionally and financially. Long story short, the only reason I gave him so much latitude was because of our initial friendship and the misguided support of our relationship from mutual friends who really didn’t have a clue who he was anymore than I did.
Maya Angelou put it best when she said to believe someone when they show you who they are. We’re so programmed to self doubt and to give the benefit of doubt to others, that we forget to trust and give that benefit to ourselves.
I made a pledge to myself a while ago. Trust nobody’s opinion but my own when it comes to romantic partners as your friends aren’t the ones left holding the bag. If something doesn’t feel right, don’t rationalise it away; step back and give yourself the time to see what’s really in front of you.
Bermie Girl,
That’s amazing because that’s my saying as well. “When someone shows you who they are believe them”. I stand by this rule now. It’s why am able to maintain no contact with my ex.
As women especially those of us who tend to over please and try to see the good in everyone I think we need to stop assuming and learn acceptance.
I have one good male friend. We dated for a short time but knowing I wasn’t interested in a LDR made it easy to end up as friends. He is a man and therefore on occasion has sent me inappropriate photos of himself. I set clear boundaries and 4yrs later we are still friends.
It used to be said that the best relationships start out with a great friendship but if it ends the friendship ends as well.
This friends thing has really confused me lately! I met a guy from work became friends taking all about relationship things & then it got sexual then I really got messed up by it all. I loved talking to him. But realised he was not ready for anything like a serious relationship but still tried, I find it so hard to stand back & say he’s not there in the same place as me…..we wanted different things. But I’m finding it so hard to get him off my mind any advice?
@Genki
I think you’ve asked this question on here before and I understand how hard it is trust me but there’s no real advice to getting someone off your mind. The best thing to do is just focus on moving on. Of course you’re gonna think about the person but you know it isn’t going to work to what you need and deserve, that should be your focus. Focus on making an effort to really move on.
I made the mistake of reaching out to a former narcissist “best” friend suggesting that we talk.
I walked away from our friendship because I couldn’t take the constant attention and ego stroking she needed. Recently, I saw her on my birthday she wished me happy birthday and asked what I was doing and me wanting to extend an olive branch invited her to come along with my already made plans even though the friends I was with didn’t feel comfortable with her being there.
Immediately upon inviting her she told me that if she came it would take away from money she needed for clothes for some performance she was doing and as a result she would need to borrow clothes from me. No matter how small it seems it’s been years of her doing stuff like this and I know for certain it’s a way for her to get some sort of attention and even portray herself as needing something So I must feel inclined to help. I found it tacky and a reminder of how our entire friendship has been about her. I hadn’t spoken to her in months but On my own birthday it had to be about the importance of what she was doing and not just coming out to celebrate. She never reached out to me once when the friendship ended but like always, me caring about people more than they care about me, wanted to be the bigger person.
I didn’t respond and she never came out and she went on to do her performance. Now days after that happening I felt the annoyance of her asking me for shit when we hadn’t spoken in months and reached out to her telling her we should talk. She hasn’t responded but immediately I regret it. There’s no resolution or confrontation to be had with a narcissist. I don’t wish to be friends again or even talk it out but now that I sent that message for her to decide or even feel an ego boost of what in her head might seem like me wanting to reconcile I don’t know how to take it back. I don’t want to cause drama or place blame I just don’t think a talk is necessary anymore and feel stupid for suggesting it.
Any advice on how to take it back and move on from this friendship with no drama?
You can not take it back.
You can send the message that you are done, period, end of story, for good, by blocking her emails, texts, messages, etc.
Whether you block or not, the next time you run into her, keep everything simple with just a “hello” and move on (no conversation) (just keep it moving!).
If anyone asks you about her, just say you both moved on from the friendship. Which is true.
Don’t ever feel badly when you are being the decent person! EVER!
This is why I do not date friends. I have strict rules for what I consider male friends. If married, I know the wife and she knows me.