Friends, lovers - and you, in between

In My Humble Opinion
1

Here’s a little questionnaire for you guys. It’s for a college paper… but please don’t let that deter you, because the subject matter is pure IMHO.

The scenario may be hypothetical, but if you have any real-life experience feel free to share. Don’t feel limited by the questions – if you have any notes, queries or addendums, I’d like to hear them.

Say you have a very close (same-sex) friend. You go back years, are close confidants, and are completely open about just about anything. Now, this friend of yours starts dating a person who you have… well, let’s say misgivings about. Actually, let’s say you actively dislike this person, not the least because you believe that he or she will eventually make your friend unhappy, or even hurt your friendship.

Now, here are my questions:

  1. What is the likelihood that you’d tell your friend directly that you dislike the object of his/her affection?

  2. What is the likelihood that you’d let your friend know indirectly (i.e. through a friend, or just through massive innuendo)?

  3. What is the likelihood that you’d tell your friend’s new romantic partner directly?

  4. How do you think your friend would react to your revelation? How would your new nemesis react?

OK, here’s another hypothetical situation: say you’ve just started dating a person who’s pretty wonderful, and you think you just might have a real future together. Your best buddy, a friend you love and respect, suddenly lets you know that he isn’t all that crazy about your new paramour; in fact, he/she thinks that you two should break up, pronto.

  1. What is the likelihood that you’d tell your partner that he or she’s disliked by your closest friend?

  2. What is the likelihood that you’d re-evaluate your new relationship?

  3. What is the likelihood that you’d find yourself distancing yourself from your old friend?

8 .Now put yourself in the new love’s shoes. Your just found out that your boyfriend/girlfriend’s best friend can’t stand you. What will you do?

Finally, some background:

  1. What is your gender?

  2. How old are you?

  3. Are you currently in a serious relationship?

Thanks,
Josh

2

  1. What is the likelihood that you’d tell your friend directly that you dislike the object of his/her affection? I’d say better than good. If it is a best friend like you describe, then I would feel obligated to tell him or her how I felt.

  2. **What is the likelihood that you’d let your friend know indirectly (i.e. through a friend, or just through massive innuendo)? ** If I didn’t tell him outright, he’d probably find out this way. I’d definitely vent to mutual friends.

  3. What is the likelihood that you’d tell your friend’s new romantic partner directly? Practically nil. I have to know someone pretty well to be frank with them.

  4. **How do you think your friend would react to your revelation? How would your new nemesis react? ** It would depend on the friend and partner in question.

  5. What is the likelihood that you’d tell your partner that he or she’s disliked by your closest friend? I most likely wouldn’t. I shield those I love from things like this. I wouldn’t want to hurt her or let her be hurt by what my friend said.

  6. What is the likelihood that you’d re-evaluate your new relationship? I’d think it over but probably wind up ignoring the friend for the most part.

  7. What is the likelihood that you’d find yourself distancing yourself from your old friend? Sadly, I’d probably grow cold toward him or her if they were insistant. I get really defensive of those I care for.

8 .Now put yourself in the new love’s shoes. Your just found out that your boyfriend/girlfriend’s best friend can’t stand you. What will you do? Ignore the friend and try to keep the relationship going. It’d be about the two of us, not me, her, and whoever her friend is. Hopefully.

  1. What is your gender? Male

  2. How old are you? 22

  3. Are you currently in a serious relationship? No.

3

  1. I’d give the happy couple a chance and wait before I said anything. If he started being a jerk and she was slow on the uptake…well, then I’d have to say something.

  2. None

  3. None

4a) Of course she wouldn’t be thrilled but she would appreciate my concern.
b) I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass.

  1. I wouldn’t say anything to him because it would create an “Us vs. Them” situation, thus putting him on the defensive.

  2. If she brought up specific reasons, then yes, I’d take a step back and try to see things objectively.

  3. Unlikely but if she was being pushy, I would have a talk with her.

  4. I’d make an effort to get along with them regardless of their opinion.

  5. Female

  6. 25-35

  7. Yes

4

For your first situation, I’ll answer based on a real-life experience.

1. What is the likelihood that you’d tell your friend directly that you dislike the object of his/her affection?
Initially, I said nothing, because I never thought it would get serious. (Skip to #2 below.) Much later, I told her outright that I would stand by her and defend her decision to break off her engagement, because I saw no good of continuing a relationship with a person who had anger and control issues. If I were to see something like that happening again today (we were both 23 at the time), I would say so from the beginning.

2. What is the likelihood that you’d let your friend know indirectly (i.e. through a friend, or just through massive innuendo)?
As time went on and certain incidents came to light, I tried to drop hints that maybe she was better off looking elsewhere. The situation became vastly more complicated when the guy and certain family members began applying heavy pressure for them to get married, to the point where one relative and the guy threw a “surprise” engagement party. (BTW, we friends were told it was a surprise party, but not that the engagement was also a surprise!) After the engagement the number of incidents of abuse went up, and at one point me and a couple of friends went to talk to her mother about encouraging the end of the relationship.

3. What is the likelihood that you’d tell your friend’s new romantic partner directly?
I never said anything to him directly, in part because I was concerned he would take it out on her.

4. How do you think your friend would react to your revelation? How would your new nemesis react?
It’s a tough call. Too soon, and I think she might have felt compelled to stick by him despite the mounting problems. She did appreciate it later, but that was after the bloom was off the rose with him. He would have had choice words for me at a minimum, I’m sure.
The second case is purely hypothetical for me.

**5. What is the likelihood that you’d tell your partner that he or she’s disliked by your closest friend? **
I wouldn’t see the point in raising the issue, unless my friend were making her dislike blindingly obvious.

6. What is the likelihood that you’d re-evaluate your new relationship?
It all depends on the reasons for her dislike. If it’s simply because she doesn’t care for something like his ethnic background/religion/career, I don’t think I’d be doing much re-evaluating. OTOH, if she were concerned that I was being manipulated somehow, and had some good points to make in that regard, I would take her concerns seriously.

7. What is the likelihood that you’d find yourself distancing yourself from your old friend?
I wouldn’t want to lose her as a friend, but it’s partly up to her as well. If she truly coudn’t stand to be around him, I would try to spend time with her only, or maybe with a large enough group of people that she didn’t have to spend much time dealing with him directly.

**8 .Now put yourself in the new love’s shoes. Your just found out that your boyfriend/girlfriend’s best friend can’t stand you. What will you do? **
Barring some egregious behavior on the best friend’s part, I would do my best to be civil for my bf’s sake.
Finally, some background:

  1. What is your gender? Female

  2. How old are you? 37

  3. Are you currently in a serious relationship? No

5

Thanks. Anyone else?

6

I need just a few more replies, so 'm going to bump this thing one last time.

7

OK, I’ll bite …
Me as buddy …

1. What is the likelihood that you’d tell your friend directly that you dislike the object of his/her affection? About 100%. Depends on my opinion of my friend’s skill in this area. Over the years I’ve had good buddies who were far better than I at picking GFs, and others far worse. The former would get the benefit of my doubt, the latter would get an earful pronto. Either way they’d know how I feel, the difference would be in how certainly I presented my case.

2. What is the likelihood that you’d let your friend know indirectly (i.e. through a friend, or just through massive innuendo)? Zero. I NEVER commincate that way. Plain, explcit (but diplomatic) English or not at all.

3. What is the likelihood that you’d tell your friend’s new romantic partner directly? Not real likely. I’d engage them discreetly to get more info to refine my opinion, but I wouldn’t have much to say to them directly on point. Nobody covers themsleves in glory when they accuse another.

4. How do you think your friend would react to your revelation? How would your new nemesis react? Depends on them. Past experiences: some buddies said “I’m sorry you feel that way” and carried on with their new GF, others saw my point & dumped them. “Nemeses” can react all over the board; there’s no predicting what they’ll do. Or more accurately, there’s no way in this message to cover all the possibilites and when each would apply. In most individual cases I can pretty well estimate the nemesis’ next move.
Me as person in middle …

5. What is the likelihood that you’d tell your partner that he or she’s disliked by your closest friend? Not likely. In essence my buddy is forcing me to choose, and that’s my issue, not my new GF’s.

6. What is the likelihood that you’d re-evaluate your new relationship? As in answer 1 above, do I trust my buddy’s GF-grading skills more or less than my own? I admit to being only fair at this myself, so I’d think it over very carefully if the friend was somebody good at that. In either case I’d be inclined to listen carefully to his assertions and try to grade them against the facts as I knew them.

7. What is the likelihood that you’d find yourself distancing yourself from your old friend? Depends on if I found myself agreeing with him, leaning towards dropping the GF or leaning towards her. Clearly there’s a choice here and one of the two players is gonna end up farther away from me than they were at the outset.

8. Now put yourself in the new love’s shoes. Your just found out that your boyfriend/girlfriend’s best friend can’t stand you. What will you do? Try to determine why. Best friends can be jerks on their own, or I may have made a legitimately lousy first impression. Which is it? Maybe the problem is repairable. Either way, if I’m serious about this relationship, the presence of an adversarial best friend will be a problem that I need to go over, around, or bulldoze through.

9. What is your gender? Male.

10. How old are you? 45.

11. Are you currently in a serious relationship? Married 16 years, very happy.

8

This is a little difficult, because my best friends and I are all pretty much married/in serious relationships of long duration, and I’m basing this more on how I/we would have acted about 10 years ago, when it was more common for us to be bringing new partners into the social mix.

  1. What is the likelihood that you’d tell your friend directly that you dislike the object of his/her affection? This is the kind of observation that I like to hold off on until asked directly. If asked directly, I will speak directly. I would try to focus more on behavior that made me uncomfortable, rather than the person. For example, I would say things like “I’m not crazy about the way he constantly compares you to his ex” rather than “I think he’s a complete dolt.”

The exception to this would be actual abuse, or also cheating. In both cases, I would speak up directly and immediately. My actual best friend and I have a pact already in place, that we both want to know about any cheating (we don’t have a pact about abuse, I guess we assume that’s obvious).

If I just personally didn’t care for the new partner, say I think he’s boring, then I would keep my trap shut. This is based on a painful personal experience, when I didn’t manage to keep my general exasperation with a friend’s not-very-bright boyfriend to myself. Looking back on my behavior, I wasn’t very happy with it, and have actively tried to improve it since. That’s a rude way to treat anyone. As I had no complaints with the way he treated her, and was only frustrated that I had to listen to long, boring stories about deer hunting, I think I could have done a better job of navigating my way through that.

  1. **What is the likelihood that you’d let your friend know indirectly (i.e. through a friend, or just through massive innuendo)? ** Eh, this is difficult. I would say not very likely, because I feel that if I decide not to be straightforward, I think I’m the one obligated to act graciously, at least socially. I wouldn’t “cut” the couple from any guest lists (that’s my idea of massive innuendo).

  2. What is the likelihood that you’d tell your friend’s new romantic partner directly? That would be zero, because I have no real interest in what this person thinks of me, or his/her opinion on what I think of them.

  3. **How do you think your friend would react to your revelation? How would your new nemesis react? ** This really depends on the people involved. Based on past experiences, I would say my best friend would not be angry or nasty about it. We tend to talk about a lot of different issues very openly and candidly, so we are used to respectful disagreement. I couldn’t care less how my new nemisis reacts.

  4. What is the likelihood that you’d tell your partner that he or she’s disliked by your closest friend? I don’t think I would. If my friend raised some points that I felt were valid, I would try to address those issues directly, without pinning the blame on my best friend. To use my previous example, if my best friend pointed out that my partner frequently compared me to an ex, I would say I had a problem with this, if in fact I did.

  5. What is the likelihood that you’d re-evaluate your new relationship? Seeing as my best friend has been right before in this regard, I would take whatever she said very seriously.

  6. What is the likelihood that you’d find yourself distancing yourself from your old friend? Zero. My best friend and I have already been through quite a number of terrible boyfriends.

8 .Now put yourself in the new love’s shoes. Your just found out that your boyfriend/girlfriend’s best friend can’t stand you. What will you do? How did I find out? If my partner gave me this information, I wouldn’t be pleased and that would contribute, I think, to my viewing the partner in a more negative light. (again, this is assuming it is a new partner. If Mr. Del popped out with this information, I would feel much differently, because it would be based on years of knowing his best friend, and not some random person who didn’t take a shine to me.) If the best friend told me, I think I would be 1. shocked that someone would just come out and say this, so 2. more willing to write off the best friend. If I heard through a third party, I would try to ignore it. This is all speaking of the “can’t stand you” variety of opinion. If heard somewhere that the best friend had some particular issue that seemed in the realm of reasonable, let’s say something like the best friend thinks it’s obnoxious that I constantly talk about my cat, using baby talk, I would make an honest effort to tone down the kittie-wittie gives mommy a kissie-boo-boo talk.

  1. What is your gender? Female

  2. How old are you? 34

  3. Are you currently in a serious relationship? Married (with cat)

9

  1. High, I tend to be brutally honest, often to my detriment. People often see ma as cold and callous

  2. Slim, I am terrible at getting ‘hints’ and at giving them, it is a running joke with my g/f that if she gives me a hint it better be written on a piece of paper and wrapped round a beer can thronw at my head :wink:

  3. Nil, I (hypothetically) hate her, and thus will, like a small petulant child, refuse to speak to her.

  4. My friend would probably (rightly?) ignore me. The new nemesis (vastly underused word, by the way :slight_smile: ) would most likely try to engineer it so that I didn’t see said friend so much.
    Notes: Did this come out at all like it happened to me? Damn

  5. Nil, unless she asked in which case I would be completely honest.

  6. Slim, until such stage as that it was impossible not to.

  7. High, I don’t like my decisions being questioned, ni fact, I would probably punch the guy spark out (are we spotting the hypocricy yet?)

  8. Depends, I probably by this point know if I am going to be good for said person, so I either accept the friend as being right, or prove them wrong by not being ‘a bad choice’.

  9. Male

  10. 21

  11. Considering asking for her hand in marriage (once I ask her dad, of course)

10

1. What is the likelihood that you’d tell your friend directly that you dislike the object of his/her affection?
I would not, unless she either asked my advice or told me she was marrying him next week.

2. What is the likelihood that you’d let your friend know indirectly (i.e. through a friend, or just through massive innuendo)?
I would definitely not. If I felt the need to tell her, I would let her know through direct means only.

3. What is the likelihood that you’d tell your friend’s new romantic partner directly?
It’s very unlikely.

4. How do you think your friend would react to your revelation? How would your new nemesis react?
I would expect anger from my best friend, and probably indifference from the “new nemesis.”

**5. What is the likelihood that you’d tell your partner that he or she’s disliked by your closest friend? **
I would tell him if it were an issue. If she never wanted to hang out with him, or left the house as soon as he showed up.

6. What is the likelihood that you’d re-evaluate your new relationship?
I probably would, because sometimes love can be blind, and sometimes your friends know you better than anyone else.

7. What is the likelihood that you’d find yourself distancing yourself from your old friend?
I would not.

**8 .Now put yourself in the new love’s shoes. Your just found out that your boyfriend/girlfriend’s best friend can’t stand you. What will you do? **
Probably nothing. I’d stay out of the best friend’s hair and wait it out.
9. What is your gender?
Female

10. How old are you?
21

11. Are you currently in a serious relationship?
Yes. I am also sharing a house with my best friend.

11

[bold1. What is the likelihood that you’d tell your friend directly that you dislike the object of his/her affection?[/bold]

Depends on why I don’t like him or her. If I don’t like him because I fear they will be abusive to my friend or otherwise make my friend unhappy, yes, I would definitely say something. I’ve done it a couple times, and I was right both times! If, however, I didn’t like them because of a personal issue, I’d keep quiet.

[bold]2. What is the likelihood that you’d let your friend know indirectly (i.e. through a friend, or just through massive innuendo)?[/bold]

Zero. If I’m going to say something, I’m going to come right out and say it, though I probably wouldn’t say “I don’t like him,” unless he was a real bastard. I’d probably just address the behavior.

[bold]3. What is the likelihood that you’d tell your friend’s new romantic partner directly?[/bold]

I would never say “I do not like you.” I might tell him or her that I don’t like their behavior if they’re doing something to hurt my friend and suggest they knock it off. If I didn’t like the person because of a personal issue, I would never say anything.

[bold]4. How do you think your friend would react to your revelation? How would your new nemesis react?[/bold]

That depends on the friend.

OK, here’s another hypothetical situation: say you’ve just started dating a person who’s pretty wonderful, and you think you just might have a real future together. Your best buddy, a friend you love and respect, suddenly lets you know that he isn’t all that crazy about your new paramour; in fact, he/she thinks that you two should break up, pronto.

[bold]5. What is the likelihood that you’d tell your partner that he or she’s disliked by your closest friend? [/bold]

I would never do that.

[bold]6. What is the likelihood that you’d re-evaluate your new relationship?[/bold]

Depends on what my friend’s concerns were.

[bold]7. What is the likelihood that you’d find yourself distancing yourself from your old friend?[/bold]

This also depends on what her concerns were. If she was just looking out for my safety and sanity, no, I wouldn’t distance myself from her. If she began constantly bitching about some insignificant trait that makes her dislike him, probably.

[bold]8 .Now put yourself in the new love’s shoes. Your just found out that your boyfriend/girlfriend’s best friend can’t stand you. What will you do? [/bold]

Shrug it off, avoid contact with him.

Finally, some background:

[bold]9. What is your gender?[/bold]

Female.

[bold]10. How old are you?[/bold]

[bold]11. Are you currently in a serious relationship?[/bold]

Yes.

12

I’ve actually been in this situation before- my friend was dating a guy that I was pretty sure would would end up breaking her heart (and I was right).

  1. I didn’t tell her that I really really disliked him; however, I did tell her to be careful.

  2. I wouldn’t let her know indirectly; If I have something that I feel she needs to hear, I’m not going to let her hear it from someone else instead.

  3. I didn’t tell him directly- It wouldn’t have done any good.

  1. I don’t think I would tell him.

  2. I would probably think about it for a bit, as my friends tend to have fairly good judgement, but I don’t think I would change my mind.

  3. I wouldn’t. My friends are very important to me, and I try very hard never to allow my love life to get in the way of my friendships.

I would still allow them time to hang out- I would just try to make sure that my new boyfriend doesn’t hang out with both me and the best friend at the same time. If there are some unavoidable situations where this happens, then I would just try to make the best of it.

  1. Female

  2. I’m 17

  3. Are you currently in a serious relationship? No, but I have something that looks like it might be heading there.

Thanks.
Josh
[/QUOTE]

13

I’ll bite. Been in the situation before (my friend didn’t like my girlfriend much)

  1. What is the likelihood that you’d tell your friend directly that you dislike the object of his/her affection?
    I would tell him. Seeing as we are good friends, there’s no reason to lie about my feelings about his partner. I definately wouldn’t be malicious or mean when saying how I feel about her though.

  2. What is the likelihood that you’d let your friend know indirectly (i.e. through a friend, or just through massive innuendo)?
    See Q1.

  3. What is the likelihood that you’d tell your friend’s new romantic partner directly?
    Zero.

  4. How do you think your friend would react to your revelation? How would your new nemesis react?
    I would expect very little reaction. I don’t have to like her, he does. No change in our relationship.

  5. What is the likelihood that you’d tell your partner that he or she’s disliked by your closest friend?
    If it came up, I’d tell my partner. No need to lie about it. I wouldn’t date anybody who needs to be loved by everyone.

  6. What is the likelihood that you’d re-evaluate your new relationship?
    Very small.

  7. What is the likelihood that you’d find yourself distancing yourself from your old friend?
    No chance.

8 .Now put yourself in the new love’s shoes. Your just found out that your boyfriend/girlfriend’s best friend can’t stand you. What will you do?
Nothing. Maybe spend less time with partners best friend if we spend time together, I guess. I don’t have a need to be loved by everyone.
9. What is your gender?
Male

  1. How old are you?
    21

  2. Are you currently in a serious relationship?
    No.