BraheSilver, are you gay?
What’s your problem?
My best friend went to college for 4 years and came back (after no contact other than an occasional letter) with a fiance. They’ve been happily married for 5 years now.
I didn’t mind. It’s his life, not yours.
Once again, what’s your problem?
Menage a trois?
Does she have a friend? Maybe you could do things as a couple of couples. You know, booze, hot tub, swappsies, just the usual.
Hmm. Reviews are mixed, to say the least.
Ego, to answer the question you felt was so nice you had to ask it twice: no, I’m not gay. Thanks for asking.
I’m not too sure how to approach the issue of “as the owner of a Y chromosome, you should know this, and that’s that.” I think that it’s a bit presumptuous, perhaps even sexist, to assume that there’s some mandated way to react to a situation of this sort. The fact that so far my only “reaction” has been to actually write my thoughts down instead of getting loaded until I can’t remember them anymore seems to make some of you think that I’m breaking some sort of male code by -gasp!- admitting to having feelings. If that’s the case, those of you who think so can give yourselves a big thumbs-up then sit ‘n’ spin.
Astro, I’m glad to see that you’ve unlocked the mysteries of human relationships. Help us all out and write a book. However, your picture is flawed: at the moment, due to college and other factors, currently the friend in question is the only one within a 75-mile radius that I communicate regularly with. So it’s not really a “group” that entails that I could, say, go do things with other people, and thus lessen the impact of having one less person to hang around with. But who knows; summer’s approaching, and I’m sure the rest of us will be making contact again as the universities let out. No worries there.
While the obvious solution is to go get myself an SO of my own (in some Cold War-esque escalation of relationship competition), at the moment I’m not comfortable going out wingman-less for such a purpose. However… Scanning the location fields of some of the posters here…[insert wink smiley if you feel you need one to get my drift]
Many thanks for the kind words from many of you. The prevailing advice seems to be to give it time, and I’m taking that to heart. Time waits for no man, yet man can wait for Time, or something. It’ll sound deep in the movie version, I’m sure. In the meantime there are other things to do than mope, and so far my only “mistake” is in taking ten minutes to write the OP (and however long it took me to write this post) instead of just sucking it up in silence.
(And to settle the question: Yes, it’s “third wheel.” Yet there are plently of things out there that work perfectly fine with three wheels, and very few with five. That and there’s some stupid show called “The 5th Wheel,” and I suppose that phrase came to mind.)
A guy does not have to be gay to feel hurt when he is all of a sudden left out of a whole bunch of his best friend’s life. Fuck, man. Just because you were okay not talking to your best friend for ages doesn’t mean anyone else is. And, come on, “gay”? I sincerely don’t think his sexuality has anything to do with this.
BraheSilver, I’ve had this problem a bit, but from the other side, meaning that I’ve been spending less time with my friends since dating someone. Two things: first, relationships do change, and you will find a new balance. Second, this new balance does not have to be something you lie down and accept. Talk to him, I bet he doesn’t even realize it. Or if he does realize it, maybe he wants to change it too, but it’s pretty hard to do so.