My Friends Hate My Dates. Advice? (a little long)

In My Humble Opinion
1

My last serious relationship was 7 years ago. Since then I haven’t had what you’d call a BoyFriend. I’ve dated several men, all of whom I thought to be good guys. Also, all of which I’m not seeing anymore, for one reason or another. That’s OK, I guess.

The problem is, for the last 3 years or so, everyone I’ve dated has been categorically hated by all of my friends. These are the same friends who tell me to “get over my ex and find myself a boyfriend.”

The vast majority of the people I consider “friends” are men. Two of my friends are ex’s as well, but they are the two who don’t seem to care who I date. The rest of my guy friends automatically hate any “New Guy” they might see me with. I don’t think it’s a jealousy thing, because most of these guys have wives or girlfriends, and I’ve had the “We get along great, let’s not screw it up by screwing” discussion with a few of them (these discussions have been mutual, sometimes I bring it up, sometimes they do), and we always agree. My girl friends also seem to hate anyone I date.

My friends are my friends for a reason. There are very real reasons I like them. The men I date have all the same traits, values etc as my friends do, ie, I like them for the same reason(s) I like my friends. So, it would stand to reason, IMO, that they’d like each other. But, the jerks (I say that with love) won’t give them a chance.

My buddies have run-off more than one potential suiter. They get pissy with me, they get pissy with any new guy. And, after the fact they all apologize. More than once they’ve met the guy after the fact and got along with him great.

So, I may be starting a new relationship (we’re just getting started). My gut tells me to keep this guy away from my pals. The problem with that is that eventually he’ll have to know them. I don’t intend to give my friends up. I’d like things to work with this new guy. But I’m not sure how I should approach this. If any of my friends know him, they don’t know him well, but many of them do know who he is. If they got a chance to know him I think they’d like him.

How should I handle this?
Why can’t they all just get along?

Any advice?

Thanks in advance ~S

2

What’s more important - your happiness or your friends’ approval?

It’s apparent you can’t have both.

3

I’m not so much looking for approval as I am acceptance . I accept their girls, so I feel (approval or not) they should accept my guy.

I intend to keep seeing this guy, so I guess my question really is (which I should have made more clear in my OP, my bad):

How do I get my pals to accept this guy, and more importantly how/when should he be introduced as The Guy.

4

Maybe they think of you as a little sister who must be protected from “guys like them”. Tell 'em to lighten up or move on.

5

You tell your friends exactly what you’ve told us–that this guy has a lot of the same traits and values you share with them, and that you think they’ll hit it off well. And even if they don’t hit it off, you would like for them to suck it up and accept the guy just like you accept their girlfriends and wives. If they’re not prepared to do that for the sake of your friendship, I’d tell 'em to get bent, but that’s just me. I’ve got a real issue with people who aren’t willing to treat others with the same courtesy and respect they expect for themselves.

6

Don’t introduce your friends to your new boyfriend until you and the boyfriend are on solid, moving-toward-life-together, ground. It sounds like your friends fuck things up before you’ve even made a decision about your boyfriends. Get it together one-on-one with your new man and when you present a solid, non-wishy-washy attitude, maybe your crowd will be less likely to take a dump on him. Good luck. It sounds like your friends are kind of shitty, but hey…they’re your friends.

7

Definitely keep them apart until you know for sure that you like the guy. And then by all means, tell your friends what they’ve told us. But also find out what it is that they don’t like about these guys. Honestly, two of my friends married guys I couldn’t stand, but I never told them. Guess what? Both guys cheated on their wives and left them for other women–and stole my friends’ money. So there might be a valid reason that your friends don’t like the guys and you just don’t see it. You need to get the real reason from them. Is it jealously or overprotection or are you really dating jerks?

8

Do you act any differently around your friends when you are with a new date? They may be projecting their dislike for your change in behaviour onto your dates - a situation I’ve seen in action.

Did your friends ever give reasons for disliking your past dates? Did those reasons turn out to be true?

9

A few thoughts off the top of my humbly-opinionated head…

Maybe your friends are unintentionally sabotaging your relationships… just because they’re in their own relationships doesn’t mean they can’t get jealous over the one they have with you…

Perhaps your demeanor changes when you’re with a new guy, and you don’t realize it…

Or, perhaps you are picking guys just like your friends… Opposites attract, and many times, likes will clash. It’s definitely been my experience that the more “alike” people are, the less likely they are to get along. Note that by alike, I don’t mean that they have a lot “in common”.

My advice is not to be too quick to introduce a guy to your friends, not until YOU know how you feel about the guy, independent of your friends’ opinions. Once you’ve established that you do want to give things a go, you need to make clear to your friends that you are happy with the way things are, and that treating your boyfriends in a way that “runs them off” is definitely not in the scope of friendship. If they insist on treating a boyfriend of yours so horribly that it chases him off, then they’re not at all being respectful of how you may feel.

10

Ok, something in this sentence is sounding an alarm. Do you mean that they first met the guy after the fact, and liked him, but didn’t like him while you were dating (before they met him in person)?

11

There’s something quite troubling about the OP. I would expect some info along the lines of

"For example:

Sami41: So tell me Alice, what do you think of Bob?

Alice: Bob is an alcoholic freeloader.

Sami41: Good point."

If these are your friends, you ask them why they don’t like someone and they will tell you. At least 90% of the time they will tell you very good reasons why the don’t like the guy and said reasons should also be reasons you don’t like him either.

Like I said, I am troubled by the OP dancing around the most elementary way of handling the issue. Why?

12

What ftg said. A lot.

Another question: Is it possible that your friends are into you? Guys aren’t good at accepting competition. Possibly one or all of them want to go out with you and are driving away guys based on that wish.

I know that I have friends who are dating girls that I don’t like much. I also know that they aren’t going to listen when I tell them that that girl sucks (and not in the fun way.)

Yours are at least telling you that they don’t like your choices in guys, ask them why they don’t like them.

-Mike

13

Thanks all, for all your advice. I think I will keep this relationship quiet for awhile–just in case. To answer your questions, tho:

Mr. Blue Sky asked if it’s a protective thing, as ifI’m a kid sister. I think that could be abit of the problem, but only a bit. My pals are protective of me. They absolutly puff up is anyone is bad to me. That’s actually a pretty cool thing. But, they are not protective about any other aspect of my life. My own kid brother is incredibly protective (for example, he hates my boss because he thinks I’m being used) but not to the point where he jumps to the wrong conclusions with-out all the facts about the guys I date, or anything else. My friends seem to think NO men are good enough. And they won’t wait to get the facts.

I’m pretty sure that I’m the same old me, whether with someone or not. At least, I hope so.

Cheesesteak–Poorly written on my part. What I meant was: My pals knew these guys while I dated them and didn’t give them a chance. Then, weeks or months later, the friends would run into the guy and get along with them fine.

FTG and MDSL: I have asked my friends why they don’t like these guys. What I tend to get are ambigous responses like “he’s a jerk,” or “he sucks.” Try as I might, I’m not getting anything as specific as “he’s an alcoholic freeloader,” Not even when I push the subject. When I do push it I get something along the lines of “Whatever, Sami.” That’d be OK, if they wouldn’t give me and him such attitude when we (me and the guy) are together. (please see ex. below)

I read all your responses on Friday, but this is the first time I’ve had to reply. As it happened, on Friday night at work one of my closest friends stopped by. Let’s call him. . .Ben. Because of this thread I went ahead and asked Ben to tell me EXACTLY why he doesn’t like the last guy I dated (we’ll call him. . . Will).

Here’s how the conversation went:

ME: So, what was wrong with Will
Ben: He’s not good enough.
ME: Why not?
Ben: 'Cause, he’s a jerk.
ME: How?
Ben: He’s an Ass.
ME: What exactly was your problem?
Ben: He sucks.
ME: How? Why? What?
Ben: You can do better.
ME: I like him.
Ben: Whatever.
(continue like this for a good 20 minutes)

AND THEN, 1/2 an hour later, Will shows up. After saying hello to me and getting a beer, he walks straight up to Ben and shakes his hand, smiles, asks ‘how’s life’, etc. Ben was gracious with Will. But, after Will left his only question for me was “What was that about?” THAT WAS A NICE GUY BEING NICE TO MY BUDDY!!

Kalhoun said my friends are kind of shitty, and the more I think about this the more I think he may be right. At least in the case of Ben.

Anyway, thanks to all of you for your input.

~Sami

14

Well, Kalhoun right about the shitty part, but he’s wrong about the kind of part. Your friends are indescribably shitty. Although it’s generally true that when everyone around you is an asshole, it’s not them with the problem, this is not one of those situations. These guys you hang out with suck the dried sweat off a dead goat’s testicles. Ditch them and find new friends, then you won’t have to worry about these miserable jackasses ruining your new relationship.