I hear stories like this and I’m SO glad I’m a gay man. Hell, if the situation in the OP ever cropped up, my roommate (whether or not said hypothetical roommate was my boyfriend or not) and I would BOTH do the guy together. Easy-peasy, end of story, no tears (at least until the inevitable drama starts when some classless twinks at the bar start telling everyone about the sluts who did the same guy (which is laughably hypocritical because the twinks at the bar starting the rumor probably did the same guy in a toilet stall at the mall the weekend before)).
Yep, even with that, I’m still glad I’m a gay man…
Bah, men have all sorts of “unwritten rules” that come with being a man. I got to hear all about them ad nauseam from my ex-fiance. Men I think just have the ability to slug one another and then be done with it where women really tend to stew over things. So something that ticked you off is done with in an hour and you have bruises to show for it and I have to talk it out with other people for days before I can decide on a course of action to possibly be able to recitfy things. Sometimes I think it would be easier to be a man.
At any rate, she isn’t claiming ignorance. The reason we didn’t say “neither of us will date him” was because at the time he expressed no interest in her. He in fact expressed anger and frustration about her being interested in him and discussed this with her directly. She has admitted that although it was never said out loud that she knew dating him would be wrong and that the correct thing to do would be to walk away, but she also says he makes her happy and she can’t walk away from that. Now I get to decide exactly how to go about dealing with this as much as I possibly can with what I can control. And also I get to bitch about it online and try to find the sane middle ground between complete forgiveness and filling her laptop with shampoo.
And as for whether or not he was hanging around just to be friends, I guess I thought he was indeed just hangning out because he enjoyed our company. I wouldn’t think twice about befriending someone I was interested in after all. Just cause there is no sex doesn’t mean I can’t think you are awesome. But that is probably another difference between men and women.
The guy sounds perfectly reasonable to me. He didn’t go for the roommate until after the OP said no. He didn’t lead either of them on and he didn’t try to date both of them on the sly. There’s no shame in that game. The girl who turns you down has no bearing whatsoever on the girl you ask next time.
Uh, no. He’s not an asshole. You turned him down. He gets to ask out whomever he wants to.
No, that is the worst thing to do. You should do both. Rip into her, and make it absolutely clear she is a cheap little bitch, because no-one should lose a friend over a man.
Then, forgive her. She’s young, and dumb, and she needs you. And no-one should lose a friend over a man.
Just don’t turn your back on her.
I agree with this. When is it ever a good idea to have everyone involve lose. And I don’t mean “lose” as in competition, but if no one gets anything they want, why do it? The third wheel may be upset, but should come around and be happy for their friends finding happiness in each other. God knows I have more than a few times.
Well, maybe it doesn’t make sense for no one to get what they want. Except now she has guaranteed that her roommate is pissed off at her for a good long time and HATES her boyfriend, not to mention the possibility that I will evict her or find another place to live if the tension doesn’t subside leaving her with a hell of a lot more bills than she could afford to pay. She can’t have him over for Christmas or New Years, she can’t do anything with both of us at the same time anymore. He rents a single room in the city and isn’t allowed have guests by the woman he rents the room from so in essence she damned herself to a relationship spent sitting outside on the stoop or at Starbucks. She has entered into a relationship that starts out full of tension and anger so she doesn’t even get the lovey-dovey first few weeks of a relationship before you fall into that comfort zone that comes along. He has lost one of the few friends he had and when his relationship with her goes bust and they can’t be friends either he is back to playing D&D or whatever the hell he did before we came along (which couldn’t have been that great since he sure spent every available minute with us as soon as we came into town.) Maybe if none of us dated one another none of us would find “love” with one another but friendship and companionship play an important part in life too and we all would have found and kept that without question.
What the fuck, OP? Have you now proclaimed yourself this girl’s mother, and you’re going to tell her who she can have over to her home? You may have every right to be pissed off, even though I wouldn’t be in this situation, but you certainly have no right to be a control freak. Evict her?! Lay down the law on who she can have over and who can be around when you’re around?! Unbelievably wrong! Get a grip on yourself!
It isn’t about “making them suffer” at all, though I do admit to fantasizing about horrible things happening to them at the moment. I cannot stand him anymore and I don’t want him in my house, so he isn’t allowed in the house the same way she can restrict any guests I would have if they made her very angry and uncomfortable. If she hated someone I was friends with or that I was dating they wouldn’t be allowed in the house because she pays her half too and she has that right. And given the situation and the way they approached it after the fall out she and I had less than 2 months ago I have every right to consider moving into my own place or making her find a place of her own because my emotional health is more important to me than them having a roll in the sheets for a couple of months. Should it come to a point that we can’t work past it and we need to go our separate ways that will be her issue, not mine. The fact that I prepared for emergencies and saved money and negotiated a fantastic salary for myself doesn’t mean I am responsible for anyone else.
All I was saying is that she has started into this with the odds against her and the way it all came down there will definately be an end to the way things were one way or another. If they couldn’t find a better way to approach the situation or at least plan for the backlash of their decisions that is their problem.
You are not handling this well. I doubt that you will see that, as you seem pretty intent on justifying, but this is not the mature, sensible way to deal with this situation. You may all lay down your little “ground rules” and all agree to not do this and only do that, but in the end it’s going to get bad. The end will come quickly.
Maybe you could just talk to her about looking for different living quarters. You may not just kick someone out, I’m sure you know, but you do have the option of evicting her if the lease is in your name. I’m starting to feel sorry for this 19 year-old in the big city for the first time with apparently a chance to end up on the street because someone else can’t handle her dating a certain guy. Ouch.
And also, I hate to break it to you, but very rarely does ANY guy hang out with you just because he wants your company. I had to stop and laugh my ass off when you posted that. I suppose somewhere in the world it happens, but not IME. But when I was 25, I, too, believed that they did.
Well, I’m starting to see why she may not have felt that she could talk to you about her feelings for him. Have you thought that she may have been afraid to talk to you, and it wasn’t just her being bitchy and sneaky?
Please just think about how your reaction to this will affect her, possibly for the rest of her life. If you tell her she needs to get out, he may feel the need to rescue her, and let her stay with him. That ends up being a real trap if he turns out to be abusive or things just don’t work out. She doesn’t deserve what you want to do to her, IMO.
You say she started this out with the odds against her- are you helping? Are you showing love to her? Are YOU being a real friend?
She and I set down rules before we moved in together, one of which was that if one of us has guests that upset the other one they can’t be in the apartment. We both agreed to it and signed a written agreement stating the same. This isn’t me being a horrid bitch, this is me expecting her to live up to her half of the agreement she signed before she got on a plane to New York.
If I did ask her to leave I would give her plenty of time to find a place. I would not leave her homeless, and to be honest my making her find a new place would be nicer to her than my finding another place without her. She couldn’t handle the rent here alone and he doesn’t earn enough money to move in and cover the other half of rent. She would have to rent out the room to a stranger and I doubt she could do that since every stick of furniture in the apartment is mine (that I purchased or inherited) except her dresser and her bed so she would be left with almost nothing. If she found her own place she could try to find someplace that is furnished or at least small enough that she wouldn’t need several rooms of furniture. I am trying to work it out with her first, obviously, or I would have simply told her she had 60 days to vacate and left it at that. It is hard to live with someone you can’t look at anymore because you have lost respect for them as a person, so the fact that I would consider leaving or asking her to leave makes sense to me. I would like to get to a point where even if we aren’t friends that we can at least be pleasant to one another but I can’t guarantee that will happen and I will not live in any kind of emotional turmoil just to be the bigger person.
As for showing her love and being a true friend, besides doing all the legwork for moving us here and encouraging her to get the therapy she needs and trying to help her with everything else from plucking her eyebrows cause she can’t do her own to teaching her basic cooking and economic skills so that one day she can truly function on her own, when she told someone 6 weeks ago that I kidnapped her from her home in Texas even though she was waiting outside with her suitcases when I showed up and told them that I raped her in her sleep even though I have never done more than hug her I didn’t kick her out. I didn’t change the locks while she was at work. I asked why she would say those things and she said she simply didn’t know, that she was angry at the world and I was the nearest target, so we talked about ground rules and what else we needed from each other to make this living situation work. I gave her a list of therapists and told her she had 30 days to find someone to talk to about her anger issues and that I would pay for it if need be. I didn’t declare our friendship void like I probably should have, I recognized that she needed help and found a way to help her.
Then instead of talking to me about all of this shit when it went down she did it in the most painful way possible. I can’t keep getting shit on until I am buried under a pile of manure, you know? There has to be a limit and as far as I am concerned that limit is fast approaching. Now if she tries really hard to rectify this and shows some true consideration I will let this go too, but it is going to be harder this time around.
Ah… okay. So you moved in with a crazy person and now you’re all pissed off that she acts crazy. She does sound like she has some problems. Of course, you knew that when you moved in with her, but now it sounds like it’s too much for you. I don’t blame you- I wouldn’t want to live with someone who’s always having drama and has issues like that. But I do hope that you continue to show her compassion and give her lots and lots of time if you do decide to not live with her anymore. It doesn’t sound like she can go back to Texas from what you’ve said about her situation there. If she’s clinically mentally ill, maybe a caseworker is in order?
Just so you know, men don’t really “slug one another and then be done with it.” Unless they’re really, really stupid. The main difference is, if a man takes a pass on a woman in favor of his buddy, he expects that buddy to get some. In fact the buddy kind of has an obligation to. Waste not, want not, you know?
either he is back to playing D&D or whatever the hell he did before he came along (which obviously didn’t involve getting laid, as interesting as whatever that other thing was, because he seems like the kind of guy who has a second set of balls for a cerebral cortex).
I’m sure you mean “ANY straight guy”, and I, for one, am a straight guy who hangs out with some women in particular just because I want their company. Always been that way.
OTOH, I’m not a 35-year-old enjoying the company of a 19-year-old, so MMV and probably does.
Yeah, any straight guy. As I said, I’m sure it happens somewhere, but I cannot count the times I’ve had guys swear up and down that they wanted to be my friend, that they hung out just for my company, and in the end I found out differently.
And yeah, I can’t help but think this guy must be a loser, potentially abusive, or otherwise severely damaged… he had no life before a couple of young girls come along and then he’s with them all the time? The three muskateers? He’s 31? Huh?
OP, at 25, you’re not coming across as particularly more mature than the 19 year old. You are coming across as someone who creates situations to feel sorry for herself about (the term “martyr complex” comes to mind). Is your roommate your friend or your project?
ETA: I am a woman, and I think all these machinations and drama are ridiculous.
I’ve been reading this thread and pondering what I would have done in the OP’s situation - i.e., if my best friend and I developed a crush on the same guy, and that guy had asked me out.
I was in a similar situation once, actually - a guy that my best friend had liked a lot ended up asking me out. Both of us knew before he actually said anything that he had a thing for me, and while I wasn’t head over heels in love with him I was willing to date him if he asked. I wasn’t sure what to do about my best friend, though. She solved the problem for me by telling me I had no reason to feel guilty/hesitant about dating him because of her. I know words are cheap, but I sincerely feel I would have done the same for her, if he’d asked her out instead. I certainly wouldn’t be willing to ruin a friendship because of a guy, but neither would I begrudge my friend happiness if she has the opportunity. If I decided not to date him, that would be because I expected (and wanted) my friend to have a chance with him instead. What is this “Neither of us should have him” mentality? Doesn’t seem like a very healthy friendship to me.
(The OP’s friend sounds like she has issues as well, but that’s an entirely different topic altogether.)