Tag Archives: BFFs

What Do You Change?

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I got a heartfelt email from one of my favourite readers the other day asking about change and friendships. He thought that if he was asking, that others may have the same question and rather than a personalized response via email, he asked me to do a post.

xoxo, hlbb

Your boys, the crew, the man dem…whatever you refer to them as, it’s that group of friends you’ve had since childhood that you see regularly, but maybe don’t have much in common with. My theory is that guys form many strong friendships based on shared experiences, unlike us women who form friendships based on shared values or beliefs.

It’s the only way I can explain how two guys can sit in silence for three hours playing video games and not know a single thing about the other person’s week…

As I review ghosts of boyfriends past, I realize a few things: no two would have had anything in common. I don’t have a physical “type”. They all gave great gifts. And…

I couldn’t stand any of their friends. In every relationship I’ve ever had (and I’m going back to the playground here), I have only ever really liked ONE friend out of each lot. In fact, I spent a lot of relationship time trying to figure out how this man, that I liked (and in rare instances, loved) could hang around such fucking idiots.

I’ve had guys explain to me that because they went to school with a dude, because they got into trouble with a dude (i.e. arrested), backed him in a fight, et cetera, that’s all they need to know in order to have a friendship. But other than that, what else binds you to him? That’s the part we women can’t wrap our heads around. Our friendships change, ebb, flow and sometimes die because we’ve changed or our friend has changed. These changes in our values, life experiences, and beliefs leave us staring at a person over coffee wondering what the hell do we talk about with them? But for you guys, it’s different.

You find yourself at a different stage of life and find that your values and your beliefs have changed (or maybe it was theirs). Either way, you find yourself rethinking the value of the friendship and then… you remember how they had your back that one time. Or that they you were there for them when they needed you. So yes, you could be married, with a corporate job, two kids, and a minivan, and he could still be living with four dudes in rental, picking up odd jobs while still drinking and getting high every weekend (while you’re a soccer practice).

Basically, you’re living two different lives, but he’s still your boy.

When I was younger and lot more immature, I thought if I complained and bitched about the friends enough, I wouldn’t have to subject myself to being around them. Then I realized, I don’t HAVE to be around them!

Ooooh. I’m betting to some of you this sounds familiar? You have that girlfriend/wife/wifey who complains constantly about your friends? What do you do? Do you give up the friendship(s) because she can’t stand them? Do you use it as a catalyst to end friendships with people that you really don’t want to hang around?

I say: keep the friends. It’s truly is bros before hoes.

Why should you feel compelled to give up your friends? Now, if they’ve done you harm or the friendship has become toxic (meaning that you have no good feelings when you’re around them), then yes, end the friendship (but that applies to any gender).

Otherwise, she has got to remember that she is dating YOU, not them. Stand your ground. Your boy had your back when you needed him. The Man Dem meet up once a week to play ball and talk shit. Is she going to replace these things in your life? No? Then what does it matter to her?

It matters to her because she feels (I feel this way too) that friends are a reflection of the person (birds of a feather, blah blah blah…), so if they act like assholes, then she (wrongly) assumes that you’re an asshole. When in reality, your boys are a reflection of a PART of you; just as how you are with her is a reflection of another part.

Life changes a person, and if you find yourself changing during the course of relationship, I’m going to say one important thing:

NEVER change for her darling boy. Change for yourself. Change because of her. Change because life has changed you. But never. EVER. Change for her. I knew a guy who did this once. It was not pretty. Of course the boys forgave his transgression and welcomed him back to the fold after I dumped him…

Mmmhmm. I tried to change a few things about a guy once and he let me and then he changed into someone I didn’t want to be with. In retrospect, I still want to bitch slap him for that…but some bitches ain’t worth the slap. But I learned my lesson.

A woman will fall in love with WHO a man is…she will fall more in love with the man he becomes. I strongly disagree with women who date “fixer uppers”, because they’ll spend more time looking for the faults to correct instead of the qualities to love. Your boys? They don’t change – for better or worse they don’t. They remind you of who you are and where you’ve come from…isn’t that a good definition of friendship? Don’t have much in common with them anymore? Get more friends… and go ahead and become the person you want to be.

I love change, I’m a big believer in it, but ONLY if it’s organic. Sure a woman can inspire you to change…but if those changes are only in effect for as long as you are with her, then you’ve made the wrong change.

You should’ve changed to a different woman.

(related post [sorta] “You vs. the BFF“)

YOU versus the BFF

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I’ve said this before on the blog somewhere, but when it comes to my relationships, if you meet my best friend, you’re in. It’s hard to meet my best friend, because she only lives here 3 months of the year. If it’s serious, I’ll email her with photographic evidence. Once, her overly zealous sister told her I had a boyfriend and her response was, “she doesn’t until she tells me”.

Best friend approval…this is sometimes harder than meeting the parents, the circle of friends, the siblings, or even her damn dog. So what happens if you can’t stand her best friend?

Worse. What happens if her BFF can’t stand you?

The other night I was out with a group of peeps discussing various relationship type things (insert fake surprise here). One gent said that women discuss sex – and by extension relationships – with other women because we seek approval on our choices. Well, a bunch of us (myself included) said that this was not true, to which he responded, “how many of you have dated a guy that your friends didn’t approve of? How many of you stayed with the guy?”

Girls will date guys that their friends vocally disapprove of – especially if it’s the “bad boy” (a.k.a. the male version of the “crazy beautiful”). BUT the BFF approval process is completely different from general friends. The BFF knows the secrets, where the bodies are buried, her hopes, dreams and fears…all of which she uses as a basis tojudge you. So, if YOU in her mind don’t measure up… urk.

But what if it’s just a case of YOU not liking HER BFF? This is tricky, because I feel that our friends are an extension and a reflection of ourselves. So, if someone is to criticize a person’s friend, they MAY take it as a criticism of them.

I once dated a guy who said of my BFF, “she’s kinda…loud. And she swears a lot…” My instant response was “what’s your fucking point?”

(Sidebar: my BFF IS loud. So am I. Sit between us and you will risk going deaf and you will definitely hear every swear word in the English language…)

The things we forgive or overlook in a lover may be the things we cannot forgive in others. So before you criticize her BFF or decide you don’t like her, step back and make sure that the things you dislike are qualities not shared by your lady love. If they aren’t shared, you’ve got to then figure out if your lady love accepts those qualities out of love, or because they’re an extension of her.

Case in point:  my BFF dated a guy for nearly 3 years that I did not like. Couldn’t stand his ass. She knew this. But she loved him. As a true friend, I wouldn’t say “break up with him” because really, his only faults were that he had no direction in life, was rude, possessive and wasn’t very bright. There’s also the time that he almost killed me driving on the 401…but I won’t get into that. It was no secret that I didn’t like him. But we tolerated each other’s presence because we both loved my girl. One of her best qualities is that she’ll go out of her way to do for others – she’s very selfless. One day he bitched that she was doing something for her mother, which resulted in time spent away from him. He bitched that her inability to say no meant that she did too much for others. He turned to me and her sister and said “I wish she was more like you guys, you know how to say ‘no’…”

My response?

“If she was more like ME, she wouldn’t be with someone like YOU…”

So how did he and I do it? How did we manage not to kill each other over the course of 3 years?

1 – we didn’t criticize each other in front of her. I bit my tongue so many times I’m surprised I still have one. He did the same most of the time. He did once say the reason I was single was because I was too bossy to get a man. Erm. That didn’t sit too well with my BFF who was running a business and practically ran her household…

2 – we never forced her to referee. That argument about her and I not being alike happened when she wasn’t present. Had she been there, it might not have happened.

3 – we remembered that we had one thing in common: her.

That’s it. That’s all. Did it take effort? Fuck yeah. We HATED each other. We LOVED her. Listen, I know that you’re convinced her BFF is telling her “dump him” every chance she gets – I’m not gonna lie darlings, she probably is. BUT what will ultimately decide whether your lady stays with you is how you handle the situation. Rise above the criticism…if she doesn’t like you because you tell bad jokes, who cares as long as your lady is laughing? Do NOT criticize her and, most importantly remember this:

You ain’t fucking her, so why are you forcing yourself to spend time with her?