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Asking some advice about my friendship


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Hey guys/ gals,

Warning: Long post ahead, with possible grammar/ spelling errors. I'm sorry for any grammatical/ spelling errors in advance.

Let me give you a bit of background about how I handle friendship, before we delve into the matter at hand.

Generally, I'm the kind of guy that can get along with mostly anyone, but becomes true friends with a select few. Those are the guys/ girls that I share (most) of the same interests and views I have with.

For those people, I'm willing to be very patient, to be reliable and... well, I just want to be a good friend for them. But, not meaning to sound selfish, I also need to know if my friends appreciate it if I'm around.

That they like it when they do stuff with me.

This is just for your information. Now here is the problem/ dilemma I'm dealing with:

I have a very good friend, one of my best friends, who is having a relationship with Bob. (Yes, he is homosexual, I'm not. And no, Bob isn't his real name. I'd prefer not talking with real names.)

This relationship is going on for... about a year I think? I already met Bob, he seemed like a good guy.

Anyway, my pal says that he's just very good friends with him, yet when you look at the two of them, there's no denying they're in a relationship. Wether or not they're having a relationship is quite complicated, so I'd prefer it if we leave that out of the discussion. Let's just say that they're having an intimate relationship or... that they're friends with benefits.

Until recently Bob is like, every day and every hour with my pal. They go everywhere together, they do fun things together. To make it short, they're 9 out of 10 times together. I talked about this with my pal, and he regrets that he can't do fun stuff with me (or with his other friends in that regard), yet he also enjoys Bob's company and my pal is the kind of guy who can't say no. Bob is the kind of guy who gets bored quickly and wants to be often with my pal.

The problem is, for about several months now, I haven't been able to actually do something or talk with my pal. Everytime I ask him to do something, then he always says that he already has something planned.

So far, my pal hasn't asked once to do something with me, because he's always busy doing something else, almost always with Bob. I have the feeling he just doesn't want to do something with me, even though he says otherwise. What bothers me most, is that I feel that this friendship is crumbling apart.

I'm at the point where I just want to say to him that I've been patient enough, and that it can't go on like this. But, as he is such a good guy, I don't want to place him in such a harsh position either.

What do you guys think about this? What should I do? Feel free to give honest advice and please, if you want to give feedback, please give constructive feedback.

If you have any questions after reading this story, feel free to ask them. I'll be happy to assist to the best of my ability. And thanks in advance for reading this and taking the time to give a bit of feedback/ advice.

I really appreciate it.

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Well seeing as they are homosexuals I think that maybe this 'Bob' does not like you or doesn't like being in your pressence, maybe because he feels threatened by you (to not try to steal his friend/boyfriend, your pal back) or maybe your pal feels more comfortable around him and likes to spend most of his time with him.

Whatever, I'm not a friendship counselor nor a psychiatrist nor do I am going to give you a piece of advice for what you should do. In those matters and moments I'm usually telling people they should find their own resolve and answer.

What can I say is that from my personal experience your pal is going distant from you is a sign that maybe as you said doesn't want to be friends anymore or doesn't want to spend the same amount of time with you as before.

But again I advise you to find your own resolve and make your own decision, because in the end you are the one who is going to feel the results.

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If he's your mate, what's stopping you from asking him? He surely can't be that fragile.

and surprise, new 'lovers'/fuck buddies/etc. love to hang out together, maybe you're just not the priority anymore?

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If you can muster the courage, feel free to ask. Otherwise, I'd check up on him from time to time, but otherwise leave him to his own devices.

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Dude, they have a better connection between them than with you. They have sex with each other. It's the same thing as if your friend was female and was hanging out with another straight guy.

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If he's your mate, what's stopping you from asking him? He surely can't be that fragile.

and surprise, new 'lovers'/fuck buddies/etc. love to hang out together, maybe you're just not the priority anymore?

I'm definitely not the priority, I never was. That's not the problem anyway. The thing is, my pal spends, for months, every day and every moment with Bob, and so his bonds with not only me, but with his other friends fade a lot. I've spoken with other friends of my pal about this, and they feel the same way.

The thing is, I think I'm merely wondering what you guys what do if you'd be in my situation. Thanks for all the feedback though!

EDIT I should add, that before this happened, me and some other friends of my pal could spend a "normal" amount of time with him. Now it's just few to none at all. Perhaps its the sudden change that I need to get used to, but imho I think it's weird that you suddenly don't spend time with your other (best) friends at all.

Edited by ReaperGuardian
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It's not terribly weird, I don't think, unfortunate as it may be. A lot of people won't really have the capacity for other friendships once they've found their significant other, so they'll just sever every other relationship, wilfully or otherwise.

At any rate, I'm with eclipse on this one. You talk it out with him and make it all clear to him, and if he doesn't see your side, just leave him be. No need to be dramatic or anything about it.

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Good Luck, if it helps, new lovers often do this. It is common after a year into the relationship constant being around each other gets on your nerves, you look up and around and realize you miss your friends, and have been ignoring them and your family because endorphins sorta swept you away. The more "in love" you are the longer it lasts, and can make you feel like a huge jerk when you take that breath of air and realize who you have been ignoring. It sounds like they really like each other and they are at the "want to spend every moment with you" stage.

In time it eventually bursts, but it isn't that he doesn't like you, actually from the sounds of it he feels a bit guilty. He just really wants to spend time with Bob because he feels madly swept up by it all. I have been in your situation wondering if my friend and I will ever bond the same again or if we will just drift. I have also been the drifting friend who misses friends but can't resist the intoxicating effect of always being near the new lover.

Either he will drift and discover new parts of himself and just tend towards different people (like the new guy) and find a new social group at the end of it, or come running back embarrassed it took him so long. Almost always it eventually ends with time, the only advice I can give is not push him too much now as he has Lovers Brain where any effort by people to keep him from his lover is keeping him from being happy. (Kinda true from his standpoint since new love sends tons of happy hormones through us.) Once the high runs down his normal mindset will take over.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ask him. You can write him a letter, email, or other message, or you can just ask him outright, whatever you're comfortable with. If you do, then I'd just tell him, "Hey, you're one of my best friends, and I feel like something's up between us lately. I miss hanging out with you. What's going on?" or something like that. Make sure you clarify that you don't want to get between him and Bob, and maybe offer to do some things with the three of you.

Just make sure you confront him about it, seriously. You'll regret it if you don't.

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Thanks for the advice. Here's a little heads-up about what has happened the last two-three weeks.

After a lot of thinking about the advice, I decided to talk to him about how I felt about all this. We had a long and deep conversation, but it all ended up well.

We've been talking much more after I told him, been doing fun things here and there. It seemed things weren't going so well between him and Bob, and Bob was because of that trying to do more things with my pal.

Bob felt he was losing my pal. Now, I'll spare you all the details, but when my pal told me this, I felt sorry for him and I understood why he spent so much time with Bob. But their relationship is going better as well :):

Just make sure you confront him about it, seriously. You'll regret it if you don't.

You're definetely right about that. I felt better when I spoke to him about it. If I didn't... well. I think we'd both still live in the dark about each other's emotions, and I think that wouldn't have helped our friendship.

So thanks everyone for your advice/ feedback. It certainly helped here :):

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