Always the Friend but Never the Girlfriend

So today, I’m going to shake a table, a table that I also happen to be on. Let me start by asking some questions:  

Do you have many guy friends? 

Are you the female friend that completely ‘gets’ her guy friends?

Do you find yourself solving the problems your male friends have most of the time?

If your answers to the above questions are affirmative, then my dear, get ready to be knocked down! For years, I have been the friend that ‘just really gets’ my guy friends. Always so ‘understanding’. Always ‘knows how exactly to give the right advice. And a lot of those times, if I am being honest, the relationships were a bit more than normal friendships; they bordered on the boyfriend/girlfriend area. Let me put it this way, to most of these guys, I was their girlfriend in most ways just not physically. Do you get me? I was always there to motivate and engage with them intellectually. Our conversations were never boring. 

In fact, I once had a male friend who went as far as telling me he loved me and even got upset when I didn’t say it back. When I confronted the brother and asked him to be straight, he had the nerve to tell me ‘he’s sorry if he confused me but there is nothing because we are just friends.’ Guess what I heard the next day? Right before I confronted him, he had just started dating a pretty young lady. I wish I could tell you that this was the only cringe-worthy experience I have had with my male friends. And it is an issue because it passes the wrong message to other potential suitors for you the girl: You are only good for friendship and not dating.  After this particular guy, I had honestly just had enough. I did not have romantic feelings for most of these guys but the nerve they had to treat me that way just really pissed me off. What even made me much more furious was the fact that I had somehow given them the reason(s) to think that their behavior was acceptable. I know my mistake now and I am here to share it with you so that you also stop making the same mistake. Girl, you need boundaries. 

Boundaries. This means a line that marks the limit of an area or a limit of a subject or sphere of activity. If you like, you can take this to be a metaphorical line but in my experience, I have come to see that it soon becomes a physical line as well. Let me explain. Metaphorically, you have to start to outlaw some conversations between the two of you. There are some things he should be talking to his girl about and not you. You should stop bearing the brunt of his emotional issues too. He should make decisions for himself. If he needs female input that bad, he should make sure he has exhausted his mom, sister, and girl as options before coming to you, and even then, don’t feel pressured to always have a solution. You need to remind yourself that you are not a 24/7 service stop and that does not make you a bad friend. A lot of people use others in the name of friendship and that is completely wrong.

Physically, experience has taught me that once you begin to stand up for yourself and put up the metaphorical boundaries, you begin to lose those friends. They start to become ‘really busy’, and you just ‘drift apart’. Now riddle me this: if there really was a pure friendship void of usery, where’d they go? Could it be that there were no longer benefits for them in the relationship? I think so. And let me tell you, you are better for it. You don’t need them in your life sis. For whatever reason they do what they do, you do not need to be a part of it. Someone who appreciates you for exactly who you are will be a friend to you. They will do a good job of maintaining healthy boundaries in the relationship. If they do develop romantic feelings for you along the way, they will take the right step of asking you out. 

Lastly, if you are a lady currently in a relationship with a guy who seems to be super close with his female friend or has a female best friend and it rubs you the wrong way, I want to appeal to you to try a different approach to the one you are predisposed to. Instead of getting hostile with the girl – I’m not taking for granted the fact that some girls do overstep their boundaries – try instead to talk to your guy. He as much as the girl needs to review their relationship because you are now around. Plus he is the one you are in a relationship with, not her. This may help make things better and in some cases, it may help you not to waste time as he may not really have genuine feelings for you. He may be in love with that friend but doesn’t know it yet. Anyway, it’s just a suggestion seeing as 2020 is in a couple of months. 

Love,

Nani.