Friend or Foe: Am I in Love With My Best Girlfriend?

Welcome to "Friend or Foe," a regular Double X advice column for your queries about the trickiest of all love affairs: friendships. Lucinda Rosenfeld, author of I'm So Happy for You [2], a novel about best friends, is now taking questions at lucinda@imsohappyforyou.com [3].

Dear Friend or Foe,

I’m a married woman in her early 30s without children. Many, many women I interact with have kids. So I think I try to be flexible when organizing and doing activities with them. A few years ago, I met a gal—“Sondra”—who worked with my husband. She seemed fantastic, and we began hanging out on a semi-regular basis and always had a blast.

When Sondra became pregnant, I was super happy for her. I went to her baby shower and helped her paint the inside of her new house. I had fun on both occasions. I actually thought we became somewhat closer during that period. Then she got sick but didn’t tell me and essentially disappeared off the face of the earth. We were back in contact a few months later; I found out that she’d had her gallbladder taken out. We then got together for a little vacation to Tahoe. I realized I had forgotten something at the hotel and she ended up taking it with her when she drove home. But again she wouldn’t return any phone calls, texts, or e-mail. I was able to reach her two months later and get it back.

I invited her to a getaway this coming weekend and she acted like she was very interested initially but is not committing at all now. Does having a baby necessarily make you hot and cold about committing to hang out with a friend? I’m trying to make things work, but Sondra doesn’t make much of an effort. She did recently invite me to her daughter’s first birthday. But if the invitation doesn’t have something to do with her child, she isn’t interested. Is the friendship worth saving?

Sincerely,
Must All of Life Revolve Around Your Rugrat?

Dear MAOLRAYR?,

Sondra doesn’t have a narcissistic mommy problem; she has a serious flake problem. I say this because from your description it sounds as if the vanishing acts began in advance of her daughter’s birth. Though even if they didn’t, the inability to reply to a simple text concerning a lost object is nothing short of Friendal Neglect. As I’ve said in this column before, while infants are incredibly exhausting and time-consuming, they spend half the day napping. There’s no reason that new moms can’t find five minutes to check in with their old pals.

As for Sondra blowing off your invitation to take a second vacation together, the reality is that traveling with kids is a pain in the butt—and she may simply not be up for it. However, it sounds as if, where you’re concerned, she isn’t up for anything but the silent treatment. I suspect that at this moment in her life she’s most interested in spending time with other mothers (with whom she can compare breast-feeding schedules and the other fascinating-while-you’re-in-it-not-when-you-aren’t details of newborn life). But don’t be surprised if you hear from one of her new mommy friends that she’s been blowing off their play dates, too.

I suggest backing off and letting Sondra pursue you (or not). Hopefully, with time—and the fact of motherhood fully integrated into her life—you guys will find common ground again. Though I can say from experience that friends who don’t call back or don’t show up when they say they will are among the most hurtful ones you can have. They make you feel so close, and then so burned and rejected, over and over again. Masochists aside, who really needs it?

Sincerely,
Friend or Foe

Dear Friend or Foe,

When I started working at my current place of employment I became friends with a woman—“Tara”—who sits near me. With time, we became more and more fond of each other, and now we're both completely enamored of each other. She adores me and I her. The problem lies in the fact that somewhere in the course of building this new friendship I think I've fallen in love with her. I have been completely heterosexual up until this point, and I'm certain my friend is also. I would never act on these feelings because I wouldn't want to jeopardize our friendship, let alone risk making our day-to-day work environment uncomfortable. But I feel torn. Should I explore same-sex relationships with other women to see if this is a global change within me? Am I perhaps confusing feelings of deep admiration and affection with lust? I'm trying to maintain the pretense that everything is fine, but I'm increasingly distracted by these feelings. How can I get this out of my system? I don't want Tara’s high opinion of me to change.

Sincerely,
Les-B-Friends—or More?

Dear LBFOM?,

I wish I had more information about your romantic past. You say you’re heterosexual, but have you had serious relationships with men? Moreover, have you ever been in love—real, out-of-body, I-can’t-eat, capital L—Love?? Some people believe that we’re all essentially bisexual and it’s just a matter of us repressing various urges. I don’t really buy this. I think the majority of us basically have a type, gender included, that we pursue semi-robotically until an adequate, if not ideal, specimen comes across our microscopes. I have a friend who married an Argentinean guy and it didn’t work out. She recently married another Argentinean guy. Why? Apparently that’s just her thing.

I also think you might know more than you’re letting on about your feelings for this woman. Does your crush on Tara feel visceral and grabby? That is, do you fantasize about the two of you getting naked? Or is it more that you feel like dying of laughter while discussing the sordid details of your own nakedness (i.e., the waxing session that left you limping home)? If the latter, you’ve simply met your girly soul-mate. If, on the other hand, you can no longer control your lip from trembling at the sight of the woman, even at the risk of ruining the friendship you should probably say something. But prepared for shock and alarm as readily as you prepare for a classic rom-com ending in which the two lovers embrace on a rainy street corner, together at last.

Sincerely
Friend or Foe

Dear Friend or Foe,

My husband and I have a dear male friend—“Curt”—whom we've seen through a painful divorce and another subsequent breakup. His current girlfriend, “Tiffany,” is the reason I'm writing. We are in our early 40s; she's 24 and tends to behave and dress as if she's younger. I can't relate to this woman. But it’s not her age—I have three other good friends in their mid-20s—it’s her vapidity. Curt has now moved Tiffany into his apartment with his two daughters, and his 11-year-old seems to have promptly begun to emulate the girlfriend by piercing her nose and dyeing her hair. Maybe she’s a little young?

More and more, I find myself sad and angry when I am around them all and brooding afterward—and not wanting to repeat the experience. To what degree are these feelings normal? And what are my obligations to Curt? Is it appropriate to just make excuses to avoid his company (as I'm tempted to do)? Or should my husband or I tell our friend why I’m ducking his invitations? I’ll also freely admit that Tiffany’s beauty and youth are intimidating, as is the obvious conclusion that these qualities have trumped any other in Curt's estimation.
Midlife Something-or-Other

Dear MSOO,

It’s a big bummer when good friends pick lame-o romantic partners. (We’ve all been there.) But no one’s romantic choices make any sense except to the people living them. I’d say it’s the exception rather than the rule that I truly dig the husbands, boyfriends, and partners of my old girlfriends. Moreover, it’s the rare unattached, heterosexual man in midlife who’s going to kick a tight little package out of his bed. (Hello, mortality!)

That said, with an age gap that big—and your friend Curt still presumably licking his marital wounds—I have a feeling the relationship isn’t going to last (saving you the trouble of distancing yourself). And I won’t be surprised if it’s Tarty Tiffany who says, “So long” first. Find me a 24-year-old who really wants to play stepmom to a bunch of tweens! It sounds as if the girl is barely past her own Hanna Montana phase. The day she gets it into her head that Curt is paying more attention to his kids than to her, all hell may break loose.

In the meantime, please make patience and politeness your friend. The guy is already in a vulnerable position and probably feels like a failure on account of the Big D. If you take down his new lady-love, he’ll likely think you’re piling on. If you really can’t bear her, find a way to socialize with Curt sans family or girlfriend. Weekday lunch date, perhaps?

Sincerely,
Friend or Foe