Life
Friend or Foe: Can Men and Women Be Platonic Friends?
I think my boyfriend’s female bestie has feelings for him.
Welcome to "Friend or Foe," a regular DoubleX advice column for your queries about the trickiest of all love affairs: friendships. Lucinda Rosenfeld, author of I'm So Happy For You, a novel about best friends, is now taking questions at lucinda@imsohappyforyou.com.
Dear Friend or Foe,
Every time my best friend—“Elsa”—and I are together with her husband, he finds some way to compare her unfavorably with me. It started with my cooking. My husband and I had them over for dinner, and he said something to her like, "Why can't you ever make something this good? We need to start buying more fresh food." More recently, I baby-sat for them so they could have a date, and he compared our handwriting. "I know who I'm going to ask if I ever need handwritten invitations,” he enthused. My response is to always try and downplay my own abilities in comparison with her, but that approach hasn't kept him from these outbursts. My husband thinks he has a crush on me but isn't worried about him acting on it.
I'm less concerned about whether he has a crush on me than I am for my friend and her marriage. Even when not comparing her with me, her husband can be downright cruel. Not long ago, we were having dinner (another couples outing) and discussing dress sizes and Elsa’s attempt to lose the weight she gained during her first pregnancy. He said to her, "I'll tell you why you can't lose weight. You eat like a horse." She laughed and sort of brushed it off, but it really bothered me. Elsa has amazing qualities. I wish her husband would spend his time admiring them instead of constantly cutting her down. Should I talk to her? Should I talk to him? Should I confront him when he does it? Is it even worth worrying about? I don't want to lose my best friend just because I feel uncomfortable around her husband.
Sincerely,
I Wish Your Husband Would Stop Comparing Me to You
Dear IWYHWSCMTY,
You write, “She laughed and sort of brushed it off, but it really bothered me.” Do we know if it really bothered Elsa? From your description, the guy sounds like a bit of a jerk. But it is possible that he and Elsa have one of those marriages which consist of lots of teasing and joshing, none of which adds up to anything? I guess what makes me wary of suggesting you “go there” with either one of them is that Elsa is your best friend—and presumably tells you what’s going on in her private life. Yet you make no mention of her ever having come to you to complain about her husband’s treatment of her.
Which means either she’s keeping her pain a secret (because she’s embarrassed or proud), or she actually likes being teased. To be honest, the handwriting comment seems fairly benign to me. Ditto for the cooking one. (I’m a famously bad cook and can easily imagine my husband making a remark like this.) The fat comment is a little less excusable. No woman post-pregnancy likes to be compared to an animal. At best, it’s a stupid joke; at worse, it’s downright misogynistic. In moments like this, I don’t see why you shouldn’t speak up (even if Elsa doesn’t) and tell her husband that you find the comment to be clueless and obnoxious.
But if you feel compelled to say something to Elsa, I suggest an open ended question along the lines of, “So how are you and the husband doing post-baby?” If she says, “Oh, fine,” leave well enough alone. If she pours out her wounded heart, encourage her to defend herself. Either way, please keep in mind that it’s Elsa’s marriage to make work—not yours.
Sincerely,
Friend or Foe
SNL: Equal Opportunity Objectifiers
Jon Hamm spent most of the Saturday Night Live episode he hosted last night shirtless.
Confessions of a Woman Comedy Writer
Allison Silverman accepts one from New York Women in Film & Television (and tells us why it's rare).
Comments
I can't believe she's even hesitating
By: OneYearMonk | Tue, 01/19/2010 - 10:20
I don't know if it's because I'm male or because I'm me... which is it? The part of this story that I can't believe is that there is any hesitation to check in about this kind of thing with your best friend.
Just the other night, a friend said to me how disappointed she was when she broke up with a guy and only then did everyone tell her that they had seen all the reasons why she left him long before she did. She thought, "Well, why didn't anyone say that stuff to me before?"
In my circle of males, we're pretty quick to tell each other what sucks about the girls they see. Even the ones they get serious with. I also happen to have a lot of girlfriends, and I do the same with them. I wouldn't say it's always comfortable, but they are all still my friends and, on balance, I think they like honesty.
So do women generally err on the side of supportive over honest? Or is this a particular case? I honestly just don't see how it's a big deal, between best friends, for her to say: "so, how you feeling in this marriage? Is he nice enough to you?" I'd do that in a second. even with a kind of okay friend.
Unless, of course, maybe they are one of those couples that never spends a moment apart and she never gets a second alone with her BFF.
Platonic Friends
By: Layla | Tue, 12/15/2009 - 18:30
My boyfriend and I both have platonic friendships of the opposite sex. He is actually still friends with an ex-girlfriend. They somewhat grew up together and he moved away for many years and when he returned to his hometown to help his Dad, they became close again and tried to have a romantic relationship. It didn't work out and rather than continue to try and then make each up set, they parted as friends. All of us have gone out together. I also remained friends with an ex-boyfriend. It was one of those things that we realized we were just meant to be friends. My boyfriend and I joke that we should set our ex's up together and see what happens. they do have a lot in common. My point here is this: If you trust your significant other, than you shouldn't worry, to a point, who they are friends with. The only time to be concerned: If they are hiding the friendship.
Yeesh
By: effingmick | Tue, 12/01/2009 - 13:31
Re: LW2, is it not also possible, and more likely, that the boyfriend is trying to tell his best friend about a new relationship that makes him happy, gets the cold shoulder for reasons he can't understand, and then, confused and probably kind of sad that he can't share anything about his happy relationship, he tells his girlfriend what happened to try to make sense of it? Does it have to be because, ooo, he loves drama? I mean, I've had friends with crushes on me who I would have, in good faith, assured you were not (and I'm sure the opposite is true re: my feelings for a friend or three in my past), and often it takes someone outside of it to be like, "no, they're in love with you."
I also don't think the LW has anything to worry about re: Jed choosing Tracy over her in any conflict. First off, just always take the high road if you end up starting to hang out. Don't be goaded into responding to any barbs she throws your way. Kill her with kindness. Second, people tend to side with the person they're sleeping with, so if you are perfectly nice to Tracy and she throws some ultimatum at Jed, he's not going to take her side.
Good advice on #1
By: JJL | Mon, 11/30/2009 - 17:33
I think Lucinda was right-on with number one. It completely depends what sort of relationship she has with her husband (i.e. do they josh around all the time), how thick her skin is, and in particular how sensitive she is about her weight. I think many women are very sensitive about their weights and so would not like to be teased about it, but that doesn't go for every woman. My husband and I are soulmates and are 100% supportive of each other in anything that matters, but we're also the kind of people that like to josh around and make fun of each other. If my husband made the 'eating like a horse' comment to me I'd think it was funny (since I do eat like a horse :) ) and say something smartassed back to him. I know that in his eyes I am the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, so I wouldn't be hurt -- I'd just take it as a bit of playful banter. (And vice versa. It's a two way street.)
--
Anyway, I know that this isn't for everyone, but that doesn't mean it's for no one. It all depends on the friend's reaction, and also whether she ever makes fun of him. (If it's all one-directional, that would be a bad sign. But sometimes people are more tolerant of, say, women commenting on their husband's weight than vice-versa, so the LW might have missed that.) But anyway, I would definitely *not* appreciate a do-gooder friend trying to tell me that a little joshing is a sign of a bad relationship. Please!!
wrong again
By: Vville222 | Mon, 11/30/2009 - 15:20
You don't sit and laugh when someone is putting down one of your friends, even when the person doing the putting down is her husband. You don't have to be confrontational, but you do have to be supportive. And the support should come in public, in the course of the evening, not afterward when it's just the two gals.
She could have brought the conversation around to shopping for clothes (I assume that's what the dress size remark referred to), or said something useful about trying to lose weight. The point is that she was disloyal to her friend by allowing her to be isolated as the butt of a joke.
Reading some of the advice given here, I wonder if the blog title refers to Ms. Rosenfeld. For a friendship columnist, she does not seem to value her relationships with friends very highly.
I had/have a friend like this
By: annmac6 | Mon, 11/30/2009 - 14:47
I had/have a friend like this from law school as well (you get the extra self-centered and neurotic ones there). I second gardner's comments and would add that it is also about control. My friend didn't really care if I was happy dating someone else, but only that I wasn't there to study and eat dinner with her every day. Then, when she started dating someone new, barely had time for me. Those type of people only view the world from their eyes and don't really care about other peoples lives or happiness. I say live your life - you're the only one who has to.
Evie
By: igardner | Mon, 11/30/2009 - 10:54
I had a friend like Evie once. She was a great friend until she went through a really emotional period in her life (the dissolution of a long term relationship, a serious parental illness). She pulled the same thing Evie did -- she latched onto a minor slight and made a huge production out of it. She did this to a half dozen other friends. In the end, it seems like she just wanted to end the friendships without it being her fault. Let Evie go -- that's what she wants and you'll save yourself the heartache and futile work trying to save a relationship that's doomed.