Dear Nikol,
I’ve been best friends with a guy for about four or so years now. We went to high school together and now college and we’re still great buddies. Or at least that’s what I thought on my end. See, the thing is I’m totally a gay girl inside and out, but since I lived in a smaller, stupider town, I’ve never got the chance to meet anyone. When he and I went to college, I actually met someone and we’re now going steady.
Ever since she and I have been seeing each other, my best friend is incredibly upset to the point where he ignores me. He goes through these little phases where he apologizes and says it’s all his fault or whatever, then will switch to yelling at me and saying that I’m ruining our friendship. I can’t even hang out with both of them at the same time.
I know he knows I’m gay, because he was one of the first people I came out to (in fact, he even helped me come out to my parents and school).
I’m upset because I feel like I’m losing my best friend but, of course, I really like the girl I’m with. Basically I’m stuck. How do I get him to act normal again?
Thanks.
Stuck and Pissed
Dear SaP,
You can tell a lot about what people believes to be the root of their problem by the details they give in their question. It seems that you believe that your BFF wants to get in your pants. I’m not disagreeing with you because I haven’t talked to him. Maybe deep down he wants to be with you and he’s never dealt with the prospect of you having a girlfriend before so it’s freaking him out. Or…
Here’s the thing about people. Unless we’re cryogenicly frozen, we all do this crazy thing. We change. We grow. We stop caring about the same things we used to. One of the biggest factors in changing lies in our love lives. Like a developing career path, maybe we start out majoring in theater and then find that we are better suited for accounting. Then we look back one day and laugh at the people we once were and all of the things we thought we wanted.
So you and your friend are changing and it’s scary. You, the one in lalala-love, are discovering parts of yourself that you never got to act on before. I’m guessing you are in the new love stage with your girlfriend, in which every moment has a presence of her even when she isn’t there. During this time people do all sorts of crazy friend ditching and plan changing. Then you find time for your friend, but the entire conversation is punctuated with you talking about what makes your girlfriend so great.
Even if you and the girl don’t last, you may not recover the friendship you once had with your friend. This isn’t to say you will go through some melodramatic friend dumping process. You two may never even really talk about it. It’s more realistic to assume that you will just drift apart into your own lives and then one day you’re acquaintances with memories of the things you’ve been through. It’s a sad but natural process of growing up. The best way to handle it is to smile about the things that have happened instead of being angry at the things that won’t happen anymore.
If it just so happens that your friend really has been waiting for you to stop being gay and see the love machine before your eyes, the friendship was probably going to end anyway. And if it just so happens that maybe you are being a lovelorn puppy at the moment who only has time for your girlfriend, it may pass and you’ll be back to hanging out in no time.
Always remember that as the years pass the people in your life are changing the same way that you are. Respect the directions they go, knowing that for now you may be their interest in theater and one day they might take up accounting. Allow yourself to let go and others to let go of you.
– Nikol
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Questions? If you have a question for Nikol, you can reach her confidentially at lovesexetc@milwaukeemagazine.com.Your anonymity will be protected.
