YOU CHOOSE: Your friends… or your boyfriend?
![[365] 074](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3375/3411554994_df382a1d2f.jpg "[365] 074 by Corie Howell, on Flickr")
Caught in the middle of love and friendship.
When Jamie (not the one who works here at Chicktimes.com!) was sixteen, she was the only one without a boyfriend in her clique. Whenever they group-dated, she was always the odd one out. So when her friends suggested that they try to hook her up with someone, she readily agreed.
Unfortunately, the bloke they found her for their next group date turned out to be a complete jerk. His name was Chris, and he was the kind of guy who is great to know as long as he was not talking about you. He spotted every flaw about you, and delighted in joking about it for the benefit of everyone else. Everyone thought Chris was powerfully observant and wonderfully perceptive. Everyone, that is, but Jamie.
In the end, Jamie did leave her clique. She drifted among other cliques in school for a while, but gladly, the rush of preparing for her final year distracted her so much she did not feel lonely at all. By the time her exams were over, she hardly thought about the friends she’d left behind.
Loading ...“Within an hour of us meeting, Chris had already commented on my pimples, my broad forehead and my skinny ankles,” recalls Jamie. “I mean, how is anyone supposed to like a guy like that?”
So although her other friends all liked Chris, Jamie hated him. He had bad body odour, picked his nose, was impolite in the company of girls and was generally so tactless that she felt she would cry. She wanted out. But Jamie’s so-called ‘boyfriend’ was very influential in their group. The old clique had evolved into one with new rules and new players. Everyone had a boyfriend, and the boyfriends generally called the shots — which movies to watch, which McDonald’s to sit in, which mall to hang out at.
The only way Jamie could dump Chris was if she dumped all her friends, too.
Single… and loving it
“Maybe it’s because I never truly appreciated them,” says Jamie, now a tax accountant. She had only known them a couple of years (she was transferred to the school from out of town), so it’s not like they were lifelong friends anyway. She has long since forgotten about what happened, although she still has ‘Chrisaphopia’: a terrible fear of anyone that speaks, acts or looks like the Chris she had to date back then.
Of course, if your boyfriend is a jerk, the dilemma is over... right?
Ironically, all of Jamie’s friends broke-up with their boyfriends eventually (they were only sixteen, after all). It seems a shame that their friendship had to come to end so easily. Not so with Farah, a 25-year-old website designer, who fought tooth and nail to have her cake and eat it too. Whereas Jamie had to choose between her friends and a love affair she could do without, Farah faced the conundrum of deciding between the man of her dreams and her best-friend of fifteen years — not an easy decision to make.
“A lifetime friend is exponentially more valuable than a temporary lover,” says Michelle Casto, a WholeLife Coach and author of the GetSmart! (www.getsmartseries.com) series of books. “Friendship in its truest essence can touch our souls in a way that is pure and uncomplicated.”
But Jeremy, whom Farah was dating and was even considering marrying, was no jackstraw. He was good-looking, successful and very kind. She was deeply in love with him, and thought him perfect in every way. But her best-friend Nicole did not think him right for her and said so. At first, Farah merely laughed off her disapproval. But then Nicole did the unthinkable: she put their lifelong friendship on the line and asked Farah to choose — handsome lover or lifelong friend?
Farah was understandably distraught. She didn’t want to lose either person in her life, and faced with such a decision, she very nearly succumbed to a bout of depression. “I kept putting off talking about marriage with Jeremy because I kept hoping Nicole would lighten up,” says Farah. “But how long could I do that for?”
Michael Wano, author of Refill for Life
“We should not judge a book by its cover, and we should not judge our love interests by our friends.”
Nicole thought that Jeremy was only trying to marry Farah because of her family’s social status (she is the daughter of a very successful trading tycoon). She didn’t think he really loved her. But as Mr Wano says: “They say love is blind, and that should be a good thing. You should appreciate your friend’s opinions and concerns, but remember that it is your heart that you ultimately have to please.”
The better of two besties
No one should have to choose between two such beautiful things in life: friends or lovers. But Bill Cottringer, author ofYou Can Have Your Cheese and Eat It Too
“Always keep an open mind that they may be right, and ask for helpful details,” writes Cottringer in his book. “If they are mistaken, tell them in practical, detailed terms why they may be wrong. Always be appreciative of their concern as it is probably well-intended.”
Farah spent many sleepless nights turning over the two most important relationships in her life in her mind. On one hand, Nicole had always been there for her, through thick and thin. But Jeremy sent tingles down her spine, and her heart filled fit to burst whenever she thought of him. He was not pressuring her into saying Yes or No, patiently waiting for her to make up her mind. But she hadn’t spoken to him about her problem. He didn’t know that she wanted to say Yes with all her heart if not for Nicole’s ultimatum.
Beyond Blue: When a Friendship Ends.
“I’d known Nicole all my life. It was not as if I could just forget fifteen years of friendship overnight,” Farah says.
In the end, Farah did marry Jeremy and, true to her word, Nicole never called her again. It seems comically juvenile when you stop and think about it. But Farah does not like looking into the past, and tears spring to her eyes whenever she thinks about Nicole and the friendship they shared over the years. Few friendships last through adolescence; fewer still last through adulthood. Farah is painfully reminded of the price she paid to be with her husband every time she sees another pair of girls giggling in hushed whispers in ladies’ lavatories or changing rooms, but she knows she made the right decision.
When it comes to love, you should let your heart be the storyteller and your mind be the stage, according to Mr Wano.
“Take in everything around you, from what you see in a potential love interest and what you hear from your friends,” he says. “Now close your eyes and open your heart — once you feel that a person is right or wrong for you, your head can make an informed decision.”
