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Hi Dr. NerdLove,
I decided to message you, because I did something stupid and worry it will be difficult for me and my friendship group to move on from it – I need some straight-talking.
CONTEXT:
I live in a small town and work in a sort of social-hub cafe, which has a large extended friendship group of people who have worked there. I started there about 3 years ago and am more or less friends with most of this extended larger group. Another girl (A.) started working there roughly when I did, and had, within the first few months of being there, gotten together with this guy (D.), who had been in this group and worked there for ages. They stayed together for roughly two years, their relationship got rocky and very toxic in the pandemic and they broke up in a very dramatic way last spring/summer (1 year – 8 months ago, I’m not sure). I had been friends with them both, supported them both when their relationship was creating a lot of difficulty for them. She obsessed a lot about him moving on and his love life and it was very complicated even after the break up – she asked me once if (simply because I remained friends with and supported him) me and him were a potential item. But over the past few months they finally managed to be in the same room together and restored a bit of harmony, which I thought was great.
WHAT HAPPENED:
A small group of us were on a very fun and excitable night out together two days ago – I came with D. and we were clearly both on a bit of an overexcited, drunken rampage from the beginning. I messaged A. to make sure she knew where we were and could join us all. We all had a fun night and then things get a bit fuzzy in my head towards the end. Somehow we ended up heading home together with D., with whom I remember we had been discussing relationships and loneliness. He told me he sometimes needs someone he’s comfortable with there with him in the night, such as A., though worries she sees this as more romantic than him – they had started hanging out one on one again and he had even stayed at her house, though without anything happening between them, as he had no more romantic feelings for her. I (stupidly maybe) advised him to message the people he would want to spend the night with instead of feeling lonely. He messaged A. and some other girl he had been seeing. I also later found that I had gotten a missed call from A. during this walk home and a message asking whether I was with D. I even tried to reply apparently, because there’s a random one word message from me in response… At some point after all that I remember kissing him. It’s all a complete blur after that, but we ended up going to his and having a one night stand.
AFTERMATH:
I woke up in the morning and messaged A. to come and meet me during my shift in the cafe I work at. She came over first thing and I told her what had happened – she was shocked, said I had disappointed her more than I can imagine and left. We proceeded to message throughout the day, me saying that I was extremely sorry and that it was just a stupid drunken fluke and her responding with a lot of detailed questions about exactly what happened as well as some quite hurtful things about how disgusting this action was, particularly given she had tried to contact me throughout, and that me and D. don’t exist in her life anymore. D. and I have also talked, we’re both in agreement that it was stupid, thoughtless and heartless of us towards her. He’s clearly worried that he’ll get kicked out of the friendship group and will lose her (‘a very important person in his life’) because of this.
Dr. NerdLove, I’ve sent her a lot of explanatory and apologetic messages, and explained that it was a fluke, do you think there is any way this situation could turn out ok in the end? I don’t think there’s anything else I can do? Should I just see it as a ‘shit happens’ situation or is that additionally heartless? I’m worried that the balance in this friendship group will be completely thrown off and I feel awful for hurting someone like that! Selfishly, I’m also struggling with the weight of being a bad person and a bad friend. I would appreciate some words of wisdom.
Thank you in advance,
Hope Things Will Be OK One Day
This is… not exactly a complicated issue, so much as there’re two different ways of looking at the situation.
On the one hand there’s the question of “did you do anything morally wrong?” This is relatively straightforward. No, you really didn’t. D and A have broken up. That means that, while A may have strong opinions about what D does, his commitment to her had been ended and he is free to sleep with whom he chooses. You and he had a drunken hook-up which, while possibly not the bestest decision either of you made, wasn’t an act of betrayal.
A obviously doesn’t feel the same about this, seeing as she was being incredibly possessive and obsessive about the possibility of D moving on. And honestly, it’s not that surprising that someone who apparently hasn’t exactly accepted that the relationship is over is still trying to monitor and control whom D is “allowed” to date or hook up with. That, admittedly, would be a big goddamn red flag regarding D wanting to keep her in his life, in my opinion. But everyone involved here are grown-ups… no matter how much they’re acting like toddlers who’re upset about who gets a particular toy.
Thing is: yeah, it can hurt when the ex you’re (the generic “you”) not over has moved on or hooks up with someone else. But the fact that someone has lingering feelings for a person doesn’t give them dibs on them, nor does it give them a veto over who’s “allowed” to date them, fuck them or have any other sort of relationship with them. I roll my eyes a lot at a lot of “YOU KNEW I LIKED HIM BUT YOU HOOKED UP WITH HIM ANYWAY” drama because… well, if you like someone but they don’t reciprocate those feelings, then that’s very much a “you” problem for you to sort out. If you didn’t make your move or you got shot down or you were dumped… well, I feel sorry for you, but your feelings are ultimately yours to manage. Expecting other people to manage your feelings for you by avoiding doing things that would upset you – like, say, sleeping or dating your ex – are not the sort of thing you can reasonably expect from other people. That’s offloading your responsibilities to somebody else, and people with decent boundaries aren’t going to take up that particular mantle for you.
So, strictly from this angle, no you didn’t do anything wrong. I think a lot of the drama here is the result of A and D, not you; you’re more a trigger than a cause.
Now that having been said, the other way of looking in on this is “did you make a poor decision by getting directly involved with this drama llama” and holy hopping sheep shit yeah you did. These two are a hot mess express, and getting in the middle of it (or under it, as it were) was like doing ballet in a live minefield. You might have been able to avoid some of the mines for a while through sheer luck, but one mistimed grand jeté and you get to watch the drama bomb go off messily and all over your face.
Which is precisely what happened.
Now, most of my judgement is for A not being able to accept that their relationship is over, but D isn’t exactly covering himself with glory here, either. First, there’s the fact that he doesn’t seem to realize that his behavior is making things worse. I can understand the desire to be friends with your ex. Hell, I can understand wanting to keep your ex in your life because “they’re important to you”. But not only is he not recognizing just how bad, how controlling and how unhealthy her behavior is, he doesn’t seem to realize (or care) just how much he’s enabling it. They may have broken up, but he’s allowing some lines to be very, very fucking blurred by continuing to let her spend the night with him… knowing that she’s seeing it as potentially romantic and still has hopes of getting back together with him.
That’s a shitty thing to do to someone you supposedly care about. It’s worse when he’s doing it even when he knows damn good and well how it’s affecting her. Prioritizing his desire to not be lonely over not causing greater pain to his ex – even if she’s being unreasonable or controlling in other areas – is deeply shitty.
And if I’m being honest… he kinda sounds like a fuckboy. Now, you know him better than I do, but that whole “I just get so lonely/need someone there with me at night” sounds like the sort of line one tosses out to sound Deep And Wounded And Meaningful when what you really want is to get your ashes hauled. I can understand and empathize with loneliness, but if it’s that bad, get a roommate. Or a goddamn dog or cat. Not leading on your ex or dropping lines like that on your coworkers.
The problem here is that you ended up getting directly in the middle of this, knowing that A is possessive and demand-y and that D is letting it continue. That right there is the social equivalent of deciding to practice juggling with a couple of jars labeled “nitro” and “glycerine”. This was the definition of an unforced error and it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that it all went boom.
Now, y’all were both drunk, apparently to the point that the night is pretty fuzzy so I’ll give you more of a pass on the ill-advised decision to hook up with him. Where you really fucked up was the morning after. There really was no need to message A and tell her what happened, and doing so is part of what set off this particular drama bomb. There’s such a thing as a right not to know, not to mention that, quite frankly, it was none of her business who D or you have sex with. You would have been well within your rights – and it would have been a much smarter call – to just shove the whole thing down the memory hole if you were going to chalk this up to an ill-advised, booze-fueled mistake. Telling her when you had no obligation to only caused unnecessary pain and drama, and continuing to allow her to frame this as some great betrayal – both by your apologizing and allowing her to demand direct details about the hook up, which again are none of her business – only made it worse. You bought into her framing that you’re the jezebel who banged her man instead of recognizing that she needs to get off that cross of hers, use that wood to build herself a bridge and get over it.
If A was your bestest of best friends… well that doesn’t change the “you don’t get to call dibs” part, but I could understand more about being worried that you hurt her feelings this way. However, I need to emphasize: her feelings are the way they are because she’s refusing to acknowledge the fact that they’ve broken up and D is making it worse with his behavior. The people who are ultimately at fault here are the two of them. Getting in the middle, yeah, that was a bad call. That was dancing in the drama minefields. But A and D are the ones who laid down the mines. This was going to happen eventually (D was “kind of seeing” someone else, after all); you just had the bad luck to be the person who hit that particular landmine.
Anything that happens – between them or the group itself – is ultimately down to them. It was just a question of who was going to be the person who triggered the resulting explosion. You’re the person who happened to get unlucky.
At this point, you’ve apologized and made your mea culpas – even if there really wasn’t anything to apologize for. While I think you should’ve avoided this for drama reasons, I don’t think you really did anything morally wrong. I’m willing to say that you’ve done what you can as a relatively reasonable person stuck in an unreasonable situation.
Those two, however, need to put on their big kid pants and deal. We owe our exes politeness, consideration and a certain level of discretion. We don’t owe them the ability to dictate who we can date or when.
Good luck.
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