Do you have to balance your friends out because they are not and do not want to be friends with each other?
I have a two very good friends that are not friends and they will never be. I don't want to say they tolerate each other for my benefit, but sometimes it seems that way. There just isn't a friendship between them and that is totally fine. We all have done things in the past together, but many trips, vacations, nights out often are orchestrated to be a "Friend H is going on this trip" and "Friend J is going on this one." It's a fun little math equation to manipulate and I'm totally fine with it. It's not like they are enemies and they can be at the same dinner table together, but they most likely would not make the choice to do so.
And I am fine with their non-friendship. Seriously, I am. What I am happy about is that they both respect my friendship with the other and that is one of the many reasons I love them both.
The case was a little different forMy Best Friend’s Boyfriend Criticized Me For Being “Too Gay”, he writes about how his friend was dumped because Hawley was apparently on the wrong side of the gay spectrum. He writes:
“You don’t know everything. He’s not a good guy. One of the things we fought about most was you.”
Wait, what?
Shannon said, “He wouldn’t come to things if you were going to be there. He said it made him so uncomfortable to be around someone so flamboyant…I couldn’t let you defend him without you knowing that.”
Two years after coming out, information like this could still devastate me.
Through my teary eyes, I wondered if I really was “too much” and needed to reign things in so as not to offset other people.
Shannon continued, “Yeah, it was disgusting. He kept saying he had gay friends that he was comfortable around because they acted straight. You acting feminine and flamboyant made him not want to come hang with us most weekends.”
. . .
The reason I immediately felt like shit when Shannon told me was that I wondered if I should’ve said a few less “yasss kweens” while drunk or danced a little less vigorously to Taylor Swift when “Shake It Off” came on in the club. Maybe then Jason and Shannon wouldn’t have fought. Maybe they’d be together and maybe I wouldn’t be a problem. Why couldn’t I just be “normal?”
But it didn’t take long to realize how misguided and unnecessary that train of thought was. – huffingtonpost.com
Head over to huffingtonpost.com to see Mathew's conclusion to his story.
But to Matthew's friend … if Matthew was too gay for Jason, another friend is going to be too this or too that. Better off without.
You can't change people's perceptions if they don't want them changed.
And do you really want to ask your friends to change? I know why my Friend H doesn't gravitate toward Friend J and vice versa. But I'm not going to make them be besties or even good friends and I don't want them to change who they are just to meet the preferences of another. My situation with H and J is more of a cerebral / political one and we will leave it at that. They live on opposite sides of the nation now, assisting me dividing my social calendar between them with the help of the Continental Divide.
Does this hit home for some of you?
- Have you had to schedule outings creatively because of polarized friends that just don't get along?
- Have you had to deal with balancing your time amongst friends because of issues more in alignment with Matthew's dilemma? Someone is too masculine? Someone's too gay?
- Have you been dumped because one of your best friends is too … ?
- Have you been told by someone that you cannot be friends because you are too …?
h/t: huffingtonpost.com