Aled Jones
I know this sounds petty even as I’m writing it. It’s like something you’d expect to hear in the schoolyard, or a deleted scene of Mean Girls. But. Ever since I got a boyfriend, I can’t help but feel like my friends are slowly phasing me out. We’ve been together just over a year, my boyfriend and I, and we’re pretty serious. Before we met, I had a close circle of friends. We’d all talk to each other every day in a WhatsApp group, we’d go to the pub together, we’d have dinner together. It felt great to be a part of a friendship group like that. But it’s recently come to light in the past few months that they now have a new WhatsApp group without me – God, this does sound petty, doesn’t it? – they keep going for nights out without inviting me, they’re planning trips away without me. I feel like I’ve been kicked to the curb and, when I watch their good times unfold on social media while I’m sat at home, I feel shit. I don’t know what changed. I don’t think it was me. And I don’t think it’s anything to do with them not liking my boyfriend – he’s genuinely well-loved by people who meet him. I just don’t know where it went wrong... Or how to broach it with them. From CR. Hey CR. Not petty at all! In fact it sounds pretty painful. The older I get, the more I’ve come to realise our friends are our family. I don’t know if that’s an age thing, a gay thing or even (for me) a London thing, but if you feel excluded or shut out by your friends it will be a big deal. Relationship or not.
The more I try to guess why your friends might be acting in this way the more I realise how many reasons there are that could result in this behaviour! In just a couple of minutes I’ve been able to come up with quite a list. Are your friends single? Could they be jealous of your relationship or of your partner – excluding you might be a way of making themselves feel better. Seeing the two of you reminds them what they don’t have. Perhaps you or your partner did or said something to offend someone in the group and no one’s got the balls to actually talk to you about it. Maybe you’ve changed how often you speak to your friends now that you’re in a relationship and they’re offended or hurt, so are choosing to exclude you. Maybe it’s not even anything you’ve done and they’re assuming themselves that you don’t want to hang out with them as much and have started excluding you based on their own assumptions.
There are lots of possible reasons which would create the outcome you’re experiencing. The answers to the problems vary so wildly there’s no point trying to guess because the way you’d remedy one problem would be the complete opposite of how you’d remedy another! You could end up making it worse rather than better!
The only possible next step you can realistically take is to find out more information. You’re not a mind reader and you’ve been left in the dark on this one, so you’re just going to have to pick the warmest friend and have an honest face to face conversation with him about it. Stick to facts and how YOU feel. ‘Lately we haven’t been as close, I really miss the guys, has anything happened?’ Or, ‘I don’t feel like I’ve been able to have my friends hang out with (enter boyfriend name) that well. I really want my mates to get on with him – how can I make that happen?’
Questions like these may start off hitting a brick wall, but bit by bit your friends will start to open up a bit and share what’s going on. What’s vitally important is that you don’t react defensively to what you’re hearing. Remember, the two options are; you’re let in on what’s happening, or you’re not. If you hear something painful, better you know that that is their perception so that you can do something about it if you choose to, rather than to wonder what’s going on.
Or you may even find there’s nothing going on and you’re just being overly sensitive. If that’s the outcome you really need to trust what they’re saying and chill. Otherwise you could end up going mad with worry about it!