Blurred Lines & Confrontation

I have a friend who (I think) needs some independent advice. She met an older guy at work over 10 years ago. There was a lot of flirty banter between them but then she found out he was married so it didn’t go any further. And then he got divorced; their flirtation built and they had something a little more physical but it was kind of a non-starter and remained in this flirty friendship zone. For years.  Over time, she found out about the breakdown of his marriage and he confessed that, during the shitty times, he hadn't been faithful to his wife (red flag). She then moved to another job but they stayed friends. One night out, the flirtation escalated and it looked like a hook-up was on the cards (I remember her telling me something about them ending up in their underwear in a pool together). Then he told her he was seeing someone and he was "serious about this one". So then he and his GF move cities, get married and have a kid. Meantime my friend has already moved overseas but they remain Facebook friends.

Fast forward a few years and now they’re all back living in the same country but different cities. Last month, she and this guy find themselves in the same city and after a night of drinking and flirtation (and admitting their feelings for each other) they pashed and got handsy. There was talk of arranging another rendezvous with lots of messages about wanting to be together. Then she (finally) came to her senses and pulled the pin, not wanting to be with someone who is currently IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH A FAMILY. 

So friend tells me recently that he and his wife are expecting another baby. By her calculation, his wife was pregnant when the whole thing happened between them earlier this year. It's the proverbial straw… Friend is royally pissed off as he would have known about the pregnancy yet still initiated the whole thing (I mean, creep). Which brings me here: She wants no part of their friendship anymore. The problem is this: she's caught between confronting him about it and telling him they can't be friends or just not engaging with him... and letting the natural phase out / ghost move solve her problems for her. I think she needs to grow a backbone and call him on his shit. She keeps maintaining they have a long friendship and doesn't know how to end all of this mess without cutting him out of her life. She's a good human and I love her but JESUS, this is like that whole thing of you accept what you think you deserve. To be honest, I think she's really played her part in all of this over the years but I also believe she does deserve better than being some side piece.

Any help I can send her way? I think she needs to hear it from an outsider because it's easy enough for her to continue to make excuses to me and herself.

Hey (friend of) Lady,

A lot to unpack here but I so appreciate the detail, thank you. Now, let me get straight to something I know for sure: if swimming in your knickers with someone you’ve been flirting with for years doesn’t end with you consensually thrust up against a palm tree with that person, then it’s never going to.

Where you and I agree: the guy is a confirmed creep and there is a special place in the inferno down below for men who muck around on their pregnant wives. This one is a lazy fantasist who’s bookmarked your gal as little more than a future fire escape on which to land should he suddenly want to pole vault out of his nuclear family. But there will be no high jumping here. His heart and bits are not with her. And as for her, well you don’t say that she’s been pining away, waiting-and-not-dating all these years right? I sincerely hope she’s been swimming in her knickers with others, I really do.

If swimming in your knickers with someone you’ve been flirting with for years doesn’t end with you being consensually thrust up against a palm tree with that person, then it’s never going to.

Where you and I disagree: the need for your gal to stage a showdown of any description at this too-little-too-late-stage. As you put it, she’s let it play out like this over a number of years. I mean, they haven’t even had actual sex right?  Her anger appears to have erupted over the fact that when he was messing around with her, his wife was at home growing their second child. You second that anger. I third that anger. But she was aware that he had a wife and one child when they messed around AND you say she had decided to walk away before she knew about Baby #2. Does she really need to reverse back over this situation? I think not. Given all of the above, does she have much of a case to rip him a new one and feel deeply wronged? I (also) think not.

Personal experience tells me this is a bad idea. I’ve initiated one of these showdowns with a blurred-line friendship* of my own a lifetime ago and it was wholly unsatisfying, in spite of the wholly satisfying sex. I should have either spoken up earlier as things got confusing (for me) or just walked away. But no, I shouted down my Nokia 8210 into my blurred-line friend’s ear drum and I felt like a bit of a dick by the end of that largely, one-sided conversation…like I’d stayed too long at a party to which I wasn’t really invited. Your gal is probably a ball of frustration and misspent feels; like she’s wasted time, angst, and airtime over this man-shaped slime. And she may also be picking up on your own frustrations with this sitch and quite possibly a teeny bit of judgement for the way she’s (not) handled it. If I can smell it ever so slightly wafting out of your email, then she can too.

So what to do? Well, let me assign you a task first; it’s Your job as her (real) friend to help her to swim in bigger pools in better knickers. Push her into the distracting man soup that is her preferred dating app, source her the cutest rescue pup that’s ever been cruelly abandoned at the end of January, and just generally push her into the pathways of oncoming men. [If this is what she wants, of course. ] And let’s all stop giving this creep the airtime he does not deserve.

NB: Just to be clear and to preserve my own shadowy reputation: that aforementioned blurred-line friendship of mine did not involve wives, children, or a growing foetus.

Image: Via Pinterest