Tips for supporting best friend who's just split up with boyfriend?

[TadlowDogIncident]

My oldest friend has just dumped her commitment-phobic boyfriend: she'd been with him for 3 years and it wasn't going anywhere, and quite apart from the commitment-phobia he was a bit of a mess (drinking too much, just started new job after finishing a PhD and getting into a mess there too). He was in lots of ways a great guy - I liked him a lot - but I think she's done the right thing. She's understandably pretty down: she really cared about him, and she''s my age (mid-thirties) and really wants to get married and have children, but she didn't want to wait around forever for him to sort himself out.

I really want to put her first for a while, and DH is very supportive (he's very fond of her too). Any suggestions for nice things to do for her, apart from just being there and listening? We're going out to dinner next week, and I'm going to try and plan a couple of theatre / cinema trips.

[slug]

When my sis's H walked out on her she took up dancing (rock and roll, swing and sala). She says that, apart from the physical exercise which helps with the depression tendicies, it's also good for non-sexual physical contact with men.

I went to a lesson with her on the weekend and I can see her point. I spend an hour or two being flung around the dancefloor in a completely non-threatening environment by a variety of fit blokes, some of whom were just as incompetent as me. Going to these sorts of things on your own can be very intimidating at first. Perhaps you could track down something similar and go with her for a while until she's decided whether or not she likes it?

[TadlowDogIncident]

Good thought, Slug: it's the sort of thing she might go for too. I have two, or possibly three, left feet (judging from the number of times I fall over them), so my going along to such a thing will have lots of comedy value.