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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think that loyalty in girls teenage friendships groups, is a thing of the past..

63 replies

Bluechair · 21/01/2019 10:30

So if a teen has broken up with a guy, is it ok for her 'friend' to start dating him a day later, if he asks her friend out? What is normal these days? It was an unspoken thing, when I was teen that you didnt go there..

OP posts:

glittershitter · 21/01/2019 12:08

OP, I'm glad you're being 'tough' on your DD. The boy she dated and the other girl are free agents. Your DD has no right to feel sad and certainly no right to tell the other girl to be 'nice'!!

I guess the point of my very long post was that the ludicrous, borderline criminal behaviour I described is an extension of this weird, teen/twentysomething possessiveness. Nip it in the bud, for sure.

knittedjest · 21/01/2019 12:14

I think it's an individual thing. Always has been. I have several daughters, aged from 12-33. The hardest in terms of friendship drama and backstabbing were Dd27 and Dd25. The easiest has been Dd19. And then my other daughters have fallen on the friendship spectrum somewhere in between those two groups.

BrightStarrySky · 21/01/2019 12:18

I agree with Flossie

slashlover · 21/01/2019 12:23

Surely if anyone comes out bad looking out of this , it is him for chasing her friend and the friend for agreeing to date him.

Or your daughter for dumping someone by text after already agreeing to go out the next night.

How long had she and the ex dated? A few weeks or a few years?

Dextrodependant · 21/01/2019 12:26

Surely if she finished with him then she forfeits the right to be all hurt about it when he moves on?

If he had dumped her then sure her friends should give him a wide berth put of respect for her feelings but since she dumped him, by text and this girl isn't even a close friend, then I think she is being a drama queen.

EmeraldShamrock · 21/01/2019 12:28

I do not think it is teenage friendships these days, We had a fairly big group of friends and it wasn't unusual in the mid 90's.
It happened many times, my younger sister dated my ex, I got with a friend ex, friends got with my ex, sometimes within days of a break up. It was teenage sillyness. It did hurt, I was devastated at the time over my sister, now we laugh about it.
Guy would meet a girl, find he thinks her friend is nicer, it is not nice and but now new.
Most of the group are still in contact, all happy enough 20 years later.

abbeydo · 21/01/2019 12:28

My mum and two of her sisters all dated the same guy and that was about 35 years ago.

I broke up with a guy once and my cousin decided to date him. Still pissed off about that and the fact that my mum thought I was being unreasonable

RedSkyLastNight · 21/01/2019 12:29

Are they younger or older teens?
At the younger teen end they swap boyfriends almost as often as they change their socks!

If it's a more serious relationship (as you might expect at the older teen end) then I wouldn't expect best friend to go straight out the next day (but equally I wouldn't expect them to break up by text).

gamerwidow · 21/01/2019 12:36

Surely if anyone comes out bad looking out of this , it is him for chasing her friend and the friend for agreeing to date him

I can’t see any villains here. Your DD is not in the wrong for not wanting to go out with him. The boy is not in the wrong for asking out someone else even if it happened to be DDs friend. The friend is nog in the wrong for going out with a boy she likes who is now single regardless of who he used to go out with.
No need for all this drama everyone is free agents.

NotDavidTennant · 21/01/2019 12:39

My daughter wanted to stay at home from school today as she was so embarrassed and humiliated by it all. Im just struggling to get into her mindset

She's humiliated because it seemed like this guy thought she was something special, but actually it turns out he was never that fussy about who he went out with. She'll get over it.

Original poster

Bluechair · 21/01/2019 12:41

Younger teen, 15 . I completely agree that my daughter has no right to call the shots here. I think its ridiculous actually so Im struggling a bit to understand this reaction. Believe me, I am not a cotton wool Mum...quite the opposite in fact as you can see upthread! They dated for 6 weeks. Horrified that they dump eachother by text. Hate it . Their friendship group do not dump face to face anymore. horrible.On a personal note, I didnt ever go near my friends ex boyfriends, only because they were together first, like an unspoken friendship rule...but that was 30 years ago..It wasnt the done thing back then and the girls who did were seen as desperate for a guy.

OP posts:

Original poster

Bluechair · 21/01/2019 12:44

Yes notdavid, youre absolutely right. This is at the heart of it. A big lesson for her I hope! Everyone is replacablei n a heartbeat! My daughter's issue with all of this is that ' friends just dont do this to eachother...its just the way it is..' The drama !!!!

OP posts:

Jellyonawonkyplate · 21/01/2019 12:46

So she dumped him..over text. He can do what he wants with whom he wants. Nor does it reflect badly on the other girl, unless she was a best best friend. Sounds like your DD wants everything her way. Not a bad lesson for her that life doesn't work like.

MorningsEleven · 21/01/2019 12:46

It's not a new thing. My sister never even waited until her friends broke up with their boyfriends - she just got right in there - and that started 30 odd years ago. There's always been arseholes in the world.

sijjy · 21/01/2019 12:46

My daughter has had the same group of friends since year 7. She is now in yr 13. One of the girls in her group had split up with her boyfriend. She is now dating someone else. My daughter has also been friends with this boy since year 7. My daughter another girl and some lads went round to this girls ex boyfriends as he was having a "gathering" because of this the whole friendship group fell out with her and have been very nasty. This has really upset my daughter and she has had to try and emerge herself in a new friendship group right at the end of school life. In my opinion this was ridiculous. She didn't go round and spend one on one time with this boy. It was a group situation. I think teenage girls of today are more bitchy and are very self absorbed. They have rules for their friends that don't apply to themselves in the same situation. I suppose it's how we all learn.

Jellyonawonkyplate · 21/01/2019 12:47

like that

BirdieInTheHand · 21/01/2019 12:51

Oh I think you're being tough on your DD.

15 is such a tricky age (have one myself) and friendships are so critical at that age, they're still figuring out appropriate boundaries for close relationships outside of families and it can all get a little much.

It's likely not even about feelings for the boy, more that possible intermacies that she has shared with him now may be shared more widely.

slashlover · 21/01/2019 12:52

They arent best friends but socialise in the same circles

The things is, depending on friendship groups, after school activities, sports etc. Then 'socialising in the same circles' could effectively rule out half the year to him after dating your DD for 6 weeks.

DelurkingAJ · 21/01/2019 13:01

Not a new thing at all. My bff did this to me (after I’d been dumped by ex bf of 2 years) 20 years ago. It was fraught for a while but we all got over it. Her view was that I should have known she’d always fancied him...I didn’t! I did experience a great deal of schadenfreude (spelling?!) when they split a couple of years later.

Was then very, very common amongst my university friends (when I met DH it was suggested by one of the boys that if I wasn’t going to date one of them then at least I could let them find me someone...I was unamused!).

bringbacksideburns · 21/01/2019 13:05

This happened to my daughter over the Summer. She was very upset.
At least your daughter was the one who ended it I suppose.
With my daughter he was the one who wasn't sure so rather then wait around for him to make his mind up my dd Said to call it a day.
Weeks later he got together with her 'best' friend and apparently she was unreasonable for being upset

There was no loyalty.

I think it totally depends on you as an individual.
My DS was with a girl for a year
And finished with her face to face as he thought text would have been too hurtful. She was very intense.
3 weeks later she got together with a good friend of his and he was very surprised.

I think it does seem to be a bit of a thing yes.

waitingforthenextbus · 21/01/2019 13:05

YABU. This isn't new! And why's the girl getting the blame, surely the fella's a snake too?
This happened when I was a teenage, both ways round - girls doing it to their mates, boys going out with their mates ex-girl...
Twas ever thus.
Teenagers are fickle, some teenagers are kinder than others, some friendships are stronger than others and sometimes there's justa whole lot of other things going on that parents aren't aware of.

Original poster

Bluechair · 21/01/2019 13:07

I agree with you all. She has no right to feel like this but she does so I can only hope to guide her. She has only just turned 15 and is dreadfully immature and definitely has this determined sense of right and wrong. I hope Im doing her a justice in being tough about it but I am also proud of the way she handled herself publicly, in the sense that she has kept her head held high despite feeling the way she does.I cannot abide young teens being spoilt and their drama being entertained, however I am her mother and I want her to know that I have her back even when I disagree fundamentally with this nonsense.

OP posts:

Gettingbackonmyfeet · 21/01/2019 13:09

Meh teenage girls have always been fickle I'm nearing 40 and I remember this stuff as well its part of life

Personally I like how you've dealt with it in sorry your dd is upset but it's a lesson and if I remember correctly it was amazing how fast the things that I insisted were stupendously embarrassing disappeared into the ether

BarbarianMum · 21/01/2019 13:12

I dont think loyalty has ever been a key feature of teenage girl relationships tbh. And if you break up with someone it's a big distasteful to then get cross if they start seeing someone else.

BlueCornishPixie · 21/01/2019 13:13

I think at 15 and dating for 6 weeks, she broke up with him it's fair game. She doesn't really have much to be upset about, it's more the embarrassment.

If she was 19, had been together for 3 years it's a different story.

This sort of thing happened a lot when I was that age at school, especially with mixed friendship groups. People just seemed to swap with each other. It stopped when we were about 16, when we got to sixth form and relationships were more serious.

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