Friend has gotten really funny due to my weekend away with man

[Laurenn25]

I’ve been single for three years, single Mum to primary age DC who I’ve put first during that time. Only recently did I start looking to date again, I’ve met someone who I get along really well with and we’ve arranged a weekend away for mid-July.

My best friend had been on for a while about the two of us going away for a weekend, but for various reasons I didn’t outright commit to this. I told her it would depend on a few factors including finances.

I’ve told her about my planned weekend with the man I’m seeing and she got really funny and asked is that why I can’t go away with her. I said it wasn’t as simple as that. She said we’ve been friends for years and as soon as I’ve got a ‘sniff of cock’ I’ve dropped her. I haven’t dropped her at all.

It’s true I probably could have gone away with her, but I didn’t commit to it and can’t afford two trips now. She has made me feel a bit crap.

Exactly. She might be jealous, but equally, she might be genuinely hurt.

Quite. And to effectively ‘dump’ your lifelong friends in favour of a new relationship with someone you barely know? That’s just horrible!

Also the equivalent of chicks before dicks.

And if your man dumps you or cheats on you or dies, you might be very glad to to go away with girlfriends, so maybe you should value them a bit more.

Yes - where’s the value in the friendship? Seems to be severely lacking from the OP’s side. Get away with all the people pushing the friend as controlling/jealous and/or bitter narratives! The OP is the selfish ‘friend’.

It does, but I think you can still maintain your friends' importance in your life. There's just a certain type of woman who makes it very obvious that you've slid ten rungs down the ladder the minute a new man shows up. It shows in the way you get relegated to Sunday lunchtimes for the life of the relationship; in refusing to make plans just in case he asks her; in the way that anything except quick drinks on a Monday night is off the table. Or the way you don't hear from her all weekend and then suddenly she wants to talk Sunday night, when you have to get ready for the work week. There are two weekend evenings every week; a new man doesn't need to have both of them, every week. He also needs time with his friends.

In summary, I think it's perfectly possible to do committed dating while not letting your friends feel like Bargain Basement leftovers.

I think more women should remember who'll be there for them when the Great Male Chief falls off his pedestal.

A PP said that they don't think of weekends away with friends as being what you do in your 50s but in your 20s. I wanted to tag her but I can't find the post.

Well, my friends and I are in our fifties, a the stage of life where we've realised that men are not the be all and end all, and that friends start dying off. Life is precious and so are all the people in it, not just our partners. We no longer put any man on a pedestal and we relish girls' weekends.

Saying that girls' weekends are for the young makes it sound as if your real life begun when the Great Male showed up and whisked you off to a higher, better life.

Well, pride comes before a fall, is all I can say.

I know - the OP has literally described her friend as a smelly, fat woman who snores. She has also criticised her diet while proclaiming to eat much better, and linked it to her being smelly. Pretty judgey. The friend might have IBS, which is nothing to do with a bad diet. She honestly sounds like she hates her "friend."

I think she has blurred the lines of friendship. Especially if you already see her every week anyway. I wouldn't be comfortable with such a demanding and controlling friend. Friends need to give each other space. She should be happy you've met someone.

My goodness. How does this relate to the OP, whose friend positively refused OP's suggestions.

And no, nights do not get portioned out as if for a work rota! Going with the flow matters.

Also, all the Great Male Chief talk is faintly racist, relying on stereotypes of natives, savages, etc as being submissive and ignorantly following tyrants.

ETA women referring to themselves as 'girls' in middle age gives me the horrors. I would rather hang out with avowed crones.

So, a controversial theory. But yes, I'll grant you, evolution is messy, the sex drive is in tension with monogamy, the human brain is plastic and highly programmable, and different societies have made very different social experiments with very different consequences. Our society is doing so now, apparently inspired by the south sea islanders and other outliers beloved of anthropologists, and IMHO it has caused things to go to shit at a rapid rate. YMMV.

I suppose I should rather have said that the basis for our Western social structure is monogamous. Pair bonding, the sacred institution of marriage and the family to ensure the children grow up stable and well-adjusted, all that. I have the impression that this has been the basis for the most successful civilisations. The West, China and Japan spring to mind. Ours is still running on the vestiges of that system, but maybe I was presumptuous and completely old-fashioned to assume that OP would probably be interested in a partner for life and a traditional family.

Showing my bias as an old man approaching 40 years in a stable marriage, I'm very grateful to have a soulmate for affection, companionship and mutual support. It seems very natural to me, and for that matter to almost everyone I know. But I know and respect that it's not for everyone. If OP just wants to stay a single parent shagging around with a succession of men, and "friend" knows that, that puts a completely different complexion on things. In that scenario, good luck to her and I'm out.

Or....if one is not performatively woke and eager to point the finger at others in order to virtue-signal, one could also read it in terms of chief executive, a common usage, and very apt the way that some women place a man as the chief the minute he shows up, booting her friends down the list and keeping space free for him when he hasn't asked her out. 🤮

Don't call me racist.

I'm 15 years older than you, old enough to know that life doesn't always work out the way you planned. And yes, in my thirties, as you are, almost everyone was paired up, because it was too early for divorce to start biting people in the ass. I suspect you'll be a lot less smug in your early fifties.

Sorry how can he have been married for nearly 40 years if he's in his 30s?

The topic of conversation is how some women dump their friends because Man. Isn't the thread of the conversation quite obvious? And you don't need a rota to make time for your friends and of course it's not work - not sure where that came from.

If you don't make time for your friends, you might be very lonely if His Majesty falls off his pedestal.

Because I read it as him approaching 40 and in a stable marriage.

You can be friends but not compatible for going away together.

If you wanted to go away with her you would - she should have taken the hint. Nothing wrong with not going away with her by the way as otherwise you are doing things together and see each other regularly.

@BlokeyMcBlokersonVonMannSplainHeim I apologise; I read your post that you were approaching 40 and in a stable marriage, not approaching 40 years of marriage.

Good for you; I'm glad you've had a lovely simple life in terms of marital stability. Many don't get that, through no fault of their own.

The expression is racist. Regardless of your intention. I am not insulting you.

Nobody says "Great Chief" about CEOs. The origin of that phrase is in how people talked about First Nations etc. "Heap Big Chief" and so on. The Pocahontas stereotype.

It is really grating. Language carries history with it.

You were mistaken.

No problem, but you have been quite quick to patronise me, call me smug and laugh in my face. Even now you're assuming I've had it easy, for some reason, rather than doing the hard work of commitment.

I've said my piece and I think this discussion has pretty much played out now.

Best post for a while.

The only person I have known who seriously conplained of other people dropping her when dating is the one who in fact did the dropping when she dated, and had unreasonably demanding expectations of her friends when she was single and wanted to do stuff.

urgh your friend sounds manipulative and disgusting