- My friend
OK, this is the ultimate ‘asking for a friend’ question. Your answer might very well be “mind your own business”, if so there are other threads you might want to peruse. But if you feel MN can be a place to discuss our friends and how we can help them, then you’re welcome to read on and comment if you feel like it.
- The industry creep
So I am in a wine bar with my friend, my cool, confident, beautiful friend. I am not super close to her, but enjoy the occasional catching up. I am returning from a bathroom break and my friend is exchanging details with the three guys on the table next to us. None of my business admittedly, she’s single and can do what she wants, but I can’t help a slightly raised eyebrow as she just told me has recently began dating a guy. However, she explains to me that they had a quick chat, found that they worked in the same industry (media, design, digital etc) and agreed to stay in touch over some matter.
I noticed these guys whilst I was waiting for my friend to turn up and they were certainly not intent on an evening of professional networking. They’re chatting her up because she’s sat alone, in the same way a group of laddish guys always have and always will. In any case I soon forget all about this, presuming she was merely humouring them and just pretended to exchange details out of politeness.
So I am a bit surprised to learn a few weeks later that she is meeting one of them for a brunch. He’s a key player in her industry, runs an agency of some repute and wants to meet her with an offer of something that admittedly sounds like a good career move for her. I am not close enough to her to get all big sister about this, so I stifle my urge to ask why he cannot meet her in his office with HR reps and the relevant departmental managers present. In any case she senses my slight hesitation and reassures me that she’s not being naive and in any case “…it’s just a brunch…”. This is her chance to see what this is all about and she’s exuding the confidence of someone saying 'don’t worry, I got this'.
- The daddy issues
Firstly, I don’t claim to fully grasp what ‘daddy issues’ is all about, and secondly I don’t know my friend well enough to judge to what extent any of it would apply to her. What I do know is that she grew up without her dad, and she has no contact with him. I am the type who quickly shouts 'TMI!' so I only know the basics of her sex life, but she has told me about how she started being sexually active at 14. Most people I know who started younger than 16 seems to have done so with a specific boyfriend they spent all their time with anyway. But my friend tell me about “dates with older men” taking place in hotels (!?) rather than the typical clumsy hurried sessions we all had whilst our parents were out. She makes it sound more like exciting grown up adventures than puppy love. But importantly, she does not see herself as having been used or taken advantage of. If I understand her correctly she reckons that this is what most 14 year old girls would do if it wasn’t for controlling parents and society’s judgemental view on female sexuality.
So to sum up, this is barely any of my business and I am hardly close enough to my friend to get involved. However, the past few years of #metoo revelations makes it hard to just watch while my friend might be walking into the claws of someone who could be the Harvey Weinstein of her industry. Like the actresses who became Weinstein’s victims, she is in an industry where there is more freelance work than solid employment offers. Maybe he’s a perfectly honourable guy looking to give a break to a young woman he just met in a wine bar, maybe he’s a horny idiot who makes a pass during their first meeting or maybe he’s a long term manipulative scumbag who’ll wait until she’s financially dependent before he makes a move. I feel myself drifting apart from her on this issue and our differences on this could even damage our friendship long term. As such any moralising is out of the question. But it could be incredibly helpful if guys you had pointers or links to websites that would be relevant to the above. Stuff that would let her (and me) do her own research and work out what, if anything, could be relevant in this situation.