Friend makes me wait around the corner

[Cactusandmarshmallows]

Interested in advice on this one. One of my closest friends is a man I work near, we’re in the same building but not at the same job. We’ve been friends for many years and I’m happily married etc. We meet up for lunch semi-regularly and always have. About 6 months ago he started seeing a workmate of mine which is great as I really like her and he seems happy.

It was all fine at first but the last few times we’ve meet he’s asked me not to wait in the lobby where we’d usually meet, but outside and around the corner, and he always looks all shifty until we get away from work and he relaxes. I asked him if everything is ok and if his new partner is ok with me hanging out with him and he said it’s fine, and he initiates lunches as much as I do, but continues to ask me to meet him around the corner.

That’s weird, right? I’m just not sure how to approach it as I value his friendship but don’t want to feel like a dirty secret!

Which is exactly why OP should play no part.

I wouldn’t want to be friends with someone who wasn’t able to communicate honestly about his friendships to his partner. What the partner might think is not the OP’s problem. Being made to feel she needs to hide the fact that she’s innocently going to lunch with a longterm friend is. I’d be telling him to grow up, and I’d be waiting in the lobby or no lunch.

If he tell her himself, there'll be no muttering.

If he can't tell her he shouldn't be going. There's no good reason to not mention you've had lunch with a friend.

When your friend first asked to meet furtively round the corner, did you ask why?

Yes, I’d be interested to hear this too.

I realise this is a secondary issue, but why is it you waiting around the corner not him? And why not both meet at the cafe if the lobby is a problem.

She's controlling/paranoid or he's previously cheated and she doesn't trust him.

Have you asked him? By being secretive about this, he is making you complicit in deceiving his partner, which could reflect badly on you at work.
I would insist on meeting him in reception or not at all.

Go for lunch on your own, tell him he's welcome go join you if wants..providing you still want to.
Tell him straight that you're not prepared to be hiding from anyone.
Don't make yourself available to play this game.

I'd have to ask him why you have to meet around the corner and see what he says. You're obviously close enough. It could be that she just doesn't like it in which case you need to figure out how to proceed.

You can't be asking people to wait around the corner and treat them like a spare part - like the unpopular kid at school who gets second dibs

The worst thing is his actions are unwittingly or otherwise, pathologizing your side of a normal friendship and making you feel like you're part of some shameful secret,

when the reality is, he needs to stop behaving like a controlling man child and either stop caring what his workmates may or may not think, or have the convo with his girlfriend - who sounds like she may not trust him... which is a whole other thread

The yap will definitely start if spotted and as gossip tends to grow arms and legs could cause op problems.
Ditch the lunches and being hidden like a dirty secret.

In which case he needs to decide if he wants to be with someone with those kinds of issues or wants to maintain this friendship. He can't have both.

Weird and really rude.

My own cousin did similar to me 20 years ago. She'd invite me to their house, and when I turned up she'd say to her mother (my aunt) "oh! Look who's turned up out of the blue!" And this continued for many years.

She did it when we met up with her friends, too - invite me along and then when I arrived she'd tell everyone "what a coincidence! Look who's here! No way!"

To this day I have no idea why, and I no longer speak to her. I had very low self esteem as a young woman but I'd NEVER put up with that sort of shit now and since my late 30s.

If his new girlfriend doesn't like it happening, the answer is never to just hide it and do it anyway. I have mostly male friends, and have lost them all one by one as they got girlfriends, as none of them like them hanging out with another woman (and I'm far from a threat to them, I'm happy in my own relationship).

He either stops hanging with you, which I think is a shame if you've been friends for years, or he explains to her that you have a good friendship, there's never been anything more between you, and that he's not going to give that up.

A healthy relationship needs to come with trust.

Don't wait around the corner for some bloke like you're a secret. Think more of yourself than that, OP.

OP, I would have laughed out loud at this. Of course you won't wait around a corner. If he isn't allowed to be seen with you in public, he needs to make a choice. The 'waiting around the corner' makes you look like you are doing something you shouldn't.

Find out what is going on here. His girlfriend should have no problem with him meeting you for lunch. Can you all meet up together sometime too? Get to know her a bit better so nothing is underhand? Why is he putting up with this? Being in a relationship shouldn't affect who you have lunch with, should it?

TheDenimPoet I am sorry to hear this. Personally, a man who has female friends is much more attractive to me than one who doesn't. I have male friendships I have managed to maintain so far, but I hate the thought of not being friends because their girlfriend was jealous for no good reason. My DH would never have a problem with us hanging out but I hadn't considered that a jealous girlfriend could be the end!

I would refuse to do this because it makes you look guilty of something when you know you haven't done anything wrong.

Imagine his partner saying "if there's nothing going on, why would she agree to hide?", because that's what many of us would say if we were her.

Ask him about it but also tell him he's out of order.

He is your friend though.

She's probably put her foot down about him meeting you for lunch and he's trying to avoid her going nuts at him.

She's the problem - not you or your friend.

Don't play his sneaking around games. Just wait in the lobby and be open about it, you have nothing to hide. What he's doing isn't right.

Alternatively, his new partner is controlling and trying to isolate him.

Either way @Cactusandmarshmallows , it's not your problem. Tell him you'll be meeting him in the lobby from now on and you're not going to be a secret.

It just kind of suddenly becomes an uncomfortable situation when they're in a relationship. Most of my male friends I've had days out or meals out with on a one-on-one basis, and it just seems impossible to say "Right I'm going out for dinner with TheDenimPoet, have a nice night" to their girlfriends.

I kind of get it, though, because I suppose some men would use that kind of an excuse as a way to have an affair.

But honestly, I just want my friends back :(.

We can all still meet up in a group situation, but it's not the same.

I also can't have the detailed, deep conversations we once had via messaging, as their girlfriends don't want them having that kind of talk with another woman. I'm just talking about life, nothing sexual at any point.

It honestly is so, so painful, as I've just lost one friend after another over the years.

Then he needs to sort that out with his girlfriend. Deceiving her won't help long term. If she's jealous of his friendships perhaps they are not compatible.

This.