Please help me unpack this – maybe an external perspective will help.
I’m a woman, 39, and I really value friendships. For me nurturing friednships is more important right now (and really has always been) than having a relationship (I’m single and happily so).
Aside from my historical best friend (F38), who I have known since we were 6 and with whom I have the best relationship I could ever hope for, for many years I didn’t have female friends and always missed it. I had a good circle of female friends in highschool and university, but when I moved abroad and started working in male-dominated sectors I struggled to make female friends. Recently I’ve spent more time on and off in my home village and made some new female friends, which I was over the moon about! I’ve always loved having male friends too, and still do, but there is something about a group of ladies together that is just unique.
When I was younger I struggled at times with some potential female friendships due to the classic jealousy situation. At the time, I was very good looking (looking back I can now say this, I never felt it at the time!), and used to get a lot of male attention, this was usually the cause. Because I struggled with the male attention anyway, I started to develop “strategies” to discourage men while appearing less intimdating as possible to women: downplaying myself, pointing out my flaws, showing up scruffy, etc.
Then with time I realised this is not a healthy strategy, and I actually need to be myself around friends and I do like to dress nicely and be put together. However, I kept my “discouraging” attitude towards male attention: I don’t flirt, I think I actually forgot how to do it, and I don’t try to appear sexy in any way or to make any even remotely sexual joke (unless with someone I’d like to be in a relationship or hook up with – very infrequent occurrance these days, because I’m also experiencing a time of celibacy for spiritual reasons). This helps me keep my male friends friends only and discourage them from developing sexual or romantic feelings towards me.
Fast forward to me finally having a good number of female friends. They are all in relationships, and those whose boyfriends I only know as their boyfriends everything is ok. However, there seem to be issues with those who get together with my male friends.
One female friend (35) asked me to introduce her to one of my long time male friends (32) and I did. They got together and it turned out a disaster, she got extremely jealous and told him I was saying horrible stuff about him to others, all starting because I sent him a text to organise a get together and she thought it was for me and him only. It wasn’t, since they got together I immediately stopped hanging out with him alone, even though we had been close friends for five years, exactly for the reason of not wanting to cross any line. I also drastically reduced contact with him from weekly texts and phone calls, to only one phone call over a couple of months. This is just to say, I think I did absolutely nothing to make anyone alarmed. I kindly explained the invite was for both, but she thought I wanted him and was trying to make him fall for me, and demanded he stopped talking to me. He did and I accepted it, but I discovered later, this created a damage between them and they kept arguing about me (I had since disappeared from both of their lives, never reaching out to either of them), until they eventually broke up.
Now, another female friend (42), and this one I really worshipped, has got together with one of my male friends (45). They are a gorgeous couple, so in love, both so bright and attractive, it’s pure joy to see them together. Again, I’ve only hang out with them as a couple, never alone with him. He writes to me a bit more often than her and I make sure if I’m texting with him, I also text with her so that she doesn’t feel I’m closer to him than her (even though I sort of was because I’ve known him longer). To organise hanging out I created a group chat to avoid misunderstandings, having learnt my lesson. And now, still, she’s got really cold towards me and it turns out she feels threathened. She has started analyse my behaviour and found tiny clues that would indicate I’m interested in him, apparently I responded slightly faster to his texts than hers, but what really pissed her off was that he invited me to go out with him and a group of his friends while she was away for the weekend (I refused and didn’t go). She’s basically stopped talking to me.
I’m starting to feel really hurt over this. Once was already a lot, but twice it means I’m obviously still doing something wrong, even taking all of these measures doesn’t seem enough, and we are not kids, we are all over 35. The first lady I was only just getting to know her when the mess happened and we didn’t have much in common, but this last one, I really cared about her and really opened up to her. I never had the faintest interest in her boyfriend, and never had the slightest flirty attitude towards him. I’m not even feeling that sexual lately at all and I’m quite disinterested in men in general these days, so it’s not even something I have to force myself to do, I’m not oozing any kind of weird pheromone. Also this lady is stunning, way more good looking than me, so it can’t be that. I’m now distancing myself from both to let them live their relationship in paece, but the male friend expressed that he is mortified by this, I suspect it will become an issue between them too. It feels absurd this is the second relationship I ruin wanting to do the complete opposite. I’m starting to feel I need to flee whenever two friends get together. I’m not overpresent in their lives either, I live part of the year abroad and when back I try to also catch up on family relationships and I spend a lot of time with my nephew and niece.
Is there a blind spot I’m not noticing? Anyone with experience of this unvoluntary triangles?
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\*\*TL;DR;\*\* : In spite of my efforts, I keep causing jealousy and losing female friends that get in relationships with my male friends – what I am doing wrong?
1 comment
So, it’s very hard to say, but here’s my thoughts.
On the one hand, you place a great deal of value in your friendships. On the other hand, I think the fact that they are so valuable to you is turning you into a doormat.
> since they got together I immediately stopped hanging out with him alone, even though we had been close friends for five years, exactly for the reason of not wanting to cross any line. I also drastically reduced contact with him from weekly texts and phone calls, to only one phone call over a couple of months.
…Why would you do that? This behavior makes it seem like you were behaving inappropriately and needed to drastically reserve course. Why would you change any aspect of your life or behavior at all once they got together?
My guess is, the reason you did that is because you make yourself vulnerable to controlling or jealous personalities. Instead of cutting those personalities out of your life altogether, you bend over backwards to try and preempt the problems that come naturally as a result of those personalities.
By doing so, you send a message. The message you send is: “I am always wrong, I accept full responsibility for whatever made you unhappy, and I’ll tiptoe over eggshells to make it right.”
That’s exactly what that behavior says.
>To organise hanging out I created a group chat to avoid misunderstandings, having learnt my lesson.
No! You didn’t learn your lesson! The lesson is: people looking to be jealous or offended will *find* reasons to be jealous or offended.
>And now, still, she’s got really cold towards me and it turns out she feels threathened. She has started analyse my behaviour and found tiny clues that would indicate I’m interested in him
The lesson is: this is an insecure woman whom you will never be able to please because she does not want to allow that to happen.
>Once was already a lot, but twice it means I’m obviously still doing something wrong, even taking all of these measures doesn’t seem enough
Or maybe, twice means that you have a pattern of picking friends who like the dynamic of you needing them more than they need you? Who are already prone to drama and jealousy?
I think the blind spot here IS you – but not in the way you think. I think you need to drastically *raise* your standards for friendship, because neither of these women are good friends to you. It has nothing to do with the men at all, and everything to do with them having jealous personalities.