Men of Reddit, what would you do if your SO had a lifelong friend or sibling that seemingly refuses to warm up to you no matter what you try?

36 comments

1. oooh my best friend of 20 years’s wife will not open up to me what so ever and it’s infuriating

   she isn’t mean to me, but she is also not nice to me. I honestly cannot figure out if she wants me around or not. I just try to make myself somewhat vulnerable to her and hope for the best. A few times I thought I had her cracked but then we went back to square one

2. Honestly there’s not really anything you can do you can’t make someone like you. If you decided to have a conversation with said person and it went south it would be even more awkward.

3. >what would you do if your SO had a lifelong friend or sibling that seemingly refuses to warm up to you no matter what you try?

   Stop trying.

   It’s not good to [force your friendship onto someone](https://youtu.be/vEikBm04-FI?t=01m06s) who obviously isn’t interested in being friends with you.

4. I would treat them the same way. I always try my best to connect with friends of people that are important to me, but if it’s been a while and you still show as much emotion as a fucking wall, then I will treat you like a wall.

5. Not be an asshole, always be respectful but also fuck em and not waste a single thought on them

6. Move on and not give it much thought.

7. I don’t try. Either I’ll hit it off with someone or I’ll just keep interactions to a minimum but relatively respectful when I have to deal with them.

8. Do the same thing I do with my brother-in-law that I despise. Be polite and courteous but not friendly

9. Are you going to be living with that person?!!

   If the answer is no and I hope it is a no, then it doesn’t matter if they like you or not.

10. Say fuck em and make sure my SO is aware of how fucking weird or awkward they make shit. Then do my own thing and my partner can do their own thing with them. As long as it doesn’t effect our relationship in a negative way.

11. My sisters ex was afraid of me…i wasn’t doing anything wrong but i can normally get a read on someone in 5 minutes of talking…i didn’t like him and as it turns out…he was a toxic SOB

12. no need to worry about him warming up to you if his body is not warm anymore.

13. I wouldn’t do anything about it.

14. Don’t care

    As long as my SO is happy with me what does it matter ?

15. I checked my behavior and if I’ve never been unkind, rude or done anything inappropriate to them, I don’t care.

    It’s not my job to micromanage everyone’s emotions. If they want to talk to me I’ll listen and support them any way I can but if they won’t that’s their business and I won’t let it affect me.

16. Sometimes people don’t click and that’s okay.

    Just don’t make your relationship negative or toxic and you’ll be fine.

17. Shrug and go about my business. I’m not a bad guy, I’m easy going, and I don’t need to try harder. Like me or don’t.

18. I ignore irrational people.

19. Mostly be surprised, my wife has described me like a Golden Retriever – I get along with everyone

20. Nothing really. That’s their problem, not mine. I’ll continue to be friendly and cordial but I’m not going to bend over backwards to make a person enjoy my company

21. Nothing. I’m an adult, i don’t need other people to like me.

22. I’m dating her not her friend.

23. I feel like this is my SO’s cousins. Their parents like me, at least I know the dad really does, but for some reason, they always seems to give me a weird vibe when we’re all together. As far as what I’ve done in this situation, I just continue to be myself around them. No way I’d change just because of how they feel about me for whatever reason.

    Two of them feel like they’ve started to warm up to me, but one of them still feels like has something against me. Like someone said, it’s not like they’re mean, just not friendly.

24. I wouldn’t care. I don’t do anything particular to impress or get close with my gfs family friends. If they like me cool if not I don’t care either way.

25. Stay civil but don’t give them any more energy than that. Life’s too short to spend it on people who don’t see any value in me.

26. I wouldnt care im not in a relation ship with them so

27. Why would I care?

28. Talk to my SO and do some digging to figure out what is going on.

    If her sister is just a hateful Karen, that’s one thing. If her best friend wants to fuck her and resents me and is trying to break us up, that is quite another.

29. I might feel a little hurt or whatever but it’s not a big deal. I don’t need to be friends with all of my girlfriends friends and she doesn’t need to be friends with all of mine. Sometimes you just don’t jive with a person and that’s totally okay. I’ll always be kind and respectful even if we don’t become friends. I’d just be happy that my girlfriend has friends because friends are a good thing.

30. You could try using the Ben Franklin Effect: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_effect#:~:text=The%20Ben%20Franklin%20effect%20is,for%20this%20is%20cognitive%20dissonance.

    The tl;dr is that if someone doesn’t like you for whatever reason, and you want them to, you ask them to do you a minor favor. Not something huge, like helping you move, but something small like borrowing a book. Most people oblige out of politeness. And the theory is that when the other person observes themselves doing you a favor, even though they hate you, they begin to rationalize it to themselves that they must actually like you, and it changes their perception of you.

31. Just be polite and respectful unless they give you a reason not to be. One of my partner’s oldest friends hates my guts and I don’t let it bother me, but I also don’t pick fights with her (because the feeling is very mutual).

32. I’ve had this happen once – The issue turned out to be that she’d heard stories about me before she met in that I used to host a lot of parties so I was, in her mind, a partier who was just out for some fun and she spent a couple of years expecting me to hurt her friend before she came around.

33. You can’t like anybody. She clearly doesn’t like me, no big deal.

34. Not everyone is entitled to like me, I’d be friendly with them but I won’t force anyone to like me.

35. It’s no big deal. Not everyone likes me. I’ll make whatever effort I feel like making and leave it at that.

36. Pressure my SO to get their family member to grow the fuck up, otherwise I’m gone. I’m not going to be the reason someone doesn’t have a proper relationship with their family.