I Thought He Was A Great Catch… Until I Saw Him With His Friends

I don’t expect my boyfriend to act exactly the same around me as he does with his friends, nor do I need to love his boys in order for our relationship to work. However, with one ex, I can actually say that seeing him with his friends was so jarring that it single-handedly cost us our relationship. Here’s what went down.

1. I thought meeting them was a step forward. When my boyfriend suggested I meet his closest friends after two months of dating, I was ecstatic. This was a step forward in our relationship and obviously meant that he’d been talking about me to them, which is always a good sign. The fact that he willingly offered this was a good omen, I’d decided, and I really looked forward to getting to know the other people who meant a lot to him.
2. My hopes were dashed pretty quickly when his friends were super awkward with me. I started wondering what my boyfriend had told his friends because when I met them, they were really off with me. One friend was really nice and we spoke a lot, but the others were so cold, they could’ve given me frostbite. I didn’t know what was going on and thought maybe they were just threatened because I was a new person in the group, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something deeper was going on.
3. The dudes were super immature and the women were super cliquey. While his female friends were a tight group who didn’t seem keen to make new friends, his guy friends were really childish and acted like idiots. These guys would spend all night pranking each other and boozing it up. It actually started to piss me off after a few nights of having to be in their company. No one went out of their way to make me feel comfortable and they didn’t seem to care that I wasn’t at all integrated into the group.
4. My boyfriend did a 360. When my boyfriend was with his friends, he totally changed. Suddenly, he started smoking again (even though he’d told me how glad he was to have recently quit the bad habit), he was drinking a lot, and he seemed so much more juvenile when he was in their company. He’d always told me how responsible he was, but now he was the one having to be taken home because he was so drunk that he couldn’t stand.
5. I just didn’t fit in with these people at all and my boyfriend didn’t seem to care. As his female friends got to know me, most of them warmed up to me, but I couldn’t deny that we were just really different and had nothing in common. It felt really uncomfortable hanging out with them, and it didn’t help that my boyfriend would leave me with them for most of the night while he had a blast with his guy friends. I was so lonely and it sucked.
6. I started to wonder who the hell I was dating. I began to see that the guy I’d been dating for two months was not the same guy who was going wild with his friends. Was I really dating a smoker and heavy drinker who ignored me 90% of the time? What a rude awakening. I didn’t like this other side of him at all.
7. His friends noticed and blamed me for the discord. One night when we were at a house party with his friends, my boyfriend pulled me aside and said, “Can you believe my friends think that we’re not a good match?” Uh, really? At this point, it was so damn obvious that we weren’t right for each other! Everyone could see it except for him.
8. He took their side in the end. He had more gossip from his friends that I really didn’t need to hear but he insisted on sharing anyway. One of them had told him that she didn’t like me much. I was shocked, especially since she didn’t even know me! When I told him I should try to talk to that friend, to show her what I’m really like, he became defensive. He told me to be nicer to them. Uh, what?
9. I opened up to him about my feelings but he didn’t care. When we were away from the parties, booze, and his friends, I opened up to my boyfriend about how I felt so uncomfortable around his friends. He had no sympathy for me. He told me that his friends were like family to him and I had to make an effort. Things just kept getting worse. So much for supporting your girlfriend, jerk.
10. One friend started to get too close. I wasn’t sure if I could stay with this guy, but then something happened to make me see I had to dump him. We were out on New Year’s Eve when one of his closest female friends sobbed on my boyfriend’s shoulder about how horrible men are. He got real close to her face and kissed her on the lips. I saw it from across the dance floor and was shocked. That was way too intimate for friends! WTF was going on?
11. I knew it was time to bolt. I pulled my boyfriend aside and told him what I’d seen. He denied it, saying he was just being friendly and their relationship was purely platonic. Ha! I told him that his friends were right—we were totally wrong for each other. It was over.
12. Birds of a feather really do flock together. I never really put much value on the quality of my partner’s friendships, but those relationships are so revealing. They displayed new sides to my boyfriend’s personality and made me see that he and his female friend were an affair waiting to happen. I have his friends to thank for not letting me waste another minute with an a-hole disguised as a nice guy. Good riddance!