Friendships, Jealousy, and the Love Triangle

[Terrapin]

Humans are animals. Throughout our lives we have acquaintances who we may like enough that build-up in trust and care and can become a continuing long-term friendship. Friendships don't last forever and can deteriorate, separate, and eventually terminate in numerous ways.

Unfortunately, one of the causes of friendships deteriorating revolves around a common interest of another person involved with this group in whatever degree. Maybe one friend brought this person around, and two or even three friends may compete for affection. This is a form of what we know as a "love triangle." Competitive natures can lead to jealousy. Jealousy can be a monster on anyone who experiences it, and basically places individuals in stints of insanity. Not only jealousy, but internal or external accusations could appear and the fade of trust may soon follow in these situations. Friendships are put to the test, fights may break out, and some friendships may not fully recover from this ordeal. Humans are animals.

Here's my story:
Years ago, I had one of the closest groups of friends you could ever come across starting in my second year of college. This group of friends was 10 people deep made up of half guys and half girls. One of the girls of a group I hung around brought over a friend of hers. This new friend drew the attention of 3 of us which then had us competing to win her affection for a time. For months we all hung out just like any other group of friends would, smoking pot, watching movies, floating the river, whatever. The courting process was so subtle, an outsider would never know there was a competition underneath.

Eventually, I discovered I had gained the affection of the girl and courting became much easier and swifter from then on until a relationship transpired. The other guys found themselves other girls as well. However, since we were all part of a tight group of friends, that state of competition never truly faded and distrust lived amongst us all. As you can understand, a relationship can't be built on these grounds and friendships are hard to maintain. The ending result was none of our relationships lasted, the entire group of friends broke apart in time, and we all moved on from each other.

What started as a beautiful friendship, turned into resentment, leading to our friendship ties breaking apart and us all going our separate ways. I hold no hard feelings toward the situation now, but since we grow so extensively in our 20's we all share very little in common anymore. I see it as another learning experience in life and recognize this for what it is. Something that can be better evaluated and avoided in the future (hopefully).



Share your thoughts and experiences. As you can probably tell, I have quite an interest in human interpersonal relationships in regards to attraction. Any and all input is widely accepted.

[FeedYourHead]

Interesting.
I think that I've managed to avoid this specific problem (of jealousy and competition over a romantic interest/attraction) because my taste in guys (and girls) has always been extremely different from that of my friends. We literally never find any of the same people attractive which, quite frankly, is splendid.

Alternatively, my best guy friend and I stopped speaking to each other for months because of a girl he was dating. She was bipolar and entirely self-centered... and also academically retarded. Normally I wouldn't have cared if he decided to date a psychopath for 3 years, but this bitch went out of her way to make MY life a living hell. Every time my guy friend and I were hanging out either alone or with a group of mutual friends she would end up calling him hysterically crying, threatening to break up with him if he kept hanging out with me. And he fell for it every. single. time. and I couldn't deal with it anymore. This girl would try to start fights with me on the internet and harass all of my friends that she'd never even met before. It was fucking insane. Also worth pointing out - my friend and I have known each other since we were 5 years old, and anything romantic between us would be almost like incest so the whole idea of her being jealous was ridiculous. The fact that my friend couldn't see/wouldn't believe what was going on blew my mind and so we had a huge blowout and then just stopped speaking for months.
Eventually we reached out to each other again, and a year later he broke up with the girl because, well, she's psychotic. And we've been best friends (again) since, so that one worked itself out in the end.

[brian219]

I always found it way better to stay clear of the friend pool entirely during the early phase of a new relationship. Every relationship that ended up being remotely significant began with people none of my friends even knew. I think the reason for that is we were able to get to know each other on our own terms without the complications of added social concerns. Then by the time your friends enter the picture it's very well established what's what and no one is under any delusion of having "dibs" on anything.

I guess you never had that choice in your situation. Its too bad that it ended up costing so much.

[MixMastahTee]

Bros before hoes.

[Dv5]

I always try to avoid being friend zoned. It's the worst. I don't have any stories where I've had to compete for someone though. If I feel affectionate or if I want to court them I usually let them know my intentions right up front. I don't ask people out, or to "be my girlfriend" or whatever, but when I do acquire a lady friend, it is usually done quickly, non subtly and up front. As for friends who are in relationships, I am kind of a bastard. If I see someone being abusive, or just an overall horrible influence on one of my friends I will and have intervened.I try to make him/her uncomfortable as fuck until one of them either quits or leaves. I don't like seeing my friends in anguish, and no one person should be able to make your life a living hell. So no, I don't stay out of others problems unless I know that the two of them can work it out, and their is no unfair advantage on one side or the other.

[Sans Agendum]

I don't ever compete really. If a girl wants to date a tryhard who's having to 'compete' over me, she can have him. I try not to let outside influences dictate my behavior. Also, if you put up a front in order to seduce a girl you either end up miserable in the long run because you're being someone you aren't or you are unable to keep up with your own bullshit. What also sucks about that is during the time you are wasting your energies on someone you don't really connect with, you can end up being unaware of a better match slipping right by you.

I don't intervene in other people's bullshit because people will do whatever they are going to do anyways and try my best not to be a manipulative prick who thinks he knows what's best for everyone else. So whatever is going on in a friend's relationship I just let it play itself out and am there for support if either person actually turns to me. Even then I can only give advice and usually people won't want to take it because they are too busy thinking with their loins.