A recent article titled If Your Boyfriend's Best Friend Is A Girl made me feel a lot of things, but honestly defensive was the most prominent. The following is my opinion on having a best friend of the opposite gender.
One of my best friends is a guy. I’m the girl. I will not ditch my friend just because he gets a girlfriend, and especially if she tells me to stop talking to him. If any of my friends ditched me, regardless of gender, just because I had a boyfriend, I would have a lot of emotions. If I found out that my boyfriend told my friend to ditch me, I would break off that relationship in a heartbeat.
My friends have been around for longer. My friends know me better. Any significant other that tries to tell me who I should and shouldn’t be friends with reads as controlling. I get that sometimes people just rub others the wrong way. I do. But if the sole purpose of trying to isolate your significant other from one of their friends is based on gender, that is jealousy.
I have talked my male best friend through breakups and he has helped me through my own. Sometimes it helps to have an opinion of the opposite gender. I have helped him figure out how to word things so what he wants to say comes across how he wants it to. I have literally been a soundboard for him to figure out how to ask someone out. I fully support him having girlfriends, just like any other friend would. Why? Because we are friends. However, if I don’t think someone is right for him, I am not afraid to tell him. Why? Because we are friends. I would do the same for any of my friends.
I realize that there are boundaries when he is in a relationship. I would never get between him and his girlfriend unless something was very wrong.
Yes, I will hang out with him and post pictures with him just like I would any of my other friends. I will never try to take him away from his girlfriend. If I ask him to do something, I always make sure it’s clear that his girlfriend is more than welcome to come as well, and I will invite other friends, too. I want to make sure that his girlfriend is comfortable with me being a part of his life and I will make every effort to do so.
He is part of my support system and I am part of his. So please understand that my gender does not define what I value in our friendship, or what he does.
