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Mimishu1995's avatar

How can I deal with a good friend of a good friend that I don't like when I can't avoid them? (Details inside)

Asked by Mimishu1995 (23779points) February 1st, 2023

I once talked extensively about a good friend whose boyfriend I can’t stand. But to recap, I have a 17-year-old friend who has a boyfriend that just chooses to be mean to me for no reason. I shouldn’t be obsessed with someone I can’t stand, but it’s really hard when I just can’t avoid him. My friend is so obsessed with him that she would find opportunity to get him to be with her, even when I am present. She sometimes talks about how she wants to include him in our group of friends. And yes she actually did call him over recently. I was at her house playing board game with her when she got so excited she called the boyfriend over. And sure enough, he started obsessing over my friend and just acted like I didn’t exist. One thing about the boyfriend is that he doesn’t display the nasty behavior he does online in real life, but if you try to talk to him, it will be clear that he doesn’t want anything to do with you.

I did try to bridge the distance between us by inviting him to play together with me and my friend, but he just said no. Every single question I asked him always resulted in a one-word answer.

I recently brought up the boyfriend to my friend. Basically what game he likes to play so that I can get close to him. She didn’t seem to have a good answer to my questions. She said the boyfriend can play but only when the game is super straightforward and easy. Otherwise he would refuse to play. When I asked her what she and he usually do around each other, she said talking. She added that he only wanted to be around her. When I asked what I can do to interact with him because he isn’t interested in me so it would be hard for all 3 of us to hang out, she was quiet like she didn’t know what to say. She then said I could try some easy card games.

The boyfriend has made it clear he doesn’t want to be with anyone other than his girlfriend, and I can’t do anything to make him at least interact with me. Yet my friend wants to put us in situations where we can’t avoid each other. It’s really problematic especially when she wants to put the boyfriend in our friend group as well. It’s a really uncomfortable situation, and I think I have tried everything to ease the situation but nothing works. What more can I do?

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3 Answers

snowberry's avatar

He isn’t targeting you with his rude behavior is he? I bet he’s like that with everyone. It also sounds like he would really rather not be in social situations- he just wants to be alone with her.

So since he’s so pointedly is ignoring you (and everyone else), I suppose you could pointedly ignore him. He sounds like a real piece of work.

Another thought is that you need to have somebody else along that you can interact with since she encourages him to monopolize her time, and he cannot figure out how to be decent company. The two of them sound to me like a waste of your time.

Surely you have other options for friends!

chyna's avatar

Could he possibly be on the spectrum? Perhaps have autism and doesn’t know how to react to more than one person at a time?

Mimishu1995's avatar

@chyna that’s interesting. He does seem like he has problems with social skills. When he plays the online game with my friend and me, he would approach random people and talks about a game he is obsessed with, regardless of how relevant the game is to the conversation. When he talks to me online he always talks in a really inappropriately joking manner. I’m not sure he has autism but he doesn’t seem like someone with the best social skills.

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