How to Deal if You Hate Her Best Friend

There’s no buzz kill quite like meeting your amazing woman’s best friend for the first time and realizing that you don’t like her…at all. It can even be a little jarring because it might be hard for you to fit together that the woman you’ve been thinking so highly of would bond with this person that you can hardly stand to be around. But women tend to be pretty loyal to their best friends, so there might be a bit of an adjustment period to go through as you figure out how to handle this. Here are some things to think about.

The friend might be intimidated by you.

It might not be rational but you can also sort of understand why your girlfriend’s friend might be a little intimidated by you. Whatever the current situation is you’re still a new person entering the picture, and while she undoubtedly wants her friend to be happy she also doesn’t want to lose her. It’s obviously not your responsibility to protect the state of their friendship or hold the hand of an insecure woman who’s afraid you’re stealing her bestie away, but having the awareness might bring a little compassion into the picture.

It’s generally easier to deal with people when you can at least understand why they behave badly. You can usually tell that there is some intimidation or fear in the situation if the friend is overly cold, judgmental, doesn’t seem to trust you, or tries to exclude you from group conversations in an effort to monopolize your girl’s time. If it’s extreme enough you might want to point out the behavior to your girlfriend, who might have an idea about how to get the friend to ease up.

Friends tell each other everything.

You should know that girlfriends tell each other everything, so this girl already knows everything about you. From how well you get along with your brother, to your kissing style, and even whether you have a good smell. We talk. And if she’s keeping you around then you can rest assured that you have a good smell, so don’t worry about that. Anyway. It’s something to keep in mind, not because you want to sensor anything that you say lest it end up in the best friends ears, but just because her approach to you is initially built off what she’s heard about you.

If she’s heard anything that make her question your intentions for her friend, she’s not going to be quite as open to you. There are those occasions where the friend seems annoying to you because she’s onto your bad behavior or questions about the relationship. You don’t necessarily need to hate her back for seeing through you, perhaps instead you might take a look at whether you’re coming off the wrong way and could straighten up with some communication.

Aim for tolerance and keeping a sense of humor.

We have to tolerate a lot of things in life that we wouldn’t necessarily choose were we given the chance to organize everything. Along with that comes accepting the situation and not complaining about it all the time, which not only causes issues with other people involved but it will also just make you miserable. You don’t have to be miserable just because the situation isn’t ideal. The best way to combat this is to keep a sense of humor about the whole thing, as much as possible. Maybe you can take a step outside of the situation and see the funny side of it for being so ridiculous. Sometimes the weirder things are the easier it is to get some perspective that life is just weird and that’s that. You can be certain the happier people of the world don’t let the weird stuff slow them down.

You don’t have to put up with actual bad behavior.

This situation can get a little complicated because you don’t want to cause a scene or piss off the girl that you’re dating, but you also don’t have to put up with behavior that really isn’t cool. If for example this girl is downright inappropriate to you or your friends, it’s reasonable to handle her how you would any other type of person.

If she’s a mega lush making bad decisions in public, same thing. Just because she’s your girl’s best friend it doesn’t mean that you need to associate with her if she has a bad reputation. However, by not associating with her, you also have to accept what comes along with that.

Your girlfriend might be bummed out about the whole thing.

In your girlfriend’s ideal world you and her best friend would also be best friends. That would make things a lot more simple and more fun. Of course things don’t always work out like this, and if they don’t the tension can be hard on your girlfriend. If you want to make the relationship work, you should do what you can to put as little pressure on your girlfriend as possible. Asking her not to spend time with the friend probably isn’t going to work. It’s more likely that this is a situation where you’ll have to agree to disagree and just spend your time apart when the friend is around.

Your girlfriend might feel slightly miffed by your opinion, as most of us are when other people hate something that we love. Some people even get defensive about their taste in food, and that’s something that could be partly genetic, so imagine how complicated this can get when it has to do with another person. Think about how you would feel if your girlfriend despised your best friend. You might not stress about it excessively but surely you’d have a moment where you felt slightly insulted. After all, our best friends are our number one choice in friends…we tend to think pretty highly of them and assume that other people would as well.

Respect their friendship.

You can avoid the girl as much as you want, but respecting their friendship enough is going to be crucial. If you don’t like the friend it’s possible that she doesn’t like you either, and you both can’t “win” that situation. Trying to is just going to put unnecessary strain on the relationship. The simple fact is that she loves your girlfriend as much as you do, which means that she can’t be all bad. Give them the space to have their relationship and hopefully she’ll do the same for you right back.