Image Source: Tumblr
I always chuckle at those memes and Instagram videos about people trying to lay claim to your best friend. This one is my favorite.
Source: Instagram
In my mature mind, I know that I’m not my friend’s only friend. I know that, especially with us living in different cities, that there are going to be times when we surround ourselves and socialize with other people. I just want everyone else to know their role and fall in line…behind me. Particularly if that role is nonexistent and it’s becoming painfully clear that you’re trying to force a relationship that never existed in the first place.
If you can’t tell by now, this is personal. And in my crunkness, I might have gotten a little ahead of myself, so allow me to explain. After years, over a decade of going back and forth with one another, my “ex” and I “broke up,” years ago. And we’ve both moved on. I unfriended and unfollowed. And I assume he did the same. We don’t communicate with one another at all and we’re both seeing new people. In the words of our Lord and Savior, in this here Lenten season, “It is finished.”
Interestingly enough, when our relationship ended, he seemed like he started a campaign to reach out to the people around me. He visited my mother at her job, her own business. Friended my father on Facebook. Weird but I didn’t think too much of it. My parents are mine. Their loyalty will always be with me. It’s a biological bond that can’t be broken. Plus, I know my dad always had his reservations.
But what did bother me was his perpetual, consistent interaction with my best friend. Like my father, my best friend also had her reservations about dude. And while I was the one who was always trying to point out the ways in which the two were shockingly similar, I don’t think they ever had a single real life conversation with one another. Yet, that didn’t stop him from liking, commenting, questioning and otherwise engaging with far too many of her social media posts.
If she writes about contemplating changing her hair style, he has a comment. If she references her moods, he inquires about how she’s feeling. He responds, with pictures, to her pop culture discussions. My friend is not rude so she responds. And while I would like to look at their social media friendship fondly, I just find it exceptionally strange.
Like my father, I don’t believe he has the potential to compromise our relationship. We have an amazing bond, which he couldn’t even begin to understand. In fact, we’ve talked about the weirdness of his frequent reaching out. And I think that’s what makes it so strange. It’s like him trying to encroach on a relationship he didn’t put in the work to build, something he couldn’t even begin to understand.
Could this be me being overprotective of my friend and skeptical of ole boy. Perhaps. But how many people try to develop a relationship with the best friend once a romantic situation ends?
