Gettyimages.com/A mid adult couple in their 30s sitting on a park bench overlooking a city waterfront. The woman is African-American and the man is mixed race African-American and Hispanic. They are conversing face to face.
One of my close girlfriends recently became single and she jokes about the fact that it turns out a lot of the men who she thought were her friends were actually just…patient. I experienced that when I got out of my last serious relationship, too. Things just shifted. I started noticing that my guy friends would do and say things they didn’t used to say or do. Or they stopped doing certain things that they did before. Things were no longer just easy. They were still pretty easy with my male friends who were in relationships themselves but even some of them made some inappropriate comments. I don’t get it—I have never felt differently about any of my male friends, regardless of their relationship status. Whether or not they were available had no impact on whether or not I was interested in them that way. But that’s apparently not the case for guys. It’s just a reality of becoming single after a long-term relationship. Here are funny ways your male friends behave when you become single.
First, it’s all sweet and concerned
First, they go into protective brother mode. They can’t believe that somebody hurt you. Their instincts to take care of you, and lend a listening ear, are still there. Guy friends actually make really great support systems after a breakup…at first.
