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It’s always nice when your significant other and your good friends get along well. If you’ve ever been in a relationship with someone who talked badly about your girls while your girls thought the worst of your guy, you would definitely agree. But when is the friendship between your boyfriend and your friends a little too close for comfort?

That’s what I was wondering after watching an episode of a show recently called WAGs. It’s about the wives and girlfriends of professional athletes, and how they deal with their complicated relationships, as well a how they deal with one another. In the particular episode I saw, a character named Natalie is in the off stage of her on-again, off-again relationship with NFL player Shaun. Working to possibly patch things up with him, she invites him to her birthday festivities in Las Vegas with her girlfriends and a few of their partners. On the day they all arrive, Shaun is nowhere to be seen. When Natalie calls him to find out what the holdup is, he tells her that he’s not coming. As she breaks down in tears, one of Natalie’s close friends, Nicole, reaches out to Shaun to get him to show up.

As the day goes on and everyone prepares for dinner, Natalie tries to put on a brave face after being embarrassed. But what she doesn’t know is that Nicole was able to talk him into a change of heart and to make an appearance for her birthday festivities. When Natalie finds out that Nicole knew about Shaun’s surprise, she isn’t happy about it. And she only gets more bothered by their interactions when later, at the club, Nicole says she’s been texting Shaun to see what he’s up to and to get him to come hang out with all of them at the nightclub.

“I told you before that makes me uncomfortable so can you stop messaging him?” she said in an contentious confrontation in front of their friends. When Nicole tells her that she was just trying to help make her birthday special, Natalie says, “I don’t need your help” before storming off.

Yikes.

In this case, Nicole (who has a boyfriend) seemed to mean no harm. In fact, she appeared quite preoccupied with ensuring that Natalie’s birthday included the person she wanted to see the most: Shaun. But in some cases, a friend messaging another friend’s boyfriend doesn’t look or feel so harmless.

A good example is the woman I found online who said that she was feeling a way about her best friend initiating phone calls and text conversations with her boyfriend. And the friend in question was not just hitting him up every once in a blue moon.

“It does kinda bug me that my girl best friend is texting him on a daily basis,” she said. “I’m not tellin her though, I already told my BF & he said he’ll ignore her text msgs & that he feels uncomfortable texting her back but doesn’t wannna be mean by ignoring her.”

A woman responded to her inquiry for advice by sharing her own story of a boo and a BFF being too close for comfort.

“My best friend and my ex-boyfriend did the same, needless to say (EX-BOYFRIEND), and our friendship is very distant now. They say that nothing ever happened, and that most of the time the texts were conversations about me, but I asked to see his phone bill, and well the number of texts were too much, there was nothing that my boyfriend and my best friend needed to talk about so often with each other…”

You never know, a best friend and a boyfriend could be corresponding for a good reason. Maybe he gets her advice when there are relationship issues? (Okay, that was a reach). Or maybe he’s enlisting her help to find an engagement ring?! (That was a really big reach).

Or, something could really be going on.

I do think it depends on the friend and how long one has known them. What I mean by that is that as her best friend and someone who has possibly known her for years upon years, the offended party would know that person’s intentions best. If she hasn’t given reason to speculate and to think that her motives are less than pure, then there may not be reason to worry. Be irritated, yes, but worry? Maybe not. But if she’s had a less than pristine history of doing questionable things in the friendship, well, then there might be a problem.

But either way, a conversation is warranted, and with both parties. There needs to an understanding of why their conversations are seen as unseemly, as well as an understanding of why they’re taking place at all. If they were friends before the relationship came to be, then one can’t impede on that. But if she was the offended party’s friend and all of a sudden she wants to be his, that needs to be nipped in the bud. I’m not saying it’s about to be a Single White Female situation, but something inappropriate is definitely going on…

But as always, that’s just my opinion. What do you think? Is this a petty and harmless issue? Or is the regular communication between a boyfriend and best friend inappropriate?

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