WHAT IF I DON'T LIKE MY SIGNIFICANT OTHER'S FRIENDS?
art: unknown
They say you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. If this is true, then I am on average, a good Hulu show accompanied by a tray of desserts. If this is true for the people I date, then my boyfriends might be finance bros and vape addicts by association. Which by the way, there’s nothing wrong with! Finance bros can save me during the war on capitalism, and I hear there are some pretty outrageous extreme vaping competitions going on lately. These things bring in money!
You know the drill with dating someone new. It’s a crush at first sight, and you seem to like them more and more every time you both hang out. The dates are fun and sweet, and you can’t imagine ever getting annoyed of them as you both do absolutely disgusting things, like lick the other’s nose when they got a bit of ice cream on it by accident. You hang out with them and regard them as one whole person for you, forgetting the fact that they are a three dimensional human with family, friends, and a history without you in their lives.
As things get more serious between you two, you are inevitably asked to meet their friends, likely at a birthday party or some after work get together. This probably excites you, because you really like your boyfriend/girlfriend/S.O and you want to please them. Or maybe you’re scared because you’re afraid of having nothing in common with their friends and disappointing them, stewing in a paranoid panic of wondering if everyone will think you are good enough for your partner.
When the day comes, it can be great. The whole group of you couldn’t get along more easily. You laugh and have drinks and say “Hey, why don’t we hang out more?!”. You start to form inside jokes you’re sure you’ll be repeating to each other the next time you all hang out. You’re so pleased with your partner’s friends, they become your friends too! This is the best case scenario. The medium best case scenario is that these people are nice enough and you can get along with them, but you just don’t have a lot in common and struggle with keeping the conversation going. This is fine, you are all cordial with each other and get along just enough to hang out during birthdays and weddings.
The worst case scenario? You can’t stand them. They are a bunch of mouth breathers and you can’t connect the dots between these idiots and your sweet S.O. You want to talk to them and find some common ground, but they’re unresponsive to your conversation and seem to come from a different world involving things you know nothing about, like home brewing IPAs or the meaning of a song from a very obscure German band. You want to say, “Babe, I’m sure Tony is really important to you. You’ve known each other since you were six years old. But do you really want to be friends with someone that just burped the spelling of his own name and then mansplained Entourage to me? Nobody normal watches Entourage. Also, I’m pretty sure his forehead is bleeding from slamming a Budweiser into it. Oh yeah, his forehead is definitely bleeding. Should we tell someone?!”
But you shouldn’t say that (except for the part about seeking medical attention for Tony’s head.) If you care about your significant other, you should respect their friendships no matter how much you feel annoyed by their friends. Look at it this way - you’re dating your partner, not their friends. If you really like your boyfriend or girlfriend, you can just deal with it. Unless their friends are terribly disrespectful, there’s really no reason for you to be an asshole. Over time, you might find more things in common with them than you think. And if not, who cares? You are not going on ice cream dates with them and licking a drop of vanilla off their nose!