ok - what is going on now?

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Hey everyone,

Carrying on from my previous topic where I was discussing being confused by my best friend's behaviour towards me (and so my behaviour towards her changed slightly), I've got a question to ask.

In the past few weeks two of my closest female friends have begun to act a little bit strangely towards me. I told one of them, that I have AS a few weeks ago but I do not know if she told anyone about it.
Whenever I talk to either of them they act kind of strange. Both have boyfriends for more than 6 months, and both seem happy to be with their respectve partners.
For example, when I was with one of them (not the one I told) last week and her boyfried was there too, she looked as if she would prefer that he wasnt (if you get the idea). She kept on rolling her eyes at me when he made a dumb joke, and didn't really look comfortable with him putting his arm around her. I don't know if she knows my feelings towards him (I don't really like him for some reason, he just makes me VERY uncomfortable)
They have been going out for about 6 months and I don't know of any problems between them - they were together this weekend for most of the time so I assume that it is going nicely for them.
I'm just confused as to what all of this means!!

The whole reason that I am 'putting myself out there' in general is that I have been getting so much pressurised by my parents to go out with people, but if these problems are gonna occur more then I will say 'no thanks' and stick to my work in the lab! (At least with science it doesn't leave you wondering for hours at a time what its body language is doing)

At least now I have managed to get a date for fireworks day (however it is called) so this is something to look forward to

Thanks for the help

af_1

My guess is your friend is having second thoughts about this guy and wants to talk to you about it. Girl talk.

Ok, but why is she asking ME about this?
Surely this is a topic to discuss with her housemate and other girl friends. I don't want to be the one to jump into the fire and say 'So, how is it going with W?' etc
I know that she is having a rough time at the moment because she lives here with just her sister and last week her sister left to visit their parents in another country so maybe she is feeling a little bit alone. Also there is a lot of pressure from university with various deadlines coming up quickly.

But I SHOULDN'T be the one picking up on this. Where is everyone else? It's for this reason that I think I might be WAY off target :s

Dude, stay out of your friend's relationship with her bf. There's a million reasons she was rolling her eyes at him the last time she saw you: perhaps they'd just had an argument, and she didn't feel like putting on her "happy" face when they saw you; maybe she didn't get enough sleep the night before; maybe she had her period, etc., etc.

I'm assuming you might be interested in dating this girl if she becomes available. Whether that's true or not, don't put yourself in the middle of whatever's going on between this girl and her bf. If she wants to break up with him (and she has integrity), she'll handle it directly with him. (If she's worth dating, she's the kind of girl that won't involve you in her break-up - and won't want you to involve yourself, either.)

I doubt that you telling your other friend about your AS is connected to this friend's odd behavior with her bf. You're probably just more sensitive to any changes in your relationship(s), because you shared your diagnosis with your friend. Relax, bro - I don't think there's anything to do here, or anything to worry about.

My sister does that, rolls her eyes at me when we get together and it's usually because she had a fight with him.

I'm assuming you hope that maybe just maybe you want to be with her. To some extent I would be cautious and kind of stay away from the drama....if there is any drama going on only because it can be very hard to handle especially for some of us who are just not great at being sociall adept with people.

I think it's great you're getting out there but don't think that you need to be our there for everyone including this girl. This could have something to do with her boyfriend not wanting you to be around her (just a thought) and she's probably mad at him. Sometimes the friend zone is confusing whenever it involves the opposite gender. When you have another person in the picture, it can get even more akward. From the looks of it, you seem to have a crush on her and perhaps just perhaps her boyfriend can tell.....

I've been told before that people will tell me about things they wouldn't tell anyone else because there's something trustworthy about me and I seem to be a good listener. I assume the "trustworthy" part is because I didn't talk to anyone else, so it seemed unlikely that I would ever run out and tell someone something that was told to me in confidence. I have a feeling something similar might be going on in your case.

From that perspective, I don't suppose it would hurt anything to try Aimless' suggestion to ask her alone some day "so, how's it going with ______?" Your best bet would, however, be to not say anything negative or judgmental about him, her, or the relationship, and so maintain neutrality, and simply offer support if it seems like there's the remotest chance that the relationship is just having one of its normal, temporary downs. (Of course, things will change dramatically if it turns out that it's more than just a normal down - for example, she reveals the relationship is abusive and she's scared of the other guy. Even then, offer her as much positive but neutral support as possible, and be careful of using that as an opportunity to criticize him, as for some reason, that never seems to work out well: it is as if the girl has invested a lot in liking the creep and, at a point where her self-esteem is the lowest, she really doesn't want to hear someone say anything that sounds like "wow, you really picked a loser, didn't you? How could you have done something so stupid?")

Based on the mistakes I've made in similar situations, I would have to say that the best approach is to consider yourself to be a trusted, supportive friend, rather than someone who has a chance with her romantically or someone who is using a weak moment to drive a wedge between people or take advantage of the girl's misery. Be nothing more or less than a trustworthy friend without ulterior motives, and I think you have a very good chance of walking out of the mess looking good. If the relationship between her and her current boyfriend is healthy, your support will only strengthen it (but then, your interference has a good chance of strengthening even a bad relationship by giving both the girl and her current boyfriend that much-needed additional thing in common: a dislike of you.)

Like it or not, however, I think your chances of looking bad to her increase for any other action you might take (even if that action is to stay out of the relationship and do nothing - which might not be a completely bad idea, either, although it is bound to weaken your relationship with her.) With direct interference and manipulation in particular, your chances of looking bad skyrocket.

Heya

Thanks for the ideas and discussion.
I am not interested to date this girl - she is lovely and everything, but I've got an interest already with the girl I went out with on Thursday last week and we have plans to go out again this week

I did take her out to lunch this week to see how everything is going with her boyfriend and it's going well from what she told me. She's just been under a lot of stress from applying for jobs and doing university work which is completely understandable.
Also, I had a talk with a female friend of ours and just asked her to check on her a bit more often than she has been doing because they used to live really close to each other and now they moved houses and only meet when they share classes a few days a week.

I guess I was just a bit confused with how I was the only one who was spotting anything wrong with my friend and how comes nobody else had done anything up to that point.
Hopefully it is all sorted out and she feels better and more cheery this week

yeah, in those sorts of situations, it's usually best to be a supportive friend, that way you feel good about yourself and gain your friend's increased respect and liking

but then, from that last post I don't think you needed to be told that