Relationship Column: What Do Your Friends Think?

Alex Parker

So, you’re dating someone new and it’s time for this person to be introduced to your friends. You set it all up; your closest friends are going to be there. It can be a completely nerve-wracking experience. You want your friends to like your new boyfriend/girlfriend but at the same time, it’s not really up to them who you date.

For argument’s sake, let’s say after the initial meeting, you think it went great. The new person in your life said all the right things, was cracking really funny jokes, and your friends seemed to be engaged. The next day rolls around and you’re talking to your friends about the night before. To your surprise, the general consensus was that your new boyfriend/girlfriend basically sucks, for lack of a better word. They cannot stand him/her and they found the jokes to be crude and insensitive; the entire time, they all wanted to get up and leave.

You are dumb-founded; you thought everything had gone so well. So now what do you do? How do you tell your boyfriend/girlfriend that your friends hate him/her? Or, do you just beg your friends to meet him/her again, citing the fact that he/she was just nervous? It’s going to be very hard to date someone that you can’t have around your friends.

You can try and lead two separate lives, the one you share with your significant other and the one you share with your friends. But, that’s not going to be much fun for you. Friends will eventually get irritated with you for ditching them, and your boyfriend/girlfriend will get mad because he/she doesn’t understand what is wrong, you like him/her, why can’t your friends?

This is not a decision that anyone can make for you, nor can my advice be the only thing you take into consideration. You have to decide whether this relationship is going to be worth potentially losing some of your friends over, or not. Maybe your friends are simply being unreasonable and need to be told so suck it up. Then again maybe this new person in your life is not worth all the trouble. To play devil’s advocate here, maybe your friends are right and this person needs to get the boot.