An Analysis of a Past Relationship
Okay, so I've spent too much time today reading other people's blogs, and I'm beginning to think that I have a problem...maybe I need to start a 12 step blogger's anonymous group. Actually, thinking about it, I'm pretty sure that something like this has already been started - although a quick Google search comes up blank, so maybe I'm on to something here.
Anyway, I read an interesting post on the unfortunately named
Hard as a Rock, which discussed the dynamics of a multiple male/single female friendship. The discussion there centers on three men, each of whom having a varying level of asshole quality, who hang out with a single female. Not knowing what the details are of this relationship dynamic, I can't speak on the outcome, however, it would appear that the biggest asshole ends up dating, and eventually marrying, the girl. The point of his post being to ask why women tend to go for the asshole of a group of guys.
Well, I'm not going to ask that question, mostly because the answer doesn't really interest me that much. I'm much more interested in how multiple men will interact with a single women in a group. The reason that this interests me is because I've been involved with that scenario a couple of times.
A little background: In the past, I had a really good friend who we'll call R. R and I met while working in a hotel, and we became really good friends. While we were working together, a female, we'll call her J, was hired to work in another area of the hotel. J was exotic, beautiful and fun, and she became our friend. This started out honestly enough, as she was engaged at the time, which took much of the pressure off of both R and I to be "cool," since, at least nominally, neither of us was trying to land her. The dynamic between the three of us worked well for quite some time. We would end up going out to bars, playing pool, movies, hanging out, etc.
The whole situation, however, started going downhill when J and I started dating. There were many reasons that we started seeing each other romantically: she was unhappy in the relationship with her fiance, she and I had a great time together, I was a horny young man in my early 20's, etc. Unfortunately, she was a bit of a user, and she talked me in to keeping our relationship a secret for the initial time that we were dating. I've got to admit, it wasn't overly difficult for an incredibly sexy woman with whom I was having lots of sex to talk me in to keeping it quite, but I digress. This, of course, added a great deal of pressure to the triangle that we had going, as it started becoming very one-sided, and R really didn't have any idea why he was being excluded. When I say excluded I'm not trying to infer that we did fewer things together as a threesome, rather, the things that we did do together were more focused on me and J rather than the three of us. Eventually, R caught on to this. Understandably, he became angry, partly because he had romantic interest in her as well - something I didn't find out until much later.
This put a great deal of stress on my relationship with R, although it didn't destroy it. The problem really came after J and I had broken up, and R and I were able to start being friends again. This was problematic, because R became interested in another woman, we'll call her S, that was interested in me. The three of us did not have the same threesome kind of relationship, however. R never really believed me when I told him that I was not interested in S. She was a coworker in a different institution, she was a few years older than me, she was a bit too needy, and I didn't find her physically attractive. I did, however, like S as a person, and was her friend. I was too young to realize that my friendliness with her was being misread by her and R, both of whom thought that there was more between she and I then there was. This all came to a head when R became angry with me over, what I considered, harmless interactions with her. Not realizing that he had romantic intentions with her, I downplayed a situation that rubbed him the wrong way. During a rather tense phone conversation, I realized that R was interested in J. I confronted him with this thought. He lied to me and said that he wasn't interested in her that way. He eventually married S. They moved to Minnesota. He and I haven't really spoken much since.
It's interesting how this dynamic grew so naturally out of my immaturity. If I had been a bit more clued in to how my interactions would impact my coworkers and friends then I would have been able to defuse many of these situations quite easily. Especially if I'd been a bit more willing to have some honest discussions...sigh...water under the bridge...
