Here at Closer HQ we have been pondering whether it is ever acceptable to date the ex of a mate, and the answer has been an affirmative NO!
And we asked one writer to share her story, after she experienced what many see as the ultimate betrayal - your best pal pursuing the man you are after!
Two summers ago, my best friend in the whole world brought into question my whole understanding of the rulebook.
When she turned up at my house announcing that we needed to ‘talk,’ I knew from her wobbly lip that this was going to be no light-hearted discussion.
The poor girl looked traumatised - so when she told me that she’d kissed the guy I liked at a party the night before - I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Is that it?! I thought someone had bloody died!’ I said, and giving her a squeeze.
OK so it sucked a bit that she’d got with the guy I’ve liked for ages , but I was touched that,just the thought of hurting me had caused her so much distress!
And if she felt so guilty about it, then she wouldn’t go there again, right?
Wrong.
Now that she’d got the all-clear, they began texting.
And it was perfectly fine, because I’d never been in a relationship with the guy, I hadn’t slept with him, I’d barely even spoken to him! My history with him amounted to a drunken kiss on a night out during my college years.
Yep. I’d managed to develop an embarrassing schoolgirl infatuation with a boy I’d kissed once, and who had no intention of kissing me ever again probably. Cool.
So when my friend asked me if I minded that they’d started seeing eachother, I said no.
As far as I could see, I had absolutely no legitimate reason to be upset about it, and admitting otherwise would just make me feel more stupid than I already did.
Besides, my friend had just got out of a really long relationship and said herself that she wasn’t serious about this guy.
So I put it down to a rebound and we didn’t really mention it after that. Although I knew she was still seeing him, she rarely brought up the subject and I was happy not to hear about it.
So when we bumped into him at Benicassim, on what was supposed to be a girl’s holiday (my friend still referred to herself as ‘single’), the feelings I had once suppressed began to re-surface... making a bloody great mess of the situation.
On one particularly boozy night at the festival when my friend had gone AWOL with a beautiful stranger, I found my old crush, when I was meant to be searching for her.
And instead of running full pelt in the opposite direction, I went up to him and asked him if he knew where my friend was. He said no - he said he didn’t know where she was because they weren’t talking anymore - and that they weren’t talking anymore because she had told him she wanted to just be friends.
I knew it was all bullshit, I knew he still liked her and that they were probably still talking, and I knew that he was flirting with me. But instead of kicking him right in the ego, I allowed my inner blushing schoolgirl overrule and let him kiss me.
My 17-year-old self would have been on top of the world at this point, but I felt cheap, and weak, and ridiculous.
Most of all I was disgustingly wracked with guilt for letting a boy come between me and my best ever friend – the biggest sin in the rulebook - and for that, I am utterly ashamed.
Things took a long time to go back to normal between the two of us after that.
When we finally had it out, I told her how shitty I’d felt when she’d first told me she was seeing the boy I’d fancied for years
“You should have said something,” she replied. And she was right, I should have - regardless of whether I had a right to feel shitty or not, I could have saved a whole lot more embarrassment and upset by being honest with her from the start.
I learnt then that you can never expect anyone to guess how you feel without telling them – even your best friend. Sometimes those ‘unwritten rules’ need to be, well, written... in bold... and highlighted. No matter how ridiculous it makes you feel.