My Cage "Classics" 12/09/2007

So sorry to hear that. :(

My Cage

I'm so sorry for your loss.

FilloryCitrus

How did it work out with the girl you had to ask this of? Did you keep the friendship with the other guy involved? I happily send my husband (well, pre-pandemic I did) out to breakfast with my best friend. He's not very organized and it's good for them to have time to catch up. I do this sometimes with other friends of his, when he needs a mental health boost. And I have another friend I like to have spend time with him, because she's been treated badly by a lot of men and it's good for her to have more people she trusts. But it would feel wildly different to me if I'd ever been in a position where I was being left out. I've been given a situation where being trusting and generous has been safe and rewarding. Being put in a position where I had to ask the question you did would. . . . I think it would have ruined the joy I take in encouraging those friendships, perhaps even with a later partner.

FilloryCitrus

i've had numerous "work spouses" over the years. but that sort of faded going into the 2010s. Not a thing anymore. and in real life i became a widower in 2012.....sigh...

Robert ALAN Bryan

There are good things about being single. If my wife ever leaves me I think I'd stay single.

My Cage

Yes, that would be a difference.

My Cage

Well put.

My Cage

My thing is always why would you want to be with someone if they are only loyal to you because you watch them?

My Cage

I don't have a significant other currently, but if I did I'd be cool with her hanging out with men. I'd trust her not to cheat on me, and as long as that trust is there then things are good. Besides, the whole "preventing who you're dating from hanging out with anyone of the sex they're attracted to" is toxic behavior.

Shawn Eaton

Hm, I suppose I'd have to get an significant other to find out for sure. (My life sucks.)

Brian Perler

it depends on what you mean by friends. Are they friends they do things with at work or with you? Or are they friends they do things with and exclude you? I've never had a problem with a girl friends / significant others maintaining friendships with other guys. And even do things with them (one loved listening to choral performances all the time and I don't - but a mutual male friend did so they did that). But when a different one started to do things with the friend all the time without me, i did have to ask her who she was dating, him or me.

I used to have a work spouse, so I'd be a hypocrite to disapprove.

Stephen Gilberg

My wife and I met in the world of theatre (including opera), so, in our case, we have to be cool with it.

John W. Kennedy

I mean, I do think there can come a point where the person needs to recuse themselves from a friendship, as it were. But as an overall principle, absolutely we are both allowed to be friends with people we find attractive. My best friend is someone I met in college; my now-husband and I were friends then and the three of us started hanging out together; he had been interested in dating both of us because he liked our alternative style and general attitude. NBD. I trust her most of the time (and always re: her intentions about him) and him all the time. Haha I now see that I misread this, and it's not "Can your SO be friends with someone they are/have been attracted to?" and just "Are they allowed to be friends with people of the gender they sleep with?" And yes, hell yes. My best friend from college is male. With the other couple in our lockdown pod I get into much longer conversations with the husband because we both like to argue semantics. I'm very fond of him and we'd never date if we were both single, his conflict avoidance would drive me up the wall. A great friend of mine is my former union rep, also a dude. I really cherish having male friends. When I was a kid, my mom told me that once I grew up and was married I wouldn't be able to have boys as friends. She pronounced it as an absolute rule and even then I found that unreasonable and upsetting. And him? If I didn't think I could trust him around other women, I wouldn't have even dated him, let alone married him. Good God, how awful to be partnered with someone you can't trust to behave himself around your friends. You want someone you can trust, not someone you have to invent and enforce rules for to keep them more or less in line.

FilloryCitrus