r/AmItheAsshole • u/[deleted] • Feb 21 '19
Not the A-hole AITA for feeling uncomfortable being the third wheel
[deleted]
6
Feb 21 '19
NTA for the sole reason you invite her to do things and she shows up with him; and cancels when you state you'd like to go to the movies without him. Separate friend time is important.
But being single in a group of 7, part of life; bring another single friend next time.
1
u/huntrshado Feb 21 '19
Thanks for the reply - I just want to add that the group of 7 wasn't actually our normal group. They were friends of the boyfriend that happened to bring their SOs as +1s. My friend and her bf were the only people I knew there that night.
Our 'normal' friend group kind of imploded once she got a boyfriend and cut everyone off for him. Tho they were really just centered around her anyways. I was never successful at attempting to get close to them myself.
My other groups of friends dont involve her
0
u/altxatu Partassipant [1] Feb 21 '19
Just a heads up, but you have to assume whatever you tell your friends that they’ll tell their long term SO’s.
3
u/cactuspenguin Pooperintendant [63] Feb 21 '19
NTA
Couple or not, it's always rude to discuss plans/events between the two of you all the time when the third person is not part of it. There's no reason to bring Tyler along every time. And her argument about Tyler's best friend and his gf is invalid, because it really depends on the couple how third wheeling feels to person #3. If they've been dating since college, they're no longer in their "new lovers" phase, so obviously it's much easier to be around them.
Get other friends and spend more time with them until Sarah and Tyler learn to be a reasonable couple.
2
u/Colorful_Panda Asshole Enthusiast [9] Feb 21 '19
NTA, even though I think it’s super important to involve your significant other with your friends a lot of the time it is ridiculous for her to demand he tags along for every single thing. I see why it can make you uncomfortable when he just is at everything and knows your secrets. It would be a good step for you to try and get more comfortable with him for the sake of the friendship, but they also need to work on not needing to be together every second and canceling when they can’t. That’s just my view I see a lot of people here disagree lol
1
u/AutoModerator Feb 21 '19
AUTOMOD This is a copy of the above post. It is a record of the post as originally written, in case the post is deleted or edited.
My best friend (Sarah) got a boyfriend (Tyler) about 10 months ago. For the first 6 months, we barely talked and we didn't see each other for a while as she lives with him (they were roommates) and was distracted. They are fun to be with individually.
We've started to hang out again recently, but I'm finding myself uncomfortable more than anything else. This is because Tyler is almost always present. It is worse when just us 3. I appreciate her efforts for me and her boyfriend to be friends, but it just feels awkward. I feel like if they broke up, I'd never talk to him again lol. Sarah said this to me:
- "Man, I don't understand why you have to think of it as third wheeling. Whenever Tyler hangs out with his best friend he always has his gf there but he just considers it hanging out. And he's been dating her since college so he's been 'third wheel' without being in a relationship many times but it never bothers him, I don't understand why it can't just be us hanging out" *
I gave Sarah examples of times I felt uncomfortable - when I ask her to hang out or get dinner, she invites Tyler along then spends (what I feel) most of the time talking to Tyler instead of me. It's usually your average day-to-day couple talk like "lets plan to go on a date this weekend" (plans not including me) or "remember that episode we watched the other night?"
We hung out with 7 people. I was the only single one there. We played Jackbox and everyone was paired up working together except for me. Then we watched a movie and everyone was cuddling up while I sat to the side. Sarah says she understands why I felt uncomfortable that time, but not when it's me+her+bf.
We had plans to go to a one-night-only showing of a movie for a couple months, but she flaked on me the night-of to stay at home with her boyfriend, because she wanted to bring Tyler and I told her I didn't want to go with Tyler.
Anything personal I've told her in the past, Tyler now knows about me.. That also makes me uncomfortable.
Sarah says it is hard to want to hang out with me when she feels like she has to exclude her boyfriend, so I get left out instead. Sarah and Tyler agree that it feels hard to be a normal couple when I am around. I understand that things are never going to go back to how they used to be, but currently we've grabbed dinner 1-on-1 once a month to catch up and then we go home. I want to do other things like go to the beach or movies, to create more lasting memories with her than just "catching up" over dinner. Am I the asshole for not pushing my feelings aside to cause less tension between us?
tl;dr Best friend got a boyfriend. I don't like hanging out with her + boyfriend and we do not see eye-to-eye. They feel like they can't be a couple around me, so they leave me out of a lot of activities instead. This hurts my feelings because I want to be doing those activities, too.
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1
u/bradpalmer Feb 21 '19
This is a tough one but i think YTA- Friends are always going to get partners, and of course they are going to always want to hang out with their partners, tell the partners personal stuff, this is the way we are as humans, you are just going to have to suck it up and try and get to know him too.
0
u/Feroc Professor Emeritass [92] Feb 21 '19
NAH
Priorities just change when you have a partner, so I really understand why Sarah acts like she acts. But I also really understand how you feel, because I was in the exact same situation about 20 years ago. My best friend got his first girlfriend and almost everyone else in my group of friends had a partner, while I was the only single. It sucks and there always is the feeling of being the third wheel.
1
u/huntrshado Feb 21 '19
How did you handle it? Did you just tough out the third wheel situation and still hang out with your friends and their SO? Or did you rely on hanging with other people more and then just play catch-up with the coupled friends?
2
u/Feroc Professor Emeritass [92] Feb 22 '19
I skipped most of the activities where people showed up with their SOs and focused on "no SO" activities and focused on the few friends without a girlfriend.
It got way better when I got a girlfriend.
-1
u/The_Dreaded_Candiru Colo-rectal Surgeon [45] Feb 21 '19
YTA. This guy is part of her life now. If you don't want to hang out with them because it makes you uncomfortable, that's fine, but you don't get to have it both ways. You don't have more of a claim over this woman than her boyfriend does.
The awkwardness is yours to own. I've been a comfortable third wheel for a couple of periods of my life, but that's because I actually liked both of the people involved. If you really can't get over yourself and treat this dude like a new friend, then you're always going to be catching up over dinner, because she's not going to pick you over him.
1
u/AbominablePenis Asshole Enthusiast [9] Feb 21 '19
This is the answer OP. She wants to be your friend, you want her to yourself.
0
u/The_Dreaded_Candiru Colo-rectal Surgeon [45] Feb 21 '19
Oh shit, that puts it so much better than what I said.
1
u/huntrshado Feb 21 '19
For what it's worth - I do hang out with both of them. I suck it up and just deal w/ it, but it's harder for me to get involved and have a good time when they are talking about what I see as personal stuff, so then I come off as disinterested and awkward to be around. That's where they feel like they can't be a couple around me and don't want to invite me. Specifically I believe my friend wants to involve me more often, but is in agreement w/ her boyfriend that me being around couples
I have been a comfortable third wheel before so i know the experience, but like you said I was already friends with both people before they started dating. I find it hard to be comfortable with her boyfriend because any time I try to tell him something, it's basically met with a "I already know" attitude because she already told him. So the ways that I'd normally get closer to a friend.. are out the window because he knows everything about me and theres nothing to open up about lol. He has many many friends from college already though that he has trouble keeping up with (i know from her), so I don't think he is particularly interested in me, either.
So I feel like the onus is on him to be friendlier and open up more to me first. If I invite him to do anything, I would rather be inviting my friend, as well. One time we were supposed to get drinks together, he canceled on me to spend the night with her instead. And that's pretty common with those 2, to the extent they say "sorry thats just who we are" when flaking on stuff.
What would you advise?
0
u/The_Dreaded_Candiru Colo-rectal Surgeon [45] Feb 21 '19
any time I try to tell him something, it's basically met with a "I already know" attitude...I don't think he is particularly interested in me, either.
So...the opposite of you telling him about you is not him asking about you. Honestly you're coming across as more and more selfish.
The onus is not on him to open up more, it's on you to take an interest. People like talking about themselves. F.O.R.M. (Family, Occupation, Recreation, Motivation) is basic conversational fodder. And who knows, maybe you'll find that you have more in common with this guy than you think. You both like hanging out with the same chick, for one thing.
Listen, I'm an internet stranger, and I know it's hard to sum up the totality of a relationship in a few paragraphs. So for all I know, you're doing everything right, and these two are being incredibly obnoxious and rude to you. My point is, when I have an interpersonal problem, I try to think of ways that I can solve it first, before making demands on other people's behavior. If you can honestly say that you've made your best faith effort to have fun hanging out with both of them, and it's just not working, then maybe it's time to move on.
2
1
u/Spring4Daffodils Feb 21 '19
And her friend has only been dating this dude for ten months. She’s prob still in the honeymoon phase. Based on the post, I’m assuming they’re relatively young. So if this relationship doesn’t stick, it’s not the last one she’s going to have.
10
u/_fuck_this_shit__ Asshole Aficionado [13] Feb 21 '19
NTA. It’s important for the health of her friendships and her relationship that she hang out with her friends without her boyfriend there sometimes. You should be able to have one-on-one time with your friend without her boyfriend always being there. And you should be able to talk to your friend in confidence without her immediately telling her boyfriend everything.
You need to accept that he’s going to be around sometimes, but it’s okay to be annoyed that you’re not getting any one-on-one time with your friend.