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What To Do If You Hate His Friends A few years back, I was head over heels for an adorable guy named Ben. It was embarassing how much I liked him, really. We had been dating for a few weeks when he invited me to a birthday party for one of his childhood friends and I took this as a sign that he really liked me too. I was a bit nervous to meet all of his friends at once, naturally, but nothing too extreme-how bad could it be? I pride myself on getting along with just about anyone and have never, ever had an issue getting to know a boyfriends family or friends before

Until now I won t bore you with the details, but it was terrible. They were drunk and rude, telling jokes that were so inappropriate I didn t know whether to laugh or cry. At one point, one of his friends slapped my ass hard. I tried making conversation with the most sober ones of the bunch, but was met with short one word answers that bordered on snarky. Ben seemed to write off their behavior, saying They re just joking, it s a tough crowd but his words didn t really make me feel any better. We tried hanging out with them again, with less alcohol this time we tried going to sporting events and movies and concerts, and they made an embarrassing scene each time, verbally assaulting strangers and just generally acting like fools. I felt it in my heart I hated his friends. But at the same time, I was falling for Ben. How could I reconcile the two? I didn t want to prevent him from hanging out with his guys, yet I couldn t think of anything I wanted to do LESS than spend one more minute with them. It started causing tension in our relationship-inevitably, Ben began feeling caught in the middle and I began feeling pretty damn resentful that he wanted to spend so much time with a bunch of neanderthals who made me feel like crap just because it was fun for them. See? Trouble in paradise. Ben said he wasn t going to give up his friends and I genuinely didn t want him to have to do that I just didn t know how our relationship could weather this storm. Turns out, it didn t

It wasn t long before we decided to go our separate ways

I learned a lot from this relationship, though. When you re dating someone, you re really dating his friends, his family and he s dating yours. While it s a cute thought that you should just put a bubble around the two of you and not let outside factors effect your relationship, it s not always that easy. Friendships are important-almost as important as your dating relationships your friends have been there before this relationship and will be there after. Personally, it s crucial that my friends and my boyfriend get along. They don t need to be BFFs and braid each others hair, but if they can tolerate an evening of dinner and drinks together, I m happy. And while it was a harsh pill to swallow, I also realized that I just didn t fit into Ben s life. That there must have been a reason why his friends didn t exactly embrace me with open arms, and why I felt so turned off by them. When we were casually dating, it didn t phase me but as we got more and more serious I began to realize that I d be stuck with these people for LIFE if I stayed with Ben and vice versa

At the end of the day, I wanted Ben to find someone who he didn t have to fight for all the time or defend to his friends. Someone who is ok with being slapped on the ass by strangers, apparently

Someone who fits into his world and wouldn t change a thing