Wanna Avoid Drama with This Confusing Situation

[alchemist4151]

Here everyone.

 

I posted about this situation a few months ago in this thread (forum/showthread.php?t=388149&p=4885067#post4885067.) In short, I met the ex of a friend who I was really attracted to... but the friend and he spent the weekend flirting instead, which made me upset. (Sorry that this is a long post.)

 

After that weekend, I told my friend why I had been avoiding her, and after a small argument I thought everything was back to normal and we could drop it. Kathy, my friend, asked if I would like her to try setting me and her ex up... I told her no, as he struck me as a flirt/player, and I just wanted to forget it. End of story, right?

 

Nope. For the next month, Kathy started inviting Ted, her ex, around whenever I was there. We'd be hanging out and she'd suddenly say," Oh by the way I invited Ted. That's cool, right?" What made this extra weird though was it'd be just the three of us, and the two of them would start flirting some more. (One time she started joking about how they used tickling as foreplay. UH.) I felt like a big third wheel, but I was friendly and tried to be chill... I didn't want to create any more drama.

 

After a few weeks of this, Ted invited me to a movie I'd mentioned I wanted to see with him and his friends. But when I showed up, it was just him and me... he said his friends had thought the movie sounded boring. I thought it was weird, but he didn't make any moves and we paid for our own stuff, so I didn't think too much of it. After that, he started texting me and asking me along to stuff (parties, swing dancing) about weekly.

 

I didn't tell Kathy that any of this was going on. I didn't mention or ask about him at all. However, she'd bring him up a lot ("Oh me and Ted, you know my ex Ted, we used to do together...") One day she suddenly snapped at me that I was being overly negative, and told me," Ya know, Ted called me, and he thought you were cute, but he also thought you were super analytical. I'm not going to encourage anything between you guys because you think he's a flirt, and I'm not going to see my friend hurt!"

 

I was really surprised, because I'd never asked her to "encourage" anything. In fact, I just wanted the subject to go away. She was the one who kept inviting him to stuff, and talking about him. I tried to apologize a few days later, but she just got madder," Whatever, I'm not encouraging Ted until you have your issues straightened out!" (My issues being negative and overly analytical I guess.)

 

And yet after telling me, she then turned around and invited him to hang out with us AGAIN. She's been getting increasingly angrier with me... and to top it off, last night, Ted finally did say he liked me.

 

Here's my dilemma. I DO think Ted is a flirt and kind of a player... he brags about women throwing themselves at him, and how he's an attention * * * * * . But I feel I can't reject him without Kathy being angry that I hurt her friend.

 

On the other hand, I do find him attractive, and we have fun together... but I feel as if I dated him, Kathy would just get angrier with me because even though she says it's cool if I date her ex, every time we've hung out she's seemed sort of possessive of him.

 

So I feel like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. How can I make a decision without causing more drama and losing Kathy's friendship? I feel really lost... This feels like high school and we're all in our freaking mid-20's!! HELP!!!!

[Stand Strong]

But I feel I can't reject him without Kathy being angry that I hurt her friend.

 

That's not your problem. People are responsible for their own feelings. You don't have to feel obligated to care. Don't guilt yourself.

 

This feels like high school and we're all in our freaking mid-20's

 

If she's really your friend, she shouldn't care if you don't want to date him and it should NOT affect the friendship. If it doesn't then she still has a high school mentality. Your an adult. You can say no without caring about the consequence. If it causes drama, tell her you don't like that she's pressuring you and that if she is a true friend, she HAS to understand.

[alchemist4151]

I'd love to have a few more opinions on this... bump?