MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you can find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn” columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.

This week Lynn deals with a letter from a 51-year-old woman who feels like she’s Back in Junior High because her best friends are making her choose between her boyfriend and them. And with good reason:

He is manipulative, a “dry drunk,” selfish, immature, etc. They accuse me of staying in an “abusive” relationship because I am addicted to the drama.

Who’s side are you on? Read the full letter at Happen, then come back here to comment!

friends, more than friends, and family. Especially Adam Lambert’s mom. Have a lovely, restful, sweet-potato-casserole-with-marshmallows-ful holiday!

Further reading: Breakup Girl’s Thanksgiving files.

MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you’ll find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn” columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.

This week they highlight the letter from a gal who is Sick of Seeing Both Sides in her struggle for attention from her beau. He can be sweet and attentive when they’re alone, but he ignores her when he’s with his guy friends and frequently leaves her at home so he can hang out with them. Read the letter at Happen — or check out our previous posting of the advice — then come back here to comment!

Nothing says friendship like starting a blog to find your buddy a girl. And so on Aug. 1, Date a Jason was born.

Josh, friend of Jason, told the Boston Globe he created the site because his friend is a good guy who deserves to find a good woman. He also believes bars are bad for meeting women, dating websites are too confusing and dating stinks in Boston. Apparently none of that is true of Blogger, however.

The site features pictures of Jason — including the obligatory shot with his shirt off — and the following description:

This site is dedicated to my single, disease free, friend Jason (Age 28). We’ve tried all the other bull shit. BBQs, bars, friends of friends, etc…So we are taking the search online. He’s a fun, interesting, smart, and gainfully employed guy who likes to travel and stay active. Just recently moved into downtown Boston. Looking to meet a nice young woman. If are interested please contact us at: Date.A.Jason@gmail.com

To tell the truth, Jason is sort of cute and I’m sure he’ll prove very popular with the Boston-area ladies. He’ll probably even get his own reality TV program.

Two guys and a girl on February 23, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I am currently sleeping with not one but two of my really close guy friends. The problem is one of them asked me about starting a public relationship with him and I told him I wasn’t interested in starting something like that and from then on he has been treating me like a bitch. The other guy recently told me he loved me and I don’t believe in love and don’t want to experience it. My friends know about this and I will tell anyone who asks me the truth, but I was wondering if this make me a slut ???

— Clueless in Idaho

Dear Idaho,

Having sex outside of a “relationship” does not make you — or anyone — a “slut.”

But having sex with people who you know want more of a relationship than you do, and then hurting their feelings, does make you: lonely.

Love,
Breakup Girl

I often take a friend breakup harder than I do a lover breakup. Because we’re not supposed to break up with our friends. Boy- and girlfriends are practically designed to come and go, while friendship is so meaningful and precious that it makes us utter little sweet nothings like “A friend is forever” or “Friends till the end.” Nobody’s ever said “Boyfriend till the end.” Just doesn’t sound right.

So I take a little let-myself-off-the-hook comfort in this recent study showing that most friendships come with an expiration date, too. In fact, sociologists found that the seven-year-itch phenomenon applies just as much to our platonic relationships as it does our sexual ones.

During that stretch of time, as one summary put it, “personal network sizes remained stable, but many members of the network were new. Only 30 percent of  the original ‘helper’ friends and discussion partners had the same position in a subject’s network seven years later, and only 48 percent were still part of the social network.”

Perhaps we were readier to acknowledge that friendships evolve (or don’t!) as we do — and that some have a natural shelf-life — we’d be better able to take their ends in stride?

Trying not to be tacky on February 2 1998...

Dear Breakup Girl,

I like one of my good friends. The problem is, he just broke up with his girlfriend K., who happens to also be a friend of mine. I know it’s not right for me to make a move and ask him out, especially because he’s not over K., and I don’t think it’s right to go out with a friend’s ex (even if we’re not close friends). But I like him a lot, and I know he feels the same about me, even though he loves K. too. How long I should wait before asking him out?

— Jennifer

 
Dear Jennifer,

Give it at least a few months. Not only out of respect for K., but also because you don’t want to get jiggy with him until he has safely exited the rebound zone. It might feel like forever, but if there really is something between you two, it’ll last. And at least you don’t have to wait as long as Charles and Camilla do.

Love,
Breakup Girl

And by “good time,” they mean hiking, eco-activism, trading nerdy theories about “Lost.” Yes, Ryan Blitstein and his girlfriend/wingman have each other — and Facebook and MeetUp and CraigsList — but they also have solitary jobs in a relatively new city (Chicago), and, as Blitstein writes in a nice essay at Salon.com, they are also having a hard time making friends.

“My Facebook profile is bursting at the seams with hundreds of acquaintances, colleagues and contacts, many within walking distance. But I can count on one hand the number I’d even take out for a drink. So much for the brave new world of social networking,” Blitstein writes. “Until recently, I thought of myself as different, especially when it came to maintaining friendships with other men. I am not afraid to ask a guy out on a so-called man-date. I don’t need to use SportsCenter or an action movie or an indie rock show to overpower the supposed latent homoeroticism that some men attribute to one-on-one male socializing. I’m as comfortable talking about relationships with another dude as I am arguing about politics. But it seems the older I get, the harder it is to find new people to engage in these conversations.”

And: “There is a vast gulf between vaguely keeping in touch with someone and actually sharing, experiencing, exploring and all the other things you give and get and take from a close friendship. I find it increasingly difficult to cross over that gulf with those I’m meeting now. It’s a poignant thing to be a full-grown human and realize you’re deficient in something that seems so effortless for children.”

Blitstein’s essay is not an obvious broadside against the “alienation” of “technology,” yadda yadda. (I’d argue that the “connectedness” fostered by Facebook, while often superficial in one sense, still does the job of affirming one’s role in one’s own life story. High school! Camp! That crappy post-college internship! OMG! Hi hi hi!) But judging by many of the letters written in response, Blitstein and his girlfriend are not, so to speak, alone — and I think there is something new and modern, if not high-tech, about that. When we married much younger, skipping the seeking-our-fortunes/-selves segment of our twenties, we kept our high school and college friends because we’d graduated with them, like, last year. Now, like our phones, we’re mobile. There are more phases in our lives, more places to put down — and pull up — stakes. Makes sense to me.

What about you? Has making friends gotten harder for you as you get older? Might that also make it harder to make more-thans, too, given that “through friends” can be a romantic goldmine?

Needing a Hollywood ending on January 19, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,
My best male friend and I got together for a short time about a year ago. He’s had some bad luck with girls in the past and is afriad of losing our friendship if we broke up. (Needless to say, we ended up back as friends fairly quickly regardless of the fact that everyone else says that we’re perfect together.) Now the complicated part is that he has been going out with a (FORMER) good friend of mine for several months and thinks he’s going to MARRY her! What should I do? I feel like I’m living out “My Best Friend’s Wedding!”
— Lost

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