To break, or not to break?

I met my friend C for a meal last week. C and I used to be very close, I have known her since high school. For whatever reasons we now only see each other occasionally, maybe once every 3 months? But we still carry on like we used to and update each other and gossip like crazy whenever we see each other.

After greeting me her face became very serious and she said “Can I ask you a question and I want your honest opinion”. I’m thinking oh no, she is going to ask me what I really think about her current bf, S (that’s another story). Instead she throws me a “So, how do you feel about your other half going out to strip clubs with the boys for a bucks night?”. I’m thinking, is that all??? I say sure its fine by me and I have no problems with him doing that. Of course if I do decide to do the same (ie. Visit strip clubs catered for females) I expect no objections from my other half either. She gets this funny look on her face and says “Really?...well, S went the other day to a strip joint and I got really annoyed at him because he is so easily influenced by his friends and they all decided to go and he tagged along. I don’t mind him going out with his friends BUT...”

I’m thinking to myself????!!!!!!!!!!!!......So what’s the problem? strip joint? going out with his mates? easily influenced? all of the above???

So she launches in to a tirade about:

1. S is so easily influenced by his friends that when they go out whether it be to clubs/strip joints etc. they do the drinking and smoking thing and he joins right in. The dumbass apparently has some heart condition and has been explicitly told by his GP that under no circumstances should he be smoking and drinking. And she is CERTAIN that he drinks and smokes when he is out with the boys, so she’s on his case each time she sees him light a cigarette. (So I’m still trying to work out, is the problem the strip clubs, or the smoking, drinking and carrying on, the (dumb) i-don’t-care-if-I’m-killing-myself attitude??)

2. The guys that he hangs around with are all morons and they are crude, sexist, a bad influence on him and just full of shit. (Well, he’s your bf and if you ask me the type of company you keep reflects on the type of person you are)

She then goes on to tell me an incident where some of the guys started laying it in to fat chicks. S happens to have a sister that is struggling with her weight but he’s carrying on, joining right in. Of course C was not impressed and blasted them and then proudly showed me an SMS that she received from one of the guys apologizing for offending her. Then she says that she constantly has to put up with bad behavior from his friends. Their gf’s all seem to sit there in silence and tolerate the crude remarks whereas she’s the only girl who seems to speak up and in her own words “look like such a ballbreaker, and I hope his friends don’t start saying negative things about me”. And she actually looked guilty when she was telling me this. Well, I suppose she is coming off sounding like a nagger.

BUT

I felt like smacking her in her head. First of all, if you find something rude and offensive why should you be putting up with that sort of behavior (which she’s not). So she shouldn’t really be apologizing for “being a ballbreaker”. Secondly, who cares what his friends think and why are you so concerned if they are bad mouthing you or not, when you think that they are all morons anyway. So what do their opinions mean to you? I know its always great to get along with your partner's friends but does that mean lowering your standards to accomodate them?

You are with him not them, and you are the one that has to wake up next to him the next morning. You don’t want to find that he’s had a heart attack in the middle of the night because of his excessive drinking and smoking. How dumb is S???? Plus, you need to ask yourself what kind of person is so easily influenced by his friends that he 1. feels pressured to light up or consume alcohol in a social setting when he has been told it will affect his health, 2. will drop you like a hot potato just because his friends don’t like you???

As you can tell, I don’t really think much of S. And how’s this for tunnel vision. She bumped in to an old friend A, at a wedding. In his drunken stupor A told C that she could do so much better than S. I was sipping my drink and almost choked when she said that, because I feel exactly the same way!! Of course I didn’t tell her that. So now in her books A is a ‘bad bad person, no, don’t like him anymore and I don’t want anything to do with him’……

I have dropped hints in the past about what I think of S. But she chooses not to listen. Each to their own. Whatever makes her happy I guess… But sometimes I just feel like pulling her down from whatever planet she is on, and pulling off that stupid wool that’s clouding her vision. I suspect she is desperate to hang on to S because she has indicated in the past that she is ready to settle down and have babies and can feel that clock ticking away. But that is the wrong reason to stay with S, especially when S is still not over that “I’m young and I’m single and I will do whatever I feel like” stage.

I can’t wait until our next meeting. I wonder what other wonderful things S would have gotten up to.