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What If You And Your Best Friend Like The Same Person?
www.quora.com/What-should-I-do-if-my-best-friend-and-I-like-the-same-guy/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper
Q. What would you do when you and your best friend like the same person?
A. The same thing that I do when anyone and I like the same person - find out what the other person wants. Their input is kinda important here, and really the deciding factor. If the other person likes us both, then we both date him. If he only likes one of us, then he dates one of us. If he isn’t interested in either of us, then neither of us date him.
His consent makes any potential conflict pretty much irrelevant. It doesn’t matter how much I like someone, they have to want to be with me in order for me to be with them. If they don’t want to be with me, then no amount of my feelings for them will change that fact (short of overriding their agency). His relationships with other people are not my business to control or dictate. He can have relationships with whomever he wants and manage them however he wants.
If what he wants or how he does the things that he does conflicts with my value system, resulting in a loss of respect for him, then I can choose to remove myself from the situation. If what he wants or how he does the things that he does infringes or imposes (negatively) in any way on the well-being of my body, mind, emotions, finances, or anything else that belongs to me, I can choose to remove myself from the situation.
But him just liking someone else? Him dating someone else? Him being romantic or sexual with someone else? None of that has anything to do with me, so if I and my best friend happen to like the same guy, well, there’s nothing TO be done about that. I do what I do with the people who consent to doing those things with me, my friends do what they do with the people who consent to doing those things with them.
It’s like asking me “what do you do when you and your friend both like the same restaurant?” Uh, we both eat there whenever we feel like eating there (sometimes together, most of the time apart) as long as the restaurant is open and catering to our business. Whether my friend likes that restaurant or not has nothing to do with what I do about liking the restaurant, except if my friend doesn’t like it, I probably won’t invite them to eat there with me.
I actually find that a lot of my friends’ exes or current partners make good dating partners for me too. Not always, but often. As I like to say, polyamorous people come with references! If my friend likes someone, then at the very least, he’s probably a pretty decent human being, and then I get the bonus of having metamours that I already know I like and get along with.
Of course, we don’t always have the same taste in partners. I’m straight, for instance, and most of my friends are bi or pan. And just because someone is a decent human being, it doesn’t necessarily translate to romantic or sexual interest. A lot of my friends’ other partners are great people to be around, but I’m not interested in dating them. That’s OK too.
The point is, who my friends are interested in is irrelevant to how I handle being interested in someone myself. The person I’m interested in has the deciding vote in what happens there - without his consent, it’s a non-starter. With his consent, we can negotiate the kind of relationship we want to have with each other, and whether anyone else is interested in him has fuck-all to do with what he and I negotiate between ourselves. That’s between them.
Q. What would you do when you and your best friend like the same person?
A. The same thing that I do when anyone and I like the same person - find out what the other person wants. Their input is kinda important here, and really the deciding factor. If the other person likes us both, then we both date him. If he only likes one of us, then he dates one of us. If he isn’t interested in either of us, then neither of us date him.
His consent makes any potential conflict pretty much irrelevant. It doesn’t matter how much I like someone, they have to want to be with me in order for me to be with them. If they don’t want to be with me, then no amount of my feelings for them will change that fact (short of overriding their agency). His relationships with other people are not my business to control or dictate. He can have relationships with whomever he wants and manage them however he wants.
If what he wants or how he does the things that he does conflicts with my value system, resulting in a loss of respect for him, then I can choose to remove myself from the situation. If what he wants or how he does the things that he does infringes or imposes (negatively) in any way on the well-being of my body, mind, emotions, finances, or anything else that belongs to me, I can choose to remove myself from the situation.
But him just liking someone else? Him dating someone else? Him being romantic or sexual with someone else? None of that has anything to do with me, so if I and my best friend happen to like the same guy, well, there’s nothing TO be done about that. I do what I do with the people who consent to doing those things with me, my friends do what they do with the people who consent to doing those things with them.
It’s like asking me “what do you do when you and your friend both like the same restaurant?” Uh, we both eat there whenever we feel like eating there (sometimes together, most of the time apart) as long as the restaurant is open and catering to our business. Whether my friend likes that restaurant or not has nothing to do with what I do about liking the restaurant, except if my friend doesn’t like it, I probably won’t invite them to eat there with me.
I actually find that a lot of my friends’ exes or current partners make good dating partners for me too. Not always, but often. As I like to say, polyamorous people come with references! If my friend likes someone, then at the very least, he’s probably a pretty decent human being, and then I get the bonus of having metamours that I already know I like and get along with.
Of course, we don’t always have the same taste in partners. I’m straight, for instance, and most of my friends are bi or pan. And just because someone is a decent human being, it doesn’t necessarily translate to romantic or sexual interest. A lot of my friends’ other partners are great people to be around, but I’m not interested in dating them. That’s OK too.
The point is, who my friends are interested in is irrelevant to how I handle being interested in someone myself. The person I’m interested in has the deciding vote in what happens there - without his consent, it’s a non-starter. With his consent, we can negotiate the kind of relationship we want to have with each other, and whether anyone else is interested in him has fuck-all to do with what he and I negotiate between ourselves. That’s between them.