Help! My Friend May Have Slept With A Married Man! Should I Chop Off Her Hands Myself?

Knock knock. Who is there? Advice and we have a warrant so open the door and don't get cute.

Happy Friday! I am sitting in a bar with my laptop and it is so loud that I have to warn you that this edition of Advice? MUAHAHA. I Am The King Of Advice might have some typos because I’m honestly going to have an aneurism.

Today we’re looking at two questions that were sent to the New York Times Social Q’s column:

I broke things off with the man I’ve been dating for eight months. He is a wonderful person, but we couldn’t make our relationship work. Because of Covid, we quickly decided to date exclusively, and that created an illusion of intimacy that never really existed. My conundrum: I am very drawn to a man my ex introduced me to and with whom he works. (They are both musicians.) I know my interest is reciprocated, but I don’t want to damage their friendship or steal my ex’s joy in making music with his friend. What should I do?

EX-GIRLFRIEND

Musicians, huh? Unless they’re the worst musicians on earth, I doubt you’d be the first person they’ve both slept with.

This is one of those questions that falls into a familiar genre. “I am interested in person X, who I was introduced to by ex-Y. Am I allowed to act on that interest?” And the answer, is in every case, of course..

Let’s assume that your ex isn’t over you and that he is going to be upset if his bandmate starts dating you. You should contact this dude you like and then keep everything quiet. See where it goes! You say the interest is returned and it probably is but you still want to see how it feels when you put the ship to sea. Sometimes a ship looks great in the dock and appears totally seaworthy but then on day 2 of the maiden voyage you decide you hate the ship and the ship hates you and the ship would rather blow its brains out than listen to you prattle on about how hard it was being an only child.

So keep it quiet and see if the spark ignites and then after a couple of romps in the sack, tell Liam Gallagher that you’re fucking Noel. Or let Noel tell him, if he wants.

People love to worry about this scenario because it feeds our narcissism. It lends itself to an almost god-complex sort of view where you control the entire well-being of your ex and only through some noble act of sacrifice (not fucking the bass player) can you do the damned decent thing of keeping your ex’s head above water. The reason we love this scenario is not only because we love thinking of ourselves as all-powerful but because in general, you’re probably a bit apprehensive about fucking this bass player. You don’t know how it will turn out. We aren’t sure about anything when it comes to love and sex. And that is anxiety-producing. And this scenario you’re describing offers you the chance to not risk the hard scary bit of fucking the bass player and finding out he’s not for you and instead exchange that for a feeling of self-satisfaction and righteousness because you are such a good person that you gave up all the sunny, mimosa-stained brunches of a pop song to let your rat-faced ex be happy with his grunge band.

You’ll get to say for years “I could have had it all but I don’t because I was generous and thoughtful.”

Eh.

In reality, your ex needs to get over you. It’s going to be hard no matter what. It might be quick; it might be prolonged. It might happen on a train; it might happen in the rain. He will not like this in a box, he will not like it with a fox.

So stop letting this bullshit be your excuse not to be happy. You can’t make your ex happy. If you could, he wouldn’t be your ex. 

That doesn’t mean you need to be totally deaf to your ex’s feelings. I would probably not make out with his friend at the end of the first few shows you attend as his bandmate’s girl.

But live your life, girl!

It probably isn’t going to work out with this new musician either but relationships individually never have very good odds. Life is about taking all those doomed pulses of passion and hoping that in the aggregate you’ll come out on top and die somewhere other than a ditch, somewhat other than alone.

I have a childhood friend I see once a year. An acquaintance told me she discovered that her husband and my friend have been having an affair for 10 years. She came to me because I am mutual friends with them on Facebook. She was going to confront my friend, but I don’t know where things stand. This left a bad taste in my mouth, and I am not interested in seeing my friend again. When she gets in touch, can I put her off or must I explain myself?

FRIEND