Relationships

Why You Shouldn't Tell Your Friend You Hate Her BF, Even If It's Killing You

by Zara Barrie
Kylah Benes-Trapp

Greetings, sweet kittens. It's me, Zara, your digital big sister.

While I love the weekend as much as the next free-wheeling, high heel-wearing, winged liner-sporting, booze-swilling, red-lipsticked PARTY GIRL, 99.9 percent of the mistakes I've made in my life have taken place during the weekend. I've spent one too many Mondays spiraling down the dark vortex of weekend guilt, regret and shame.

But hey, don't fret. Because I'm going to be here every Friday to stop you from the awful weekend fuckups that are screwing up your life. Here's this week's Very Important PSA.

GUYS. This weekend, please, PLEASE, pretty fucking please, do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT get involved in your friend's relationship drama.

Even if it's your best friend. Even if it's your goddamn sister or cousin or BFF since childhood or vulnerable gay boy husband (especially if it's your vulnerable gay boy husband).

This morning, I was having Turmeric tea (it's magic — gets rid of unwanted bloat and swelling like a miracle worker) with my friend M* when I dramatically moaned, "I don't know what to write about for my weekly PSA! I'm creatively blocked."

"I have an idea!" M said, his voice brighter than the lights of the strongest tanning bed in New Jersey. His voice got very low and very serious. "Warn people about not getting involved in their friend's relationship drama."

"YES!" I shouted, feeling like the sky was suddenly breaking open and a million white doves were gracefully batting their wings into crisp fall air.

We immediately began to exchange stories of times when we got involved in our friend's drama.

M told me a dark tale of a drunken night out when he witnessed his friend's boyfriend locking lips in the club with another man.

He told his friend what his eyes bore witness to. He felt like the reigning gay martyr of the evening whose sole existence was to dutifully uncover the golden truth and tell his friend that he was being cheated on.

His friend wept the entire night and was grateful that M decoded the infidelity he would have never known of otherwise.

But suddenly, the next day, his friend was back together with his cheating boyfriend, and M was banned from their lives and home.

See, this shit always backfires!

I happen to be a wildly protective girl creature — a lioness, really — who will cut any bitch (with my words, not a KNIFE) who dares to disrespect my friend. Especially when I've had a bit to drink.

"DON'T TALK TO MY FRIEND THAT WAY!" I roared one night to my friend Britt's* girlfriend when I witnessed her referring to Britt as a bimbo.

The next thing I knew, I was being escorted out of the club, and Britt never spoke to me again.

"Babe, you need to dump him right NOW!" I've said to my best friend Layla* many a night out in our wild youth when she had a habit of dating fuckboy losers who lived in Bushwick.

"You're right! I don't need him when I have friendssss like youuuu," she would slur, feeling empowered and clanking her champagne glass up against mine.

And then, she would leave me to go have sex with said fuckboy of the night and resent me for the next six months for "hating" her precious boyfriend.

"Fuck him. I'm pretty sure he's gay!" I screamed to my far-removed cousin once when she told me that her boyfriend never wanted to have sex with her.

Two weeks later, she told him I said that I thought he was gay, and he never, ever looked me in the eye at family dinner again.

I promise you: Getting involved in your friend's relationship drama always, always backfires.

Getting involved in your friend's relationship drama always, always backfires.

Love is a complicated drug, baby. Your friend might be pissed as hell at bae after a few cocktails, but she's spitting out cheap venom when she's in the heat of the moment. Half of what she's telling you might not even be true; it's born out of lover's rage.

Or if it is true, and you insert yourself into the drama, her boyfriend will manipulate her into getting back together with him when she sobers up. And he'll make her promise to never talk to you again.

And BAM — it's the sad, sad, death of a lovely friendship.

Now, if your friend has a physically abusive partner, obviously call the police. I don't screw around with that shit — ever. But if your friend is just caught up in the throes of drunken drama or a youthful tempestuous relationship, stay the hell out of it.

Especially if you're a lesbian and your friend is a straight girl, and you're newly out and maybe you sort of hate her BF because you wish it were YOU going home with her tonight (hey, I get it).

And if that's not the case, everyone will think that's the case, especially her greasy, pimply, dickwad boyfriend. He'll tell her that you're "brainwashing her" because you're "in love" with her, and she'll get really uncomfortable around you, and life will just become unnecessarily awkward. I promise.

As your lesbian big sister, I've made this mistake too many times.

I get the impulse to butt in. I know my readers, and I know that we're cut from the same cloth, sweet kitten. We're not wallflowers. We're of the wildly outspoken breed of FEMALE and GAY BOY, and it's in our blood to speak up against injustice.

But if it's someone else's relationship drama, do yourself a favor and stay quiet. It's not your battle to fight. And if your friend's partner is a true asshole, your friend will catch on sooner or later and dump his ass.

It's not your battle to fight. And if your friend's partner is a true asshole, your friend will catch on.

When they're officially broken up, you can talk shit with her and tell her you always thought he was a spineless tool who probably had a small dick.

But even in that case, you have to make sure there is NO chance they're getting back together. Like, her shit needs to be moved out of his place, and they need to have not spoken for several months before you go telling her how much you hated his guts.

So, if you're at the club tonight, and you've had some Tito's and soda and you're all full of rage anyway because it's a Friday and it's been a hell of a week, and you see your friend fighting with her partner, take a deep breath, go outside and calm yourself down.

It's not worth it to speak up. I promise, babe.

And if you feel so inclined, imagine me standing outside with you. It's snowing, even though it's September. We're watching the delicate snowflakes land on the dirty sidewalks of lower Manhattan, and we're sharing a hand-rolled cigarette — the kind that chic, badass European girls smoke.

I'm wearing my famous, faux fur, leopard print jacket, and my eyeliner is so winged that it reaches my brow bone. I look slutty but chic in torn tights and a large Hermés Birkin bag that you're not sure is real or not. Just as you're about to decide it's definitely a knock-off, we lock eyes.

And in that moment, I communicate to through ~vibes~.

"Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Peace and love, girl. Peace and love, girl. Peace and love, girl," I'm willing to you through my witch-like energy.

Message me if you have to! Because, my kind kitten, I get it. But I've been down this road before, and it never goes as planned.

Take all that aggressive energy and channel it on the dance floor. I know you've got some moves. I want to see your moves. We all want to see your moves.

But we don't want to see you stick up for you friend only for it to bite you in the ass tomorrow.

I'm your big sis, and I only want whats best for you. You're under my protective lesbian wing now. So long as you listen to me (and ONLY me), you'll be golden.

* Name has been changed.