Dear Blake,
Two good friends of mine who I enjoy hanging out with have started dating. While I’m really happy for them, their new relationship has changed the nature of our friendships a lot. For one: I spend a lot more time alone now. I used to hang out with them all the time, almost every day including weekends. But now we don’t spend nearly as much time together. Either they forget about me/don’t invite me to things cuz they want to be alone, or when just us three do hang out I feel like I’m intruding. They say it’s not weird for them so I shouldn’t feel weird, but like I feel lame walking behind them while they hold hands or eating lunch together as they wrap arms and flirt.
Signed, Patrick
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Dear Patrick
Two’s company and three’s a crowd, I get it and understand your loneliness. The only option that I see you have, is to destroy their relationship to alleviate your feelings of isolation. If you know both of them pretty well, start exposing their “secrets” privately to each of them, but also consider telling outright lies if the dirt isn’t there. If one of them has a speeding ticket, tell the other one it was a DUI and they were arrested for driving 75 mph on a field during a children’s soccer game. Allege that the other one regularly gives counterfeit bills to homeless people, with the hope that they’ll soon be arrested and taken off the streets. But if they are in love and decide they want to get married, you have to accept it. The only thing you can really do at that point, is to anonymously send each of them a note before they walk down the aisle on their wedding day. Tell them that the other one has secretly taken out a million dollar life insurance policy on them, and they will bumped off in the near future. You’ll know your tactic worked if both of them return from their honeymoon with bloodshot eyes, due to their refusal to fall asleep with their spouse laying next to them. It may not be much, but least you can have some measure of joy, knowing you contributed to getting the marriage started off on the wrong foot by sewing the seeds of mistrust. I hope this helps.
Blake