Love 101: When An Angelina Arrives
Posted by: Erin Flaherty
Filed in:
relationships
12:30PM, Sunday December 14th 2008
Every woman I know can share some anecdote regarding that gorgeous female “friend” her boyfriend annoyingly adores. It’s just inevitable. The minute you settle down with the Brad of your dreams, some Angelina shows up like a bee to your honey. Occasionally, she really is “just a friend,” but when her feelings run deeper, well, a woman just knows, and I think we can all agree it puts you in a somewhat awkward—make that insanely frustrating—position.
My jealousy grew, fueled by their every coy interaction, and by each time she’d drop one of her signature sexual innuendos.
My Angelina showed up, right on time, when I finally got my commitment phobic ex-boyfriend to pledge allegiance to my flag. He was an artist; she ran a prestigious London gallery. She was self-admittedly “horny,” possessed long dark Angelina hair and the stick figure of a model, and perhaps most intimidating of all, an encyclopedic knowledge of everything my boyfriend loved: contemporary art, video games, porn and hardcore music (the latter a genre they cherished, and that according to them both, I just didn’t “get.”)
Needless to say, I felt abysmally left out of the majority of their conversations, which flowed naturally and wittily and even, I felt in my gut, flirtatiously. It wasn’t long before I had stronger evidence. When at a party she drunkenly cornered me and gushed about how amazing my guy was, and how she wished she could find someone like him, blah blah blah, I knew immediately that she was in love with him.
Still, I couldn’t be sure that he felt the same. When I confronted him he vehemently denied it, but that’s when the problems started. My jealousy grew, fueled by their every coy interaction, and by each time she’d drop one of her signature sexual innuendos (after which she’d glance over at me with a smirk.)
The final straw came during a business trip she took to New York. Despite having an expense account and plenty of alternative crash pads at her ready, she asked my boyfriend if she could bunk in our tiny, one bedroom apartment. He was more than happy to host, and when I expressed my misgivings, he threw the classic, something-is-definitely-up line in my face, “You’re crazy! There is nothing going on.”
Nonetheless, I tried to be the perfect hostess: I tidied the house, washed her sheets, served supper, and in the process became a fly on the wall of their burgeoning romance. When she spoke, she looked directly at him. When she walked down the street, she made sure he was watching her. I turned into such a nervous wreck that I was incapable of eating.
Needless to say, this couldn’t go on forever, and sure enough our relationship soon smacked to a halt. My heart was already broken, but when I found out they’d wasted no time sleeping together, it felt like they’d run it through the meat grinder. I can’t even imagine how it would have felt if they’d wound up adopting a large pack of children. Suicidal? Bloodthirsty? At the very least, I’d have been rendered unable to fall in love again easily, and maybe for good.
Fortunately, I received a shred of slightly uplifting gossip about a month after the fact. Far from adopting half the third world and having his babies, she’d tried to coerce him into a relationship, and he’d declined. Instead of being the girl of his dreams, she had actually served as a kind of getaway vehicle out of our troubled relationship. So even though I couldn’t have him, the fact that she couldn’t either gave this dark cloud the only silver lining it was going to get.
As for my ex, I hear he’s married now, to someone else entirely. Whether their relationship is healthier than ours was or not, I hope for his wife’s sake that this little Angelina isn’t still in his life. If she is, well girl, you know in your gut what’s going on, and I know how ya feel. Good luck.
TheFrisky.com is part of the Turner Sports and Entertainment Digital Network
JessicaRabbit
wrote on March 21 2008 @ 01:44 pm: [report]
Ugh. This makes my stomach flip flop.
LegalLady
wrote on December 15 2008 @ 09:41 am: [report]
This sort of thing just makes me feel sick inside! I had the exact same type of situation.
A “just a friend” shows up and my dream guy just doesn’t see it as a threat no matter how loud my gut screams that she liked him as more than a friend.
For me it made me go into crazy girlfriend snoop mode - all their flirtatious emails were read over and over, making every line drive me crazy.
Eventually we had a serious talk or two - me confessing my snooping and telling him how hard it was for me, him apologizing for making me feel the need to go that far and promising to take it down a notch.
It has gotten better - but man oh man does is this a nasty thing to go through!
Holly Page
wrote on December 15 2008 @ 05:00 pm: [report]
I totally agree with you, LegalLady. Even if the “Angelina” doesn’t have a chance of successfully destroying your relationship, the psychological warfare does. Even if it isn’t likely that your man will be persuaded, the competition still can do damage to your self-esteem, and that lack of confidence can do you in as well as any saboteur.
Humble Bee
wrote on December 15 2008 @ 05:35 pm: [report]
Great post.
I actually found a way to get rid of that pesky “Angelina”, just act like you dont care when your with your guy,give him that your better anywway attitude. Make fun of her, point out all her imperfections (ex: Have you smelled her breath, its like regergerated tuna, bleh) and when you guys are with her, be all over him, all lovey dovey, call him honey. I don’t know if I look mean or what, but i would just give her these “looks” (like back off b*tch) and she would nervously smile and try to be nice to me. I think you made the mistake of being too nice to her and trying to make her feel like your friend. I made sure to make it clear, WE are NOT friends beeotch, thats MY man; smile at that.
LegalLady
wrote on December 15 2008 @ 08:17 pm: [report]
Hi Humble Bee! While I think that your approach can sometimes work, depending on the guy and the girl involved, sometimes it can also backfire!
By pointing out bad things about his new female friend, he may like her as a person and feel the need to defend her - making him look for even more good qualities she has to make his argument!! And the last thing a girlfriend wants to hear in that situation is good things about the other girl coming from her man’s mouth.
So while we don’t need to be friendly necessarily, I wouldn’t on the other hand be too mean or he may feel caught in between a nice friend and an unhappy girlfriend. Not a good place to be!
Humble Bee
wrote on December 17 2008 @ 08:39 pm: [report]
lol. true, true. It depends on the guy. If he can be easily influnced, do it. If not, your stuck in that baaad situation.
Mel
wrote on December 19 2008 @ 12:30 pm: [report]
I was the middle man of a situation like this. The only difference was that instead of girl vs. guy vs. girl, I had two guys at my side.
My friend was a co-worker and I’ve been in a relationship for 4-5 years at the point of meeting the other guy. I never thought much about it but he did turn into my ‘work husband’.
He left shortly after we became close friends and turned into witty e-mails I saw as harmless and I’d go eat lunch with him. The guy was unhappily married and I think he had self esteem issues in his relationship and turned to me to make him feel better.
I’d tell my boyfriend stories and he kept telling me this guy wanted to be more than friends. I saw it as harmless and ensured him it was nothing.
One day, which also was the last, we had lunch and it somehow turned into sex. I laughed it off and asked him how we always ended up on this subject to which he replied, “You’re the one who brought it up.”
He stopped to think aloud and said, “You said how great you and [your boyfriend] are together and I said we would be too…” and laughed and smirked.
Luckily for me, which is probably why we’ve been dating for 5+ years now, my boyfriend trusted me and knew this other guy was being sheisty. Needless to say, I wished him happy birthday via text message but haven’t talked to him otherwise since because it’s not healthy to have a friend like that. Or isn’t for me.