Worst girlfriend ever?

So I have this group of girl friends and we’ve been friends for a few years now and everything’s great and I get on with them all really well, there’s just one small thing that really irritates me and on Saturday night it raised its ugly head yet again.

They have this thing where all of the boyfriends get invited out to our nights out. And worse than that, when the girls go out, the boys are encouraged to all get together and have a boys night as well.

I find it completely bizarre to tell you the truth.

You know how in America they have that whole, what is it, separation of church and state? I have separation of friends and boyfriends.

I don’t actively keep them away from each other but I’m not going to go out of my way for all of them to become the best of friends.

The boyfriend and I had been going out for nearly a year before he was properly introduced to this group of friends and before that they’d say “We haven’t met the boyfriend yet?” and I’d think, “Erm....and?” Am I looking for your approval of my boyfriend? No. Do you need to be friends with him to be friends with me? No.

I just feel like it’s irrelevant whether they know him or not. I mean I became friends with these girls long before the boyfriend ever appeared, my friendship with them has nothing to do with my relationship with him.

I feel the same way about their boyfriends. If I meet them, that’s great. If I don’t meet them I won’t be sitting at home wondering what they’re like, I doubt I’ll consider them at all. As far as I’m concerned, as long as the person my friend is going out with makes them happy then that’s all I need to know.

In fact it can get more awkward if you meet the boyfriend and don’t like him. Which is the case with one of these girls. I think her boyfriend’s a complete fool. I just want to slap him every time I see him and hear the latest inanity to come out of his mouth. But it doesn’t make any difference that I think that does it? Am I going to say with her “Your boyfriend’s a twat”? (Oh how I wish I could.) No I’m not because me thinking that isn’t going to make them split it up, it’s just going to make things awkward for us.

Also I like my independence. I like that I have my own friends and that’s my thing and they belong to me and the boyfriend isn’t overly involved in that area of my life. Like I say, I don’t go to great lengths to keep them apart but I equally am not going to invite him to every girl’s night out that we have. And as for him becoming friends with the boyfriends? If that happens naturally, of its own accord then that’s great. What I’m not going to do is force him into a situation where there’s a group of men that everyone thinks should get on, just because their girlfriends do. The logic doesn’t follow for me.

So on Saturday I went out for one of these nights. We were going for a meal for someone’s birthday and they’d said boys were welcome to come and I thought to myself “That’s nice” and left it at that. I did ask the boyfriend if he wanted to come and I could see by his face that he didn’t really want to so I said that was fine by me, he could have a date night with his one true love, the X-box.

I get to the restaurant and realise immediately. I am the only person here sans partner. And it makes me sigh on the inside because I know what’s coming next...

“So where’s the boyfriend tonight then?”

“Erm.....he’s at home.”

SILENCE.

It's like they can’t conceive that he wouldn’t want to come out for a meal with all my friends.

And then you have the incredibly boring meal where everyone’s sat in their couples talking away and I’m wanting to stab myself in the eyes with my chopsticks because it’s just all so bloody boring.

The thing is it makes me question myself. They seem so surprised and shocked that he isn’t out that I start thinking that I’ve obviously got this all wrong. Should I be insisting that he comes out? Should I be having other couples round for sophisticated dinner parties?

And I thought to myself, my god, I’m a really horrible boyfriend, I’m making him stay at home with crisp-stealing cats whilst I’m out having a laugh.

I got back home and apologised to the boyfriend.

“Sorry if I’m rubbish”

“How are you rubbish?”

“For making you stay at home and not encouraging you to come out for the meal.”

“Whose birthday was it again?”

(I tell him)

“Yeah I would have come out but to be honest I can be doing without her and her boyfriend.”

And I sit back and think, maybe I’m not so bad after all.

Until the next ‘girls’ night out...