“One of my best friends got a boyfriend a couple of months ago and as soon as it started she started spending all her time with him and hardly any with me and our friends. Anyway, I thought, oh, I guess that’s what happens and that it will stop and she’ll hang with us again, but it hasn’t, and it’s really upsetting.
Her boyfriend is on holiday and is coming back tomorrow and I said “Oh, we should hang out” but she said “But Aaron is coming home tomorrow” and I was stunned. She has hung out with him for the past months everyday and I’m one of her best friends and she has placed him above me. I’m seriously upset. I’ve been crying for the last hour because I don’t know what to do. I said the whole “friends are forever” thing but it didn’t work, I just have no idea what to do.”

I’m sorry that has happened to you! It’s a pretty awful situation. I have been in it a few times myself, from both sides of the argument. I have had friends with boyfriends who seem to disappear into a hazy den of love & sin for months on end, & I have been one of the girls who took pause from the rest of the world to concentrate on my beloved. This, I believe, makes me extra-qualified to talk to you about your problem!

Here are some facts about your best friend.

She is being rather selfish;
She is not being a good friend to you;
She is either deeply in love or deeply in lust;
When they break up, or the novelty wears off, she will feel really bad & lonely & guilty.

Right now, she is so deeply embroiled in what they have (long make-out sessions, cutesy nicknames, intimacy that rocks their world & a general feeling of bliss) that she really can’t think about anything else. She might try, but the thoughts will only flit through her mind like a refugee butterfly, & then she will go back to the far more exciting business of counting the freckles around his navel — or whatever. Consider her lost to the lunacy of love; set adrift in a sea of swoon.

Romantic love is big business, after all. Why do you think there are so many love songs?

There is no sense in trying to capture her attention — you won’t. Cut your losses & move on. Make new friends or just seek solace in your other ones. She’ll come back to you when she’s ready. When this happens, try to forgive her & don’t be too angry… since you will probably be in her position one day!