How Much Influence Should Your Friends Have Over Your Love Life?

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Dating is hard. Whether you’re trying to read between the lines during a talking stage, deciding if you could look past the goatee on an otherwise perfect Hinge profile or wondering if it’s too soon to drop the L bomb, it’s always good to have a friend or two who can give you some advice. However, it’s important to remember that there are times that our own feelings and opinions matter the most and shouldn’t be so easily influenced by what our friends think. 

The phrase ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ isn’t just some cliché, it’s the truth. Beauty is completely subjective and everyone is different when it comes to physical attraction, so choosing which people to date based on whether your friends also find them attractive is a little crazy. There’s nothing wrong with wanting your friends to agree with you when you think someone is cute, and you’re not an awful person for feeling a bit embarrassed if they don’t. 

However, when you let these opinions get in the way of your own potential matches, you’re really only holding yourself back. If you yourself think someone is cute or nice, and the feeling is mutual, then whether or not your friends agree with you on that shouldn’t stop you from getting to know that person better. It’s nice when your opinion is reinforced by the people around you, but you also need to know when to stand by your own feelings. It will make the dating process a lot easier for you if you don’t let yourself get embarrassed for being attracted to someone who might not exactly meet your friends’ standards.

That being said, there are times where it is important to at least take note of the advice your friends are giving you about a potential partner, or someone you’re already with. Sorry to hit you with another cheesy quote, but love really is blind sometimes, which is why it’s crucial to have a support system on the outside that might see things from a different and more objective perspective. While physical attraction is pretty clear cut, you either think someone is good looking or you don’t, other parts of dating and relationships can be a bit hazy.

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We tend to let a lot of habits slide in the hope that they’ll disappear or improve once we actually get into a relationship with someone. Little comments that we’re not sure what way to take, flakiness, bad habits, all these red flags that we might turn a blind eye to won’t get past our friends as easily. That’s because in this situation our friends only have our best interests at heart, and they can help us look at things in a more objective and rational way. In more serious cases, our friends, or anyone around us who genuinely cares about us, can help us get out of more dangerous relationships where manipulation and abuse is involved. That level of a support system needs to be built over time though, which is why it’s important to trust your friends as much as you can.

Of course, over the course of your life you’ll more than likely have a friend or two that give you unsolicited advice for their own benefit. They might be driven by jealousy and insecurity, and seeing you in a happy, stable relationship isn’t worth hurting their own ego. This does happen sometimes, and obviously that sort of advice should be either ignored or approached with caution.

Not everyone is out to get you though. Sometimes your friends will tell you something you don’t want to hear, but immediately writing that off as jealousy and villainising them just to protect your romantic relationship is childish and it hurts you more than anyone else. Trust them, trust that you are a good judge of character and wouldn’t be friends with people who wanted to sabotage you. If they do have ulterior motives when giving you advice, you’ll likely already be aware of the sort of person they are, and you’ll know not to go to them when you’re feeling stuck. 

It can be difficult to know when to trust yourself and when to trust your friends, but getting that balance is a big part of being in healthy relationships of all sorts. Romance is a very intimate and personal thing, and there are many parts of it that are best kept between you and your partner. If you’re unsure about something in your relationship then your first course of action should always be to communicate the problem with your partner. If you’re still stuck after that, then it’s important to have a solid friend or two who can give you a rational and honest opinion on what to do.

Those friends become even more important if you’re in a situation where you can’t express your feelings with your partner, or if it’s unsafe to do so. But at the centre of all of this is one question: what do you think? You’re friends and your partner love you and care about you, but they’re not you. They can’t read your mind. Be secure enough in your own mind so that you can take advice and opinions from around you without needing to depend on it to make a decision. You might be blinded by love, but you can still think for yourself.

Moral of the story, trust your friends as much as possible, but never lose sight of how you really feel yourself.