have you ever made a decision to try your best to break up a relationship?

xpost

A) Do you know the other person involved in this situation as well? If the significant other is also a friend of yours, you're a total shitbag.
B) Have you done this once? Twice? Three times? Etc. The more times you've done this, the more likely it is that it's not necessarily just the object of affection that has your fancy and if s/he was single to start with, you might not have been so interested--this means something.
C) If they're giving you "signals" though (this is something that needs to be defined, btw--one person's "signal" is another's "being nice") they probably aren't really that into their S.O. and you aren't really any worse than anyone else in the world providing A & B are not the case.

I had a one-night stand with a friend who was in a relationship and basically it was the only time I've ever even had thoughts of doing it and yeah obviously they were having some problems in their relationship themself. But A totally applied and I still can't even fathom looking the other friend in the face, two years later. Totally awful.

YMMV etc.

Yes. This is the cardinal rule. This is also why I make a special effort to at least meet and hang out with my girlfriend's friends, most of whom are men, and certainly some of whom have thought dirty thoughts about her. Which is fine, as long as they know I am also a real person, not just the boyfriend.

So I think yeah Ally's advice is good, but remember, as soon as she's not going out with someone that's when the real pressure begins, no excuses then, and you can't just sit back and flirt etc so easily, if you actually want a relationship with her.

You should not do this but if you do not know the other person and there are signals then worse shit has probably happened.

x-post Ronan now is LONG GAME CRUNCH TIME

this sorta implies that you could know the guy, and then go through a process of un-knowing him, to make it ok. i like this idea!

I think this needs to be narrowed down to 'do you like the other person involved/do they consider you a friend?'. breaking up the relationship of someone you dislike is perfectly OK!

(nb neither was the case in my situation: I did meet the boyfriend briefly after the affair was over and kind of thought 'haha I see why you were bored of him and wanted me')

a) nope, don't know him at all. have only inferred his existence by hearing him referred to in a conversation i happened to walk in on. not a total shitbag, then, perhaps.

b) have never done it before. have thought about it a couple of times, in cases i'd like to think of as exceptional, but have never come close to acting on it. unavailability sometimes leads to an increase in fantasies involving the imagined perfection of an impossible relationship (plus and occasional pining), but for the most part involvedness is usually a big-turn off.

c)'signals' still mild-ish so far - a pleasant day spent with her where we covered everything from sushi to the jobs of our parents without mention of a boyfriend, a very eager (though ultimately unacted upon, it is perhaps worth noting) offer to accompany me to a party (at the time i still didn't know about the significant [?] other, btw) and a few text messages that i've received since starting this thread about liking the music i played in my car and an offer to make me a mix. i'd have to be a little more convinced before i tried anything, but historically i'm not one to assume signals where there are none (if anything, the reverse).

thinking it's okay to fuck over people so long as you don't know them make s the world a shittier place to be.

sigh. The point is not that it's "ok" to do this if you don't know the person, the point is that if the other person is someone you know and are friendly with then you are a complete lunatic who doesn't deserve to have any friends, at all, in the world. Capiche? It's not "ok" to have affairs (note: I am not using the term "break up a relationship" because no one in the history of the world has ever managed to do this; a good, stable relationship would not break up on the grounds of an external person crushing on one of the couple) but if yr doing it/trying to do it with your bud's girl, that makes you a far lower example of a human being than I can imagine.

dan, if anyone thought that statement was a personal attack, then they're far too touchy.

Huh huh huh you said "Dan" and "touchy" in the same sentence, heh heh heh wink wink nudge nudge.

i do worry that my longstanding relationshiplessness (perhaps i should say physical-companionshipness) is leading me to reimagine what was previously a nice daydream as some epic conquest for the unattainable. i do think i might be guilty of that this time.

the thread title is really a little too malicious-sounding though. in fact, i really doubt that this is something i'll do anything about until i get some real clarity from her.

-- Ronan

That is what was said. I don't know how I misinterpreted that rather obtuse, comples statement. If he didn't mean, by that, that it was okay so long as you didn't know the other guy/girl, or if he was being toungue-in-cheek, then my comment didn't apply to him.