Your Girlfriend Is Flirting With Your Best Friend. What Now?

Joe Mama writes:

Wanted to get your thoughts on: getting vibes that your gf and best buddy have sexual tension between them.

It’s almost as if they’d be a better fit for each other, it’s fucking with my mojo.

My working philosophy in matters of suspicions of cheating, or suspicions of potential cheating, is to go with your gut. If you feel a chest-tightening discomfort that a sexual vibe may be happening between your GF and your best friend, odds are pretty good it is happening.

There’s a reason many societies attempt to limit the exposure of wives to too many single men. Women’s hypergamy and sexuality don’t just turn off the moment a marital contract is signed, or a meaningful eye-gaze discussing dating exclusivity is shared. If your male friends are very alpha, very charming, and/or very flirtatious, especially relative to your own talents, then you are staring into the maw of an excited vagina aroused by the scent of cock in the water.

Alpha male friends (AMF) can be more fearsome sexual market competitors than alpha male strangers (AMOG). The comfort of acquaintance pacifies the female urge to caution, and an alpha male friend whose bond of loyalty is weak will pose a bigger threat than some random guy hitting on your girlfriend. A simulacrum of familiarity coupled with a constant state of self-enforced denial is rocket fuel for female fantasy.

Plus, think back to the ancestral environment, and realize that the norm for much of human history has been small tribes interacting only occasionally with outside tribes. In this environment, the men that women would most likely cheat with would know on some personal level the male partners of such women.

The wickedness of double disloyalty — from both your girlfriend and your best friend — can rend a man’s soul. I don’t have hard numbers at hand on the frequency of female cheating with males unknown to her primary partner versus males known to her primary partner, but I’d bet the latter happens just as often as the former.

Women, because they are just as duplicitous as men in their desire to cover their cheating tracks, will hesitate to get involved in any affair that has a high risk of exposing them. Ironically, affairs with male buddies can sometimes have a lower exposure risk than affairs with outside males, or at least be perceived as lower risk, because the male buddy has just as much incentive as the woman to keep a lid on things. A woman knows her boyfriend’s male friends better than she will know a dude she met on the train, and she understands that where incentives align, the particulars of affairs are more manageable.

Working against this exposure limiting incentive is the male friend who secretly loves your girlfriend, and will blow things up if he thinks an affair with her signals something deeper. For that reason, women are wary of trysts with male friends who don’t honor, as revealed through his professed feelings of love and yearning, the woman’s relationship with her boyfriend or husband.

Most times, women will resist the temptation of the alpha male friend. A woman who has invested much in a relationship will think twice before assuming a high risk cuckold maneuver that might destroy her investment. But it only takes one time, one magical night of heedless tingle, for years of virtue to dry up and blow away like tumbleweed. And for good reason: that one night could mean eighteen years of indentured servitude to a genetic impostor.

If there is a hint of sexual tension between your girlfriend and your best friend, you have to make a clear-eyed reappraisal of your relationship. Asking a few questions to yourself is a start.

1. Is her flirting harmless?

You can usually tell when a woman’s flirting is the playful self-boosting variety rather than the charged erotic variety. Women, and particularly good-looking women (one of life’s paradoxes), like to be reminded of their desirability, and flirting with other men is one way they fulfill that need. If it’s just an itch being scratched by a party girl poser, you’ll know by how lazily she flirts in front of you and by how quickly she rescinds her offer of flesh to rush back into your arms. If it’s genuine attraction, and the two of them are in your company, her contorted face will tell of her burgeoning guilt. A woman will not try to hide something of no consequence.

2. Is her flirting a jealousy ploy?

If it’s obvious she’s trying to make you jealous, that’s generally a good thing. It means she still loves you, but isn’t getting what she considers enough signs of commitment from you. I actually love it when girlfriends lamely and transparently flirt with other men in front of me, because it provides such a convenient way to lord my peen-cred over them by ambushing them with their own ham-fisted efforts.

3. Is she touching your friend, or herself, a lot?

It’s hard for a woman to consciously control her touch instinct in the presence of a man she desires. If you catch your GF placing her hand on your best friend’s forearm or shoulder more than once, you should be concerned. Same goes if she’s stroking her hair or caressing her face with her hands when talking with him.

4. Is she asking a few too many questions about your best friend?

This is a major tell. Doubly so if she tries to form her questions so that they sound like innocuous, spontaneous inquiries. “Hey, remember when you were telling me about Svengard’s trip to Italy? When’s he coming back? I bet he’d love to tell you all about it.”

5. Is she always offering to arrange co-ed events or nights out with your friends?

She wants to see him, but needs the cover of mixed company.

6. Are you having problems in your relationship?

Any sort of beta backsliding, or drifting apart, will push a girlfriend or wife into serious contemplation of competing market options. Luckily, you have an early warning sign at your disposal: the frequency and timing of sex. Be very wary if she stops fucking you during the ovulation part of her cycle.

If, after a careful answering of the above questions, you determine that the sexual chemistry you perceive between your girlfriend and your best friend is real, you have a number of choices.

– Call her out on it.

“I notice you flirt a lot with Tertullian. You think I don’t notice it? If we’re having problems, maybe we should part ways.”

– Tease her in front of him.

“Jesus, you’re blatant. You’re making Tiberius uncomfortable. I thought I was dating a nun, not a stripper.”

– AMOG your best friend.

“Hey, man, I think she’s into a threesome with you and me. I figure your pretty comfortable with a little accidental sword fighting.”

– Fuck with her head.

“Honey, I think Anfernee wants to sleep with you. It’s so obvious. I’m… sure you’ve noticed it.”

– Agree and amplify.

“Babe, the next time you flirt with Brantworth, try leaning in more, and licking your lips. I don’t think he’s getting the message.”

– Ignore it.

An aloof attitude won’t save your hide every time. You might successfully bluff her and she’ll run back to you to re-earn your love, or your inaction might seal your cuckolded fate. Much depends on the reactiveness of the chemistry your GF has with your best bud.

– Dump her.

Sexual chemistry is a powerful force. If you sense her infidelity is inevitable, get the jump on it and spare yourself the humiliation. If you’re married, make sure to collect evidence of her cheating before pulling the plug. You’ll need all the leverage you can get in divorce court.

Generally speaking, women will not cheat with your best friends unless one or both of the following criteria are met:

Your friend is significantly higher value than you are.

Sadly, female hypergamy can only be chained so long as it doesn’t grow too strong in the presence of a much higher value male. Your beloved will jump the bones of a Hollywood celebrity if given a real chance for it, no matter how much she sincerely loves you. And I suspect a lot of you tradcon loyal hubbies with visions of beatific virtue dancing in your heads would jam the hammer in Emma Stone’s toolbox if she backed up into you and breathlessly whispered her longing for your Biblical cock.

You have lost value within your relationship.

Relationships, barring compensatory game, tend to betafy even the rock hardest men. Time and familiarity and fairly predictable sex enervate the virile masculine essence.

Maxim #67: A man who has stopped seducing new women is a man who is becoming less seductive to his main woman.

When you become more beta, you are, in practice, raising the value of every other man your girlfriend or wife meets. Your best buddy Lil’ Petey starts to seem more like Peter the Great to your GF. Once you have turned to the beta side, even the most loyal, loving woman will begin to experience a reckless disregard for your feelings and a concomitant lessening of guilt when the prospect of sex with a more alpha man presents itself. Women are nothing if not masters at rationalizing away their malevolence when communion with alpha cock is on the altar of their womb cathedrals.

Preventative measures, then, are simple.

One, try as best you can to limit the amount of time that your girlfriend spends in the company of men higher status than yourself. You are playing with fire if your woman goes to work every day under an alpha boss. Now, obviously, certain realities prevent you from imposing the draconian limitations you would like and that would make a powerful dent in her ability and desire to cheat. But you can do little things. For instance, gently persuade your lover into work that is female-heavy, or run by women, or staffed with a lot of mediocre beta males. Or, get her knocked up fast, so she isn’t shunted into a lifestyle of peonage to an alpha male captain of industry. Or refuse to include her in your male buddy circle if you think some of your friends represent real sexual threats.

I can hear the baters now: “Waaah, you don’t think women have the willpower to say no to alpha males?!?”

Sure, I do. But willpower is conditional. The more her options increase, and the value of her options increases, the more malleable and fragile her willpower becomes. It’s a matter of removing excessive temptations from her life that might challenge her willpower. (Wives would be wise to keep to the same philosophy as concerns their husbands’ fidelity. It’s no wonder new wives move quickly to the suburbs, where atomistic single family homes and long commutes restrict the availability of young, nubile babes who would tempt their husbands.)

Two, avoid the betafying degeneration of long-term relationships. This means, in practice, keeping your flirting skills up to snuff by occasionally hitting on women other than your GF or wife. Game is not only useful for pickup, it’s useful for revitalizing the fading love brought on by predictability and familiarity.

If your girlfriend nags you a lot, and she’s hot enough to attract men of the caliber of famous actors, you may as well take her extrapair flirting as a message that she’s already serviced cocks other than your own. Don’t be surprised if that headache she has at the most inopportune times becomes a chronic condition.