What to do when your besties don’t like each other
This advice column is a public service by me, Kat Vellos, author of We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships. I’m a certified connection coach and have been facilitating community groups for almost twenty years. I regularly speak and lead workshops on the topics of adult friendship and cultivating healthy work teams. If you’d like to work with me, reach out on my booking contact form. If you have a question that you’d like answered in a future blog post or newsletter, instructions are at the bottom of this post.
Q: I have two best friends and I just found out that one doesn’t like the other to the point she doesn’t want to come to an event if the other friend is invited. At a holiday dinner party they both attended they may have rubbed each other wrong? They have maybe spent one night out at a bigger party. I don’t really understand the reasoning. We do different friend dates typically but on occasion both may be invited.
I don’t want to have to deal with this somehow—I don’t want to get in the middle. I am able to hang for a couple of hours with people I don’t particularly like… to celebrate with a friend. I don’t want to have to pick which bestie I invite to big friend parties…especially important ones like my daughter’s graduation party.
I love and enjoy them both. I feel like there may be an expectation to do something special and separate with the picky friend. I don’t want to maneuver or worry about it. What’s a friend to do? Any insight?
A: I’m glad you wrote in, because continuing to avoid the problem won’t make it go away. And sorry to break it to you, but as their mutual friend, you are automatically in the middle. The middle doesn’t have to be a muddle though.
Being in the middle of two friends who don’t get along is tricky, but doable, even in a case like this where one friend is mysteriously avoidant of the other.
As always, you have options. Some better than others! I listed them below in order from least effective to most effective.
For simplicity, let’s call Person A “Amy” and Person B “Betty.” In your situation:
Amy doesn’t like Betty to the point where Amy doesn’t want to come to an event if Betty is invited, and you don’t know or understand Amy’s reasons. Betty seems to feel fine about hanging around Amy.
🔴 Option 1: Don’t ask & change nothing
You keep inviting them to the same gatherings. Tell Amy that she’s welcome to attend or not, but that you won’t be able to plan a separate 1-on-1 hangout with her for each of the gatherings she declines. You learn nothing about what’s really going on between them. The problem remains unknown, unnamed, and unresolved. This is, obviously, not ideal.
🟡 Option 2: Don’t ask, but make Yes easier for Amy
You keep inviting them to the same gatherings, but offer to place Amy at a different table from Betty, or to introduce Amy to someone else at the party she’d enjoy spending time with. You learn nothing about what’s really going on between them. The problem remains unknown, unnamed, and unresolved, but maybe Amy will choose to attend more often. You get to avoid stepping into friend drama, but your friendships may suffer in the long term by letting an issue continue to fester.
🟢 Option 3: Take more responsibility as Host and middle bestie
If you’re committed to continue inviting both friends to the same gatherings where they’ll share space with you and each other, then you can step into your role of host more by looking after the comfort and wellbeing of your guests. This would require you to take more responsibility for your guests’ experience, by showing concern and curiosity about a rift that’s made itself evident.
It sounds like you perceive that something happened but you don’t know what it was or how serious it was. Depending on how serious it was, you might discover that you actually care a lot! But you won’t know if you don’t inquire and objectively try to understand where each person is coming from.
There’s a world of swirling possibilities worth considering, so let’s start with a mind-expanding warmup, shall we?
Maybe Amy & Betty had a tiny disagreement, the kind of thing that Betty is prone to shrug off easily and never worry about again, but which Amy feels mortally offended by. In this world, Amy also has a lower tolerance for disagreements, so Amy wants to avoid Betty forever after.
Maybe Betty obliviously said one or more seriously offensive things to Amy. Things that made Amy want to crawl out of her skin, while Betty smiled naively not realizing at all that she just insulted, hurt, or offended Amy. Betty might be shocked to discover that she hurt Amy, and might wish to earnestly apologize if given the opportunity. Amy may or may not desire to patch things up with Betty, but hopefully Amy’s at least willing to tell you why she wants to avoid Betty so badly.
Maybe Amy feels jealous seeing you being close to your other bestie, Betty. She doesn’t know how to cope with those feelings, so she irrationally dislikes Betty, and is trying to avoid that pain by avoiding being around Betty and you at the same time.
Maybe Amy can’t handle being around Betty because Betty is drenched in perfume that gives Amy humongous headaches anytime she’s within 4 feet of Betty. Or maybe Amy just can’t stand Betty’s voice/laugh/sense of humor/worldview/etc.
… or if could be something completely different! We have no idea! It’s hard to make informed choices when, well, we lack the information.
To step up more in your role as host, I suggest that you ask each person to chat with you 1-on-1, preferably in person or over the phone — not text or email, where it’s too easy for misunderstandings to get blown out of proportion.
Ask Amy:
“Hi Amy. I’m trying to get a handle on how I should handle guest lists at my future events and gatherings. I’d like to better understand what’s going on for you, related to the space you want from Betty. I understand that you don’t want to hang out with her, and that you don’t want to come around if you know that she’ll be there. I’m confused by this and I want to understand your feelings more. Are you open to telling me a little more about why you feel that way?”
Ask Betty (who may or may not know how Amy feels about them)
“Hi Betty. I’m trying to get a handle on how I should handle guest lists at my future events and gatherings, and I want to check in with you about something because I sense that there’s a bit of distance between you and Amy. How do you feel about spending time around Amy, and how do you feel about the interactions you’ve had in the past?”
With more context and information, your guest list decision-making will get easier. But you won’t know unless you have the courage to ask for that conversation. Whether the reason for the rift is something you consider picky and ridiculous — or serious and egregious — what you uncover will make your own invitation choices clearer and less complicated in the future.
If both people want to bridge the gap, you might discover that the temporary discomfort of bringing them together for a clearing-the-air conversation is worth it for the long-term ease it would offer all future gatherings.
But if one or both of them don’t wish to be closer, don’t force it. If a person doesn’t want to hang out with someone, they don’t have to. People are allowed to choose their own friends, and they’re allowed to not choose each other, even though they each choose you.
Hope that helps. ❤️
XO,
Kat Vellos, author of We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships
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