A Guy Reveals How We Act When We Hate Your Friends

In a perfect world, your friends and your boyfriend would get along famously. Unfortunately, that’s not always how it goes. There’s no guarantee that your guy will be fond of any or all of your crew. As a guy, I can tell you that we don’t always come out and say that we can’t stand your friends, especially early in the relationship. However, if we feel this way, we’ll likely do these things.

1. We say nothing. If a guy doesn’t like your friends, he just won’t bring them up. He won’t ask about them or invite them places or anything else. Actually, this is a guy being on his best behavior when it comes to his disdain for some or all of your friends. It makes sense, right? If you don’t like something, you don’t talk about it, and some of the better boyfriends will use this tactic when they hate their girlfriend’s friends.
2. We’re quiet around them. If we are forced to hang with them, we’ll suddenly have nothing to say. If your guy is a good guy, he might make a modest effort to interact with them, but it’ll be half-hearted at best. To be fair, if you’re dating a guy who’s particularly shy or socially awkward, he’ll also be quiet around your friends. But if he’s pretty extroverted and outgoing, a quiet boyfriend probably doesn’t like your friends.
3. We change the subject. Does your boyfriend ever change the subject when you bring up your friends? That’s probably not a coincidence. If he doesn’t like them, he doesn’t want to talk about them. He also doesn’t want to hear about them. If there’s the slightest pause, we’ll chime in with “What else is new?” in hopes that you’ll stop talking about your friends and move onto another topic.
4. We won’t invite them to hang. Guys can usually recognize that their girlfriend’s friends are important to her. Most of us aren’t that clueless. If your boyfriend is cool with your friends, he’ll have no problem suggesting that you invite them to tag along or hang out with you sometimes. It’s a nice gesture, right? If he’s never the first to suggest that, he probably doesn’t like spending time with your girls. He may not outright fight you on inviting them places, but he definitely won’t be the first to bring it up.
5. We can’t keep them straight. If a guy genuinely likes your friends, it won’t be a struggle getting to know them. If he has trouble keeping straight all of their names and basic information, it’s probably not an accident. He’s not trying to remember that stuff because he doesn’t care. Again, most of us aren’t that stupid; we can remember simple details about a few people. It’s more choosing not to remember because we don’t like your friends.
6. We make lame excuses. When your boyfriend hates your friends, he’ll look for any excuse to avoid spending time with them—and I do mean any excuse. At the first mention of friends that he doesn’t like, he’ll start trying to weasel his way out of being around them. If his excuse to get out of something sounds crazy, it’s not that he’s weird, he just doesn’t like your friends.
7. We nudge you away from them. OK, so most decent guys aren’t going to straight-up push you away from your friends. Of course, if you’re dating a jerk he might, but more decent guys will try to subtly nudge you away from them. We’ll look for unrelated ways to get you to stop spending so much time with them. They don’t always work, but if your boyfriend dislikes your friends, he’ll give it a try.
8. We compliment you at their expense. This is a rather sly move that guys sometimes use when we dislike our girlfriends’ friends. It’s easy to get away with because women love receiving compliments, right? We’ll simply compliment you while comparing you to one of your friends, implying that you’re so much better and above them. Our hope is that you’ll take the compliment at face value and not realize that we’re really trying to put down your friend. I’m not saying this is a smart move, I’m just saying that some guys do it.
9. We keep our friends away. Finally, if your boyfriend hates your friends, there will be no mixing of the two friend groups whatsoever. At a certain point, intermingling between friends and family of two people in a relationship is inevitable, but when a guy hates your friends, he’ll put it off as long as possible. After all, he doesn’t want his cool friends hanging out with your lame friends. If he stands in the way of getting everyone together, he’s either embarrassed by his own friends or he hates yours. Odds are, it’s the latter.