How do I repair a relationship with my best friend?

[lillie114]

I’m 19, and recently made a mistake that made my best friend mad at me. We had a date dance for our sorority and she set me and my date up, mostly just because he wanted to go and I didn’t have a date. She had sex with him previously, but she has sex with a lot guys and his best friend is her main fuck buddy. We talked about how it would be weird if I would have sex with him and I decided I wasn’t going to sleep with him. Well, one thing led to another and I ended up having sex with him. He explained to me that when him and my best friend had sex he was black out drunk and it didn’t mean anything. The next morning I told her and she said she was only mad because they made a bet on me sleeping with him and she lost $20. Now she’s saying that she’s actually mad because I slept with him when she said not to and she wants me to apologize.

Ive told her that I really feel bad for doing it and I shouldnt have. I don’t know how to tell her sorry and make it sound sincere and not childish. I really truly thought that she wouldn’t have a problem besides it being kind of weird like we talked about. I know she does not have feelings for him because she sleeps around with multiple people a night and he was just another one added to her list. I originally was going to just give her space and time to get over it, but then she told me I need to apologize. Im having trouble wording my apology because I would not be extremely upset if I had a one night stand and then a month later she slept with that same dude. The only thing I’m actually sorry about is making her mad at me. What should I tell her to hopefully begin to smooth over this situation?

[Sam W]

Hi Lillie,

It sounds like there are a few different things going on here. First off, can you clarify for me if she ever actually asked you not to sleep with him? Because it sounds more like you two had a conversation about how that would be weird and you probably wouldn't, not a conversation where she made a specific ask (as an aside, if she and this guy actually did have a bet going as to whether you'd end up being sexual with him, that's actually not a cool thing for a friend to do.)

It may also help to, at the very least, own the choice you and he made to be sexual together. Right now it sounds like you're framing this as something that just happened because one thing led to another, rather than as something you decided you wanted to do. Reframing it in your head that way might help you decide if you want to apologize at all and, if you do, how you want to present that apology. Does that make sense?

Too, if you have more conversations with your friend about this, I'd be careful to not imply that because your friend has multiple, casual partners, that she might not have feelings for them. Casual relationships involve feelings of some kind (even if those feelings are solely "I like you, am attracted to you, and trust you enough to be sexual with you"), and sometimes those feelings are more complex than one or both people expected them to be. This article does a really good job explaining that in more detail: Casual...Cool? Making Choices About Casual Sex .