pyschology of the "third wheel"**** (a secret assault/analysis of my friendship with zack and his girlfriend)

My take on the stale-triangle- friendship between myself, zack, and his girlfriend:

reading one of freud's works, "sexuality and the psychology of love," some things have come to my attention that help me better understand the "third wheel" situation in a friendship.

that is, the relationship of 2 male friends (that are straight) where one of the males is involved in a serious (sexually active) long-term relationship, while the other male is single. for the sake of easily identifying the males, we will call male A (with the girlfriend) "zack" and male B (alone) "matt".

zack and his girlfriend tend to encourage matt to spend time with them, despite the realistic restraints (of a monogomous relationship) involved. these limits are as such: whenever "matt" is around, "zack" and his girlfriend will be unable to have sex-- save for a very erotic drug-induced night (where they, for some reason, would want matt to watch). the three of them will be unable to fully enjoy things that just a pair of them normally would (with matt and zack, for example, playing videogames-- this would quickly bore the girl and make her feel left out.) (yes, it would.) most likely both the girl and zack will have less fun doing things as a trio with matt, than individually or paired. with that said, both "zack" and his "girlfriend" will more than likely invite "matt" (alone) to hang out with them on a large-scale basis. why is this?

my first thought was that zack and his girlfriend were trying to cheer matt up by spending more time with him, to help him feel less alone.

but this cannot be further from the truth--

their company could only remind him of his loneliness that much more. hanging out together as a trio could only force matt to come to grips with what he doesn't have. it would do anything but cheer him up. AND, ** if they were really trying to cheer matt up... if they were really the "friends" they claim to be... they would diligently attempt to find an attractive girl that could be paired with him (his girlfriend, among her friends-- zack, researching clubs and bars). **

i would assume that the majority of "zack"'s and "girlfriends" out there are not stupid-- they know this.

so then why invite matt? why tell matt that "you're all friends," yet not even make the most remote attempt to help -him- find a girlfriend?

the pretense of hanging out... "to have fun, to cheer matt up, to enjoy life," is directly opposite to the reality of what actually happens. zack and his girlfriend say one thing, yet do another.

ZACK AND HIS GIRLFRIEND,

they only live for themselves, they only care about themselves. and i completely understand-- that's what they should do. i don't feel any hostility towards them about that. hell, i can't guarantee i wouldn't be as care-free as them in their position... i mean, who says anyone has to care about how happy their friends are?

i wouldn't care if someone accused me of not being a good friend to them-- i'd already have a hot girlfriend that made me happy.

[ you might be tempted to think that i'm being subtle; that i'm insulting them. that i'm saying they "aren't good friends." that i'm being sarcastic. i'm not-- i'm being direct. the difference is that i already know i'm not that good of a friend, and that given the same situation, and though i cannot predict the future, i wouldn't be surprised if i acted the same way myself. that's all i'm saying. ]

but they -would- care... if they were ever accused of such a thing.

ZACK WOULD SHRUG AND LISTEN:

zack, who has found an outlet for love and someone to obsess over for his happyness-- he would argue that he does care, but that he cannot do anything to help me, that i have to find love "on my own." he will say that is what he did.

but it's not what he did.

zack would never have met his girlfriend if not for me-- for he met her at a club... and it was me who was the primary force of motivation behind going out that night. it was me who was aggressive in wanting to go out more than we already did, and who pushed to go out to the bars and clubs the nights that we did go. if not for me, his friend, he never would have even had the opportunity to meet his now -love of his life- girlfriend. i understand that all i did was allow the slight possibility, no, the littlest 1% chance, of them falling for each other. i know that he was the one who got

her and who ultimately deserved her. but if it wasn't for me, he never would've got her-- for how can you get a girl you've never met?

and my gain out of his happiness? i forget if there even was one-maybe just the polite acknowledgement that he deserved to feel happy. that's not really much of a gain though. the only thing that happened was he -greatly diminished- going out with me, to the point that i had to go out alone while i was still living near him. the times he did go out, i would have mixed feelings of forcing or guilting him into it, since he always couldn't wait to get back to his already-found girlfriend. the time we spent playing videogames, talking on the phone, watching tv together, talking about our theories of how there's "always something you could've done differently to make it work" , it disappeared entirely. i lost my friend.

and the worst part about losing him-- that i have no one to blame but myself.

there's no one i can be angry at. it's not his girlfriend's fault that he stopped being a real friend. in fact, and while she doesn't mention it, i'm sure she encourages him to talk to me more and try and go out with me. but i have mixed feelings about her meager attempts to be kind-- if she really wanted to be kind, she'd do what i already said above-- ask around her social circle to arrange for a girl to get to know me. the only thing she did was try and arrange her overweight friend to go out with zack's overweight cousin-- i'm not sure what her thinking was behind this. apparently she thought two fat people belong together, or something along those lines. getting those 2 large people together took up her priorities more than helping me. ironically, it ended up not working (as i had, like a psychic, predicted early on), and so the only thing that came out of it was 2 fat people who are now a little more depressed than usual. congratulations

okay, maybe a little hostility there. but it's only because of what zack said one night. "yeah, my girlfriend has a best friend she always talks about, and i always talk about you, and she was saying how you guys would probably

be perfect for each other." zack might think i forgot about that... or maybe i think he did. i wouldn't be surprised if both of us were wrong. it's a sort of strange, unspoken tension now. i understand that the girl was fat and i would have ultimately rejected her...but what makes me hostile is the deception in what zack said, vs what he actually did. what he did was support his overweight cousin getting first dibs on rejecting or accepting the round beast, and that is what i don't like. even if he did nothing, it would have been better than hanging out as a set of two couples, which to me was a sort of backstabbing.

**

i know i would have rejected the fat girl. there isn't really much of a point to being angry about it. i guess logic and feelings don't go hand in hand. i can't help but feel cheated out of something i was promised. i wasn't promised the girl, but i -was- promised the opportunity, and it wasn't delivered. the opportunity that i helped give zack, was not given to me in return. it was given to someone who wasn't even a real friend to zack, someone that didn't deserve it. that is what i feel cheated about.

**

HIS GIRLFRIEND WOULD DENY the accusation of "not really being my friend, not really trying to help me," WITH A CALM, SUBTLE, ANGER, THAT, TO HER, FEELS LIKE RIGHTEOUS JUSTICE, AND THAT I'M WELCOME TO BELIEVE WHATEVER I WANT.

Unfortunately for her, i would rip the sword of righteous justice out from under her decorated armor, mainly due to her weak grip. You can't fight for something you don't really believe in-- well you can, but you probably won't fight well.

I'm not trying to be poetic. The point I have is that I can see through her. She is a girl that I can't ever be angry at-- that I can never blame, never accuse of any intended harm, at least when it comes to me. WIth that said, she is also a girl who wants to believe she's happy, and wants to believe she makes other people happy, even if it's not true. And this is where I strike-- at her stomach-- and knock the wind out of her. It's difficult for someone to really be happy. Especially for you, if you happen to be the girl reading this. You cannot appreciate my feelings-- to understand another's feelings (with any accuracy) one has to have sex with them. Therefore you only understand Zack, and you understand him so well that you become afraid... afraid... that one day.... he will understand you as well.

death-- the elephant in the room

the death of someone you really love; it's the thing that can ruin your senses. it can make your eyes suffer the worst tunnel vision... make your ears deaf to what isn't said. it can cause you to speak with the voice of an actress; always pretending... even when there's no audience.

are you still playing the role of a naiive, happy girlfriend, whose slowly getting over the pain of /her/ suicide?

well, if you are, i'm a harsh critic.

there is no getting over that kind of pain. as for having a hard time with what happened... i don't think your acting. at least not when it comes to -that-. that's a part of you that i truly believe is real-- and only because i sense that familiar presence of misery when you talk about it. but i'm not going to be overly-dramatic; show any empathy, any sympathy. the reason i'm not is because i don't understand your pain, so i'm not going to pretend i feel bad. it's only natural that i have a desire to be real when someone else is real. when it comes to death, i believe we both have that in common-- that we rather admit what's real 1000x more than any sort of "sorry for your loss" or bland sympathetic paragraphs. do i understand death? maybe-- i believe a failed relationship is death in its

own way...all of my grandparents are dead.... even zacks grandparents are dead (and i wasn't even told about it when it happened, despite truly loving his grandfather)... my mother is hopefully dead.... my dogs are dead... my cat is dead... death-- surrounded by death. how do i feel about the death of zack's grandfather? i don't really feel much of anything. i really loved him, i called him my "master." you can ask zack about how much i respected him-- how we were his disciples for several months, always working out and training almost every day. i would show up to visit him even more than zack at the time.

but i don't understand -your- death, and that's all that matters.

to me death isn't something i can cry about-- it doesn't move me anymore. death is death. final. permanent. forever.

there's no reason to be dramatic about it, to be traumatized. is it what the dead would want? maybe my mother, but that's about it. no, i'm pretty sure that would be the last thing they'd want-- and although i might feel the cringe of pain when i think of the happy times with zack's grandfather-- i won't let myself make his death dramatic. i won't make it something glorious, something everyone should "hush" about and get all quiet and dark. i won't talk about his death in a way which causes that "intense serious face" people tend to have when they go to a funeral. even at the funeral, i wouldn't let myself wear that grave, solemn expression that i've always felt is strangely artificial.

the point of prefacing my assault with death is because i won't let zack's girlfriend use it as a shield. before the death, and even after-- being a good friend shouldn't change. don't call yourself someone's friend if you aren't capable of being their friend. i hate liars. actions are always something i've believed in a lot more than words.

so MOVING ON;

Zack's girlfriend talks about how she is my friend, or how she tries to be, or how she wants to be, or how she really does care about me and finding happiness. then, my question is;

"if you're really my friend, if you really care-- why won't you help me? what excuse can you possibly have for not even trying?"

TO ZACK AND HIS GIRLFRIEND:

have your senses been so dulled that you can't even feel the truth behind what i say anymore? that you've focused so much on -defense- you rather attack me with hostile excuses than really stop and think if what i say has any value? whether or not it's just the jealous anger of a lonely friend? or, just maybe... there's some chilling truth deep underneath-- that maybe, just maybe...

****

being a good friend involves more than just listening or talking. being a good friend involves doing things for your friend-- things that will actually lead to long-term happiness, things other than mindlessly hanging out.

being a good friend means that you make real attempts at helping your friend, that if you go to a bar, you encourage him to approach girls. that if you go to a concert, you

make sure he's doing more than watching the band. that if you see your girlfriend has attractive friends, you try to persuade her into pairing them with friend. -your-

being a good friend means you do things, and you do them well. you can't do everything, but you can at least give your friend the opportunity you know he would give you, or maybe HAS given you, in the past. being a good friend means you try more than you make excuses.

do i still have a good friend?

****

--- older reasoning, previously written, saved for the memory of writing it---

-theory of WHY THEY -really- want to hang out with me--

among his research as a psychoanalyst, freud claimed one of the specific qualities men wanted in a perfect girlfriend was a "loose" woman (ranging from harmless verbal flirtations with other men, to outright having sex

with them)-- and based this idea on how men, during their childhood, at some point compare their mother to a prostitute as one of their first psychological fantasies. because it is so unlike the idea of someone's virtuous mother, it makes the "prostitute" image so pleasurable. in today's terms i think i would phrase it better by saying that men want a "woman that is openly desired by other men", for similar reasons and because it enhances and reassures them of her attractiveness. going back to the "third wheel" situation, this fits in snugly.

zack and his girlfriend want matt as a "loose" woman quality.

SAFE

PIVOT

to the

what do i mean by this?

i mean that zack secretly WANTS his girlfriend to flirt with matt. but because matt is his BEST FRIEND, he feels SAFE that matt will not ACT on any of these flirtations. any playfulness between the two-- while obvious flirting in some form-- is relatively harlmess to zack, who is eased in proportion to the strength of his friendship, that matt would never engage (or try to engage) in any sexual activity with the girl. it would be considered a "betrayal" among friends to do something like that. zack artificially turns his girlfriend into that "loose" woman freud described...but does so in a safe manner that does not endanger her actual faithfulness (assuming the friendship is a truly strong one). the girl, on the other hand, secretly WANTS to feel free to flirt with other guys and have the freedom to be sexually playful with them, without being limited by her relationship. what better way to get this repressed "prison" idea out of her system than by playfully flirting with zack's best friend? zack approves of it and she is free to do almost anything besides outright sexual behavior. thus she gains artificial freedom and imaginary reassurance that her relationship is a non-limiting one.

both of the offenders (zack and the girl), gain a reminder that they HAVE SOMETHING VALUABLE, as they see the loneliness that surrounds matt as a COMPARISON to WHAT THEY COULD BE LIKE if they did not have each other. thus, they feel BETTER by surrounding them with someone who DOES NOT HAVE WHAT THEY HAVE and want that reminder and feeling as

much as possible-- with the double edged sword of believing that they are being "nice" and "cheering matt up" by going out of their way and spending time with him....time that could be spent in sexual acts with each other. it is almost like a SACRIFICE for someone WORSE OFF, and by doing this they put an artificial LIMIT on the time they have ALONE with each other-- making sex later on that much more INTENSE AND PLEASURABLE. if they could have sex all day long, it might eventually become less gratifying due to the ease of availability. it's the "limit of time" they add that makes the sex later-- as well as their relationship as a whole-- that much more valuable to them.