How much can a girlfriend or a wife touch her male friends?

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The lady I’m sitting next to right now is stunningly beautiful. We’ve known each other for a few years now. In those years we’ve dated, fought, made up, went from friends to more than friends and back again.

Neither of us has this weird American proclivity of completely cutting off contact with each other just because we’ve decided there’s no way we could make it. We care deeply for each other and try to support each other, but we’re not together right now.

If one of us were to find a boyfriend / girlfriend, we’d respect each other’s relationship, but wouldn’t let our relationship get in the way of our friendship. We’ve talked about this many times. Whoever we end up with, if it’s not each other, will have to find a way to be comfortable with this other person.

We are both very agreeable, easy-to-get-along-with people. We don’t get jealous of each other’s extra-curricular activities. We don’t really get along with jealous people. I would sooner dump a girl than give up my friendship. I hear from her all the time about guys that get really amped up whenever she drops my name into a conversation.

You never meet another person in a total social vacuum. We want to believe that we are the most important person in a new lover’s life, but the reality is it takes years to get there. Dating for really attractive people really sucks sometimes. You can’t have regular friends. Jealousy is always getting in the way.

Eventually the jealous fall away and the beautiful person learns to recognize them and not entertain their advances anymore. The people that are bigger than that nonsense are left. Those are the people that have a shot at long-term happiness with a truly-wonderful person.

If I were you, I’d talk with the girlfriend about her friendship with this guy. Ask how they met and what their history is like. Try not to be judgmental and realize that this beautiful lady had a life before she met you, and this makes her more wonderful and not less.