A long time ago my friend was caught playing away by his girlfriend. More precisely, a mistress that was unknown to any of his immediate circle discovered that he had being seeing another girl, who was known to all as his girlfriend. How the little lathario managed to juggle the demands of two women for two years remains a mystery to me but I also have a little of that awe-struck respect for him coursing through my veins even now. I had a little of that ‘Wayne’s World’ “we’re not worthy!” about me for a long time afterwards.

At the time that the mistress, who considered herself to be girlfriend wronged by his having been playing away with a mistress (confused?) lost the plot. The response was bunny boiling of the worst possible sort. I first learned of these events and the fact that he had been seeing her and that the girl we knew was considered by her to be the mistress when I received a breathless call from my friend asking me to go online without delay and delete his Facebook account. Evidently, she had threatened to use this double edge sword to publish something about him which he preferred to keep secret. When I called him later to ask how things were going, he regailed the story of this woman’s threats to contact his employer and tell them what kind of person he was.

Given that she had introduced herself to me on Facebook and made all kinds of odd statements about her relationship with him and asked me all kinds of things that I felt were inappropriate to mention to someone you don’t know and have never met, I totally believed that she was the sort to really call his employer. I was informed by him that she had also called him at all hours of the night and that on several occasions since their split she had compelled him to spend the night with her. She was losing the plot without him and could not sleep at night. She was coming unhinged.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I consider involving family or employers of a person, no matter how badly you feel you have been treated (short of dangerous or criminal activity) to be totally beyond the pale. It’s not cricket to involve others and most people, even when feeling so betrayed by such bastardly behaviour as she had suffered, would know this and not threaten it. I have dealt with mentally ill patients on many occasions and my assessment of her behaviour was that she was showing signs of being mentally unwell, beyond reason and normality. I felt for her, but my loyalty was to my friend and no matter how he’d behaved, he didn’t deserve the millstone of a psycho ruining his life.

So, adopting the typical male approach to a problem, i.e. providing a solution, I advised my friend in no uncertain terms that he should delete her from his life, both figuratively and in practice. Do it without delay, I told him, and do it clinically or you’ll regret it. Starve her of the oxygen of publicity. After all, we were now dealing with an emotional terrorist. A quick kill of their relationship would ultimately be a much more humane way of escaping than the false hopes and mixed messages inherent responding to her emotional needs.

It is the outcome of this advice that has prompted me to write this blog today. On a subsequent call my mate advised me that they were making a go of it. My foot was well and truly in my mouth!

Having not had much to do with them for a while, a mediating friend in common organised a party and we met for the first time since this fracas had occurred. I approached this with an open mind. Perhaps I had been too quick to judge. Perhaps my cold and clinical approach had been too harsh and too soon for both of them.

The thing is, no matter how I tried to be charitable about her in my party appraisal, I could not understand why he was with her. She seemed to be in a depressive phase of bipolar disorder. She saw no humour in anything, was quiet and reserved. In short, she was nothing like his previous girlfriends. Why oh why was he with her?!

Considering this question on the journey home it suddenly dawned on me what might have happened.

Being a good looking guy my mate has never had any trouble picking up beautiful and desirable girls, but his temper for a woman’s temperament is short and he has always either been caught playing away and been dumped by them or done the dumping himself before too long. The thing is, these girls, being feisty, vivacious and attractive have also been able to hold their heads high, strike out on their own and recover quickly from the experience of seeing him. In sort, they have told him to fuck off and then moved on.

So my friend, who is a sensitive artistic type, has never had to deal with the emotional blackmail of a jilted and hurt girl. Not for long anyway...

But remember how he had answered to this one’s calls in the middle of the night and bent to her pleas. He did not have the essential tool in his social survival kit, the ability to switch off empathy and look after number one. His conscience was keeping him in a situation he was clearly unhappy in.

I figured that his relationship was a bit like my work situation. The more he struggled the deeper in the shit he found himself. I think perhaps he has convinced himself that he really wants to drown in the emotional quicksand because he has no idea how to get out of it.

I too have no clue, but I'm still struggling! Who is wiser? You tell me...