What To Do When Your Friend Is Dating A Loser

Well, here it is. It happened to your amazing friend who is that perfect combination of charming, smart, funny, and attractive — essentially every Katherine Heigl character, if Katherine Heigl were even remotely likable. She somehow found herself, despite all of the options before her and wonderful things she deserves, with the anthropomorphic version of a cold sore. You’ve tried over and over to like this dude, but you’re not a wizard and frankly, fake conversations with friends’ significant others are the stuff of nightmares. There’s only so much you can do, and you’ve just about expended all your stored up “let’s get along” energy. You’re about ready to just tell her, straight up, that this guy should be excised from her life with a scalpel or, if possible, a blowtorch.

But not so fast! Because as we all know, a serious talk with even the most reasonable of friends about why their suitor should be dumped into the nearest river covered in bricks — in so many words — will only end in offense and miscommunication. She looooooves him, and there is no fault or indiscretion too severe to excuse.

“Oh, when he didn’t show up to that double date, he was really sick! Taco Bell was discontinuing the Cheesy Gordita Crunch again and he needed to stock up on them that afternoon.”

“Sure, he didn’t go to my birthday, but it was the playoffs and he’s the only one of his friends with a decent face painting kit. Remember what happened when they tried to use spray paint?”

“Yeah, I know he can be kind of flaky, but he’s had mono, like, six times this year.”

Et cetera, et cetera.

So the “adult conversation” route is one to avoid. But how are you supposed to accept that you’ll just never see this friend for the foreseeable future, and on the rare occasions you do, have to share her with a guy who once discovered there were ashes in his beer and continued to drink the entire thing? You can’t. The friendship would suffer severely, and it’s clearly going to be at least eight more months until his cheating becomes too obvious to ignore, or he accidentally sets her apartment on fire. So much could happen in eight months — you must act now, and quickly.

So what to do?

The next time you’re left awkwardly in the corner of a party having to socialize with the monstrosity, pull him aside and say, with all the sincerity and hushed excitement you can muster:

“Wow, things are working so well between you guys. It’s so incredible how close you have gotten — she’s really in love with you. Actually, don’t tell her I said this, but the other day she was talking about how excited she was to finally be able to start planning her future with someone. You should see some of the destination weddings she’s been talking about.”

And then scurry off into the night. Floundering, inconsistent, commitment-phobe douchebag will have met his only kryptonite — the prospect of a girl who really loves him and wants to make things serious. He will suddenly reveal his true colors, he will be that insane-dancing-electric-blue-smiley-face-bird-from-Planet-Earth, except instead of the rainforest, he lives in a dirty one-bedroom with two other enormous tools.

Sure, your friend might be temporarily mad at you — but as we all know, given a little time and space, we all eventually see the huge losers for what they really were, post-relationship. There will eventually come a moment where, over a glass of champagne (because you are both extremely classy), she’ll tell you how you totally saved her from what could have been the biggest waste of time of her life. She’ll also probably mention how terrible he was in bed at this point. In any case, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you did something truly worthwhile and prevented Toolbro the Lionhearted from taking up any more of her precious youth. But be humble about your achievements; no one likes a gloater.

Satisfaction Guaranteed.