A perfect way to get out of a friendship with all your friends is simple. Get a girlfriend. I know this is not always the situation, but especially when you get older, being in a relationship becomes a hindrance on your mates. That, or your friends a hindrance on your relationship.
Here’s the deal. Your relationship is in the chase stage. Meaning you are pursuing her like there is no tomorrow. Taking every opportunity you can to spend with her. This is the first stage of you losing your bond with your mates. The average male in the chase stage finds that being around this female is an all consuming thought. You sleep thinking about her; you awake to think about her. You are virtually at her peck and call. Most likely she will have a date scheduled, and your mates will want you to hang out, creating a conflict. Except for those who normally put their relationships first most of us will be able to divide it more or less evenly, but this still means less time with your friends since before her, there was no division necessary.
Once past the chase stage and into the “honeymoon” stage of the relationship, she will all but take over your life. Now unless you find the “perfect girl” who will seamlessly integrate socially with your single friends you will find spending time with your friends comes second in all ways. The only thing you can do in this situation and be sure to keep those lines of contact with your mates alive. After all many of the social outings you could normally have with your friends you probably won’t be viable. The “honeymoon” stage is usually considered the best but you must not forget that it doesn’t last forever.
Which brings me to the critical point (or as I like to call it the “breaking point”) of the relationship. After the “honeymoon” stage, there is a grace period where things almost seem to get normal. You begin to spend your normal time with her. This means you’re usually living with her and see her on the non-event basis. You spend the nights together and you can go hang with the guys during the days. This can lead to many relationship breaking situations.
Most situations deal with the obvious counter between your life and that of your friends’. You see your friends bringing home different women, answering to no one, doing whatever they want. If you and your girl are beginning to fight more frequently you may begin to feel you can get better. Also the concept of maintaining your independence comes into play. This is especially valid when you live with the girl. You may begin to feel suffocated which will lead to ending the relationship to get back your freedom. Also the pressure to do something you don’t want to, again dealing with your “freedom”, is a factor; the biggest of these is the pressure of marriage. To many of us men, marriage is the jail sentence. So unless we feel this will be the best jail we can ever get, we will normally leave the relationship. There is also the dilemma of time division. Though now you live with your girl, she may feel that you don’t spend the time with her anymore. Which is valid and not. You most likely spend just as much time with her or more, but that time is not spent going out or anything. She may be reading a book while you play video games. This is where the common interests in a relationship really take hold. For if you can share in the everyday things that you love to do, you can keep the relationship going forever. But she may begin to feel you are spending too much time with your friend and not enough with her, unfortunately this usually makes you have to choose between her and your friends.
To get to my final point, of why being the odd man out hurts so much. Women feel that doing “couples things” is a great way to spend the time together. So when your friends are mostly single, a lot of your free time isn’t spent with them. While they are at the club picking up chicks, you’re at a dinner with John and Jane Doe talking about house troubles. Couples dates will always take priority with your girl, so you either have to get your single friends to settle down with someone, so you can all hang, or those friendships will wither away and die.
