Stop Letting Your 'Friends' Shame You For Loving Your Relationship

By Kristen Bousquet

I’ve been in my fair share of relationships—mostly with assholes, but that’s beside the point. No matter how the relationships end, we all know how they start. You meet the guy, end up really falling for him, start to spend more time with him, and eventually make things official. All you want to do is talk him up to your friends and brag about how amazing he is.

In past relationships, I’ve had this “honeymoon phase” last no more than a few weeks (maybe I should have taken that as a big red flag, huh?). I did all the talking up and bragging to my friends in just a couple of weeks before they could really get sick of me.

In my current relationship, things are different. I want to show him off and make mention of him in every conversation even after months and months of being with him. No matter what we’re talking about, I find a way to squeeze him in because he’s always on my mind (don’t be mad, I’m sappy AF right now).

It wasn’t until just a couple weeks ago that I began to realize that most times, when I start talking about how awesome my boyfriend is, my single friends are very quick to change the subject.

I hadn’t really realized this and I would just go on talking about him (and probably annoying the shit out of anyone who was talking to me). But once I did being to realize that more of my conversations involved bringing him up than not, I started to feel guilty and began to limit the amount of boyfriend talk I’d have with my single friends. It started to make me feel like a bother every time I mentioned his name, but it was hard for me to hold back because there’s so many great things I wanted people to know about him.

After living like this for a few weeks and trying to hold back every time I had the urge to mention something related to him, it occurred to me that I should be able to talk about him as much as I damn well feel like talking about him, whether my friends are in a relationship or not.

I started to realize that the only people that were clearly annoyed by the mention of my relationship were those that weren’t in one of their own.

My friends that were in a relationship simply were able to fire back at my comments with “oh my gosh, mine does the same thing” or “oh man, I wish mine did that” while the single ones answered with “mhm” or “oh wow” with so much enthusiasm I couldn’t even handle it.

When I got this thought into my head, it wasn’t the realization that I should relax on boyfriend talk that bothered me; it was more the thought that these people were being shitty friends that was grinding my gears. I decided that if the friends I blabbed to weren’t happy enough for me that they could stomach my sappy boyfriend talk for a few minutes then maybe they weren’t my real friends at all.

Of course, when you have something amazing that one of your friends doesn’t, you should try not to rub it in her face. But on the other hand, you also shouldn’t have to completely leave something out of a conversation just because people’s jealousy is interfering with their ability to be happy for you.

I’m not trying to hurt any of my friends feelings by letting them know how lucky I am, but it’s hard not to talk about something 24/7 when you’re just so excited and happy about it. Imagine you get a new purse or a new lipstick. You’re going to show it off to every person who mentions anything related to it (or every person in general, really) because you’re really damn proud of it. That’s exactly how I feel about my boyfriend, and I’ll be gabbing about him probably until I’m old and gray and I know I’m not alone in feeling that way.

But this mindset goes for so many things, not just relationships. The way I see it, no one should ever feel like they have to apologize for being happy.

In the end, all that matters is that you are content with life, and anyone who has anything negative to say about your happiness doesn’t deserve to be part of your journey. As Gandhi said “I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.”