Do Friends Dump You When They Date Someone New?

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For many of us, especially those falling in love for the first time, love is intoxicating and euphoric. We get to experience desire in all its messy forms and these feelings inevitably take priority over our less exciting but stable friendships. Sometimes this is a painful experience for friends who feel they have been left behind.

Growing up surrounded by stories of Princes and Princesses falling in “true love” will affect our understanding of love in the real world. Rom-coms and romance novels depict love as a destined force pulling two people together, as though they are magnets with no choice but to collide. Many of us grow up with this media as a model for our love lives, with movies, TV shows and stories telling us that “true loves kiss” will fix everything. 

Why is there so much pressure to find “the one”? In her book “all about love” critic and feminist bell hooks (lower letters intentional) has explored the inner loneliness that we experiences in a society that values romantic  and often heterosexual relationships over the the wider community. Bell hooks believes that we cannot grow as individuals without the support of our communities and chosen families, we attempt to escape this loneliness by absorbing ourselves into romantic relationships. 

As discussed, the media is a huge force in shaping how we perceive our relationships, we grew up surrounded by images of Snow white and Prince Charming, Cinderella and Prince Charming, Sleeping beauty and…look who it is… Prince Charming. 

Either one Prince has been very busy, or something else is happening in the media, a character has been repeated again and again, perpetuating expectations around masculinity and romance.The repetition of Prince Charming characters suggest that he is a trope. A trope is series of stereotypes that make up the foundation of a character. He’s courageous, strong and conventionally handsome, his key role in the movie is to save the day at the last minute. Prince Charming’s morals are never interrogated or held to question, we can fall in love with the idea of him and not his whole character. I think it’s easy to do something similar to our partners, especially in our early relationships. We can fall in love with the idea of someone, building something of a fairy tale in which we can escape our everyday lives. 

One movie that does an excellent job of challenging the Prince Charming trope is Shrek 2. We first meet Prince Charming as he gallantly crosses fiery terrain to save Princess Fiona with true loves kiss. The movie later reveals Prince Charming to be a vain and selfish villain, following the orders of his mother in order to obtain power. This version of Prince Charming helps to challenge the way he has been romanticised in classic fairy tales, exposing the flaws of a character who is designed to be the an attractive saviour. Prince Charming is the perfect villain for this movie, as he helps to challenge our cultural ideals of the perfect masculine hero, allowing a more flawed protagonist like Shrek to save the day.

Whilst Shrek is a romantic love story between Shrek and Fiona, the story would not be complete without the friends around them. It is the Iconic characters such as Donkey, Puss in Boots and the Gingerbread man that make Shrek's story what it is, they teach him to open up to outsiders and trust other people will accept him, in turn he accepts himself. Shrek's “happily ever after” is achieved through chosen family and self acceptance. 

The friendship between Donkey and Shrek is also key to the story, with Donkey’s jealousy and Shrek's resistance to intimacy being constant hurdles in their friendship. The movie normalises feelings like jealousy. Jealousy is a valid human (and donkey) emotion, we don't need to shame ourselves or others for that, what really counts is how to deal with those feelings. Initially, Donkey becomes angry, shouts and storms off, pushing Shrek further away, leaving the two besties isolated from each other, unable to communicate and process their negative feelings. Ultimately communication and understanding bring the two friends back together, and thats something we can adopt in our own lives. Telling your friends you miss them when they pull away into a new relationship and understanding why the pull to their romantic partner is so strong could helps to build friendship founded in honesty. 

A healthy relationship shouldn’t completely absorb someone, however most of the time our newly smitten friends will choose to re-distribute their time to invest in their partner, and that’s okay. For me, it’s important that my friends feel comfortable setting new boundaries and know I will respect them. This is an important aspect of developing trust in friendships. That being said, if someone is really choosing the sever their friendship with you in favour of a relationship, the kindest thing we can do for ourselves is let them go.  

If Donkey had stayed resentful towards Shrek, maybe he never would have opened his heart to Dragon, fallen in love and started his beautiful Donkey family. Friendships are never perfect, when there is jealousy and miscommunication, forgiveness is a useful tool. we learn to adapt around and in harmony with the new people that who our friends lives. We can also look towards our wider communities to access that lost feeling of support, or looking for ways we can support those around us.