I just recently did an interesting radio interview about a tricky dilemma. What do you do if you’ve snogged your best friend’s boyfriend? Which you could easily turn around to - what do you do when you’ve snogged your best friend’s girlfriend?
Now I have to say I took a pragmatic approach. You’ve grazed the rocks, but you haven’t sunk the ship. You’ve crossed the line, but it’s not red card material. Let’s face it, too much booze and we can all do something we will seriously regret in the morning.
My advice was that if this was the first time, that if it was a drunken fumble, that it should be embarrassingly left under the carpet. Let sleeping dogs lie.
Now it’s a completely different matter if you are in love with, or slept with their other half. Then the ship has truly sailed and you need to admit guilt as soon as possible (I bet someone is going to moan about all my clichés and nautical metaphors, but hey, I’ll take that on the chin) – hiding something like that is just going to make it infinitely worse.
All the callers violently disagreed. They called for the person to fess up. Immediately. That they had made their bed so they had to sleep in it. That is was the thin edge of the wedge which would inevitably lead to more. But that’s all very well standing from the sidelines.
For a moment step into your best friend’s shoes – finding out that you have been betrayed by the two people you perhaps trust most in the world. That is a big punch in the guts over a drunken snog. Would you really be fessing up just to assuage your own guilt? Or really would you have your best friend’s interests at heart?
Once trust is broken it is almost impossible to fix. Every time you are alone with his girl your best friend is going to wondering if you are at it again. They will never look at you, or her in the same way again.
So what do you reckon? The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Or perhaps a tactical omission?
