The Friend I Should’ve Judged

We talk a lot about judging too harshly. But what happens when you don’t judge someone enough - until it’s too late?

Helen* spun round on her swivel chair to face me, excitement flashing in her eyes. She had a secret, and it was quite literally about to burst out of her. I leaned closer and huddled up with her behind our computer screens, ready to hear what mischief she’d been up to. She whispered, “You know Tim Webb* in Admin? I kissed him at the summer party and his girlfriend found out.”

As she giggled, my jaw dropped. “What?!” I whispered back, unsure of how to respond. This wasn’t uncommon for Helen. Kissing or sleeping with men in relationships was always her thing. I knew it was wrong, but I never knew what to say in response. Instead, I simply listened to her story and bit my tongue. Little did I know, she’d already kissed my boyfriend a few weeks prior, and she’d go on to sleep with him a month or so later. They’d then continue an emotional affair while Helen would say things to me like, “You and Josh* are so in love - it makes me sick!” and “You don’t have a problem with me and Josh being friends, do you?” She knew full well what she was up to. I think she subconsciously said those things to me for two reasons: To signal something was going on between them and because she enjoyed pulling the wool over my eyes.

I know it was my boyfriend’s duty to resist her advances, but that doesn’t change the fact I had so many opportunities to call her out for her behaviour. Plus, my story isn’t an isolated incident. A few weeks ago, I met with a friend whose boyfriend had also cheated on her with one of her closest friends. And sure enough, her friend was exactly like Helen - a woman who pursued relationships with taken men, despite being in a relationship herself, and no one had ever called her out on it.

When it’s one of your closest friends, it’s easy to make excuses for them. “She’s just messy.” “She’s having a tough time at the minute.” “He had a rough start in life.” There are so many reasons why a friend may act this way, but it doesn’t give them a free pass. What I’ve realised is that one of the major problems with choosing to accept a friend’s poor behaviour is that it often comes back to haunt you. Because if your friend doesn’t care about other people’s relationships, why would they care about yours?

I often replay that conversation I had with Helen about her fling with Tim Webb (and all the others). I imagine what I could’ve said instead of staying silent.

Helen, if you’ve been cheated on previously and know how much it hurts, why are you doing this to another woman?

Do you ever think about the women who get hurt by the choices you make?

I care about you, but this behaviour is not okay. You’re hurting people.

I never said any of those things. I 100% disagreed with what she was doing, but I didn’t know how to tell her the truth. I wasn’t even sure we were close enough for me to be that honest with her.

Would saying something have changed what happened? Maybe not. But I do believe that if I didn’t come across as such an easy target, she may have thought twice about betraying me. And after experiencing the pain she caused me, I wish I’d done more to stop her from doing it to other people.

Helen was an awful friend to me. But do you know what? I wasn’t a good friend to her either. A truly good friend would’ve been brave enough to be honest with her about her behaviour, because destroying relationships is destructive for her too. She claimed she fell in love with my boyfriend and was left heartbroken when he didn’t leave me for her. She said she felt like she’d “lost [her] right arm without Josh in her life.” She got hurt and continues to cause hurt to other relationships today, still unaware of how her own behaviour will leave her heartbroken again in the near future.

Perhaps the cruelest thing of all is not that no one judged her, it’s that no one loved her enough to.

*Names changed