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Dear Leah and Morgan,

I’m having some boy problems and I need your help. For a while I’ve been really good friends with this guy and we’ve been hooking up for about a month. Neither of us wants a relationship for various reasons and we were both happy with our situation—until recently. We have a lot of mutual friends and they’ve been pressuring us, not to be in a relationship, but to care more about each other. Don’t get me wrong, I care about him a lot as a friend but I don’t care if he’s hooking up with other people as long as I don’t have to see it. Drama was part of the reason I didn’t want to be in a relationship in the first place, and I’m getting tired of it. I still want to be friends and keep hooking up with him, but what should I do to get my friends off my back?

Sincerely,

Done with drama

Dear Done,

Ditch the drama! Your relationship with your guy (whether it’s platonic, sexual or romantic) is about two people: you and him—not your entire group of friends. To do this you can either end things with him and work to stay friends or keep hooking up but clarify the situation so everyone knows what’s up. It sounds like you’d rather do the second.

Have “the talk”

The most important thing to do if you want to “stay together,” for lack of a better word, is confirm that you and your guy are on the same page. That way, if a friend alerts you that he’s hooked up with someone else, you can say with confidence that you’ve agreed you aren’t exclusive (or that you are … in which case you should probably have the talk again!). Explain to him how you’re feeling about your friends’ involvement. Chances are, he feels the same way.

Dealing with your crew

This is where things get tricky. Short of sending a mass public service announcement, you won’t be able to reach all of them at once, so you’re going to need to grin and bear it and deal with individual situations as they come up.

When a friend tries to tell you that your guy did something they’ve deemed wrong, simply smile and tell your friend: “Thanks for looking out for me, but we’ve talked and he hasn’t done anything that goes against how we see ourselves, so I’d rather just not think about it.”

If the drama continues, it might be easier just to end things, but you really seem to want to make things work, so for your sake we hope he and your friends shape up!

Best of luck!

Peace, love and good advice,

Leah and Morgan

Have questions that you want answered by the lovely ladies of The Hoot? Submit your questions to advice@thebrandeishoot.com or at formspring.me/leahandmorgan! They will be answered by Leah Finkelman ’13, Features Editor, and Morgan Gross ’14, Impressions Editor. We’re so excited to hear your questions!