Dear Flirty McFlirtPants,

Hoo boy.  Well, you’ve got yourself into an unintentional pickle.  Do you remember the days when all we had to worry about was heavy breathing on the other side of the land line phone?  Then star-69 came along (and caller ID, and the internet, and cell phones, and cell phones with cameras)….  Advances in technology make sex, in any form, far too easy.  Sexting is part of our world whether we like it or not.  If I assume correctly, your vote is “NOT.”

I saw something the other day…. probably on Facebook… that said something to the effect of: “When did being nice to someone automatically turn into flirting?”  Unfortunately, I think that society is so used to the bitch and grind of life, that when someone is nice (or OVERLY nice), this behavior can be misconstrued as flirting.  This new friend, your best friend’s husband, has taken your overly nice behavior and twisted into a love interest.  The other thing I think was happening there was that, whether you were aware of it or not, you were being TOO nice to him while you were questioning your lifetime commitment to this other man.  Subconsciously, you were looking for an affirmation that IF you decided to abort your marriage, there are plenty of other fish in the sea.  It became a comfort thing, a natural human progression; and you both were getting something from each other that you needed at that time.  YOU figured things out, which is wonderful, but he has not.  So, Mr. Flirtpants decided to take it to the next level.

Now for the hard part.  Do you tell your best friend about this?  YES.  No matter what you think about this guy, he is taking advantage of you.  AND HE WONT STOP.  This is smack in the middle of Creeperville; and, honey, you need a one way ticket out of town.  The hard part is how you go about it.  It is, indeed, a very delicate situation.

Having doubts?  Thinking you can just sweep it under the rug?  Did this thought cross your mind: “He really is a nice guy and they seem really happy. I wouldn’t want to ruin anything.”

WRONG-O

He has already ruined any civil, normal, my-best-friend’s-husband-and-nothing-else relationship you may have once been able to have.  The other thing you need to consider, and think about this long and hard, is you probably are not the only one with whom he has tried this.  So, not only is he alienating his own relationship with this girl whom YOU love deeply, but he is more than likely alienating any other Jane Doe who wanders across his path.  AND IT WILL KEEP HAPPENING.  Maybe not with you, but with some other strumpet.

Now to face your best friend.

She needs to know this.  She will find out sooner or later that this is going on.  She will be hurt one way or the other, and it is not your fault that this has happened.  Don’t you think she deserves better?  I am not saying that you should break up their marriage in a dramatic soap-style turn of events (dun dun dunnnn); but, as far as their relationship goes, they need to figure out how to continue on from here.  It sounds to me like her husband may have a problem, and he subconsciously started something with you because he knew that his wife would be more likely to find out this way.

How do you tell her?

As with most things in life, this is not going to be easy.  Especially since your best friend lives out of town.  One of the upfalls of technology is that it is really easy to keep in touch.  One of the downfalls of technology is that it is FAR too easy to misinterpret things said in e-mails and text messages.  There is nothing human about them.  They are an emotional void that says nothing to a person about one’s intent.  And forget sarcasm,  it doesn’t read well at all… but I digress.  In other words, don’t e-mail or text her.

That brings us to the good, old fashioned phone call.  This too doesn’t seem like the best avenue for such serious news, though it’s better than an e-mail or text messages.  Tone of voice can say a lot, literally, but it is where body language can be present that the best conversations can happen.  This leaves us with Skype.  Yes, Skype, the only way my husband and I could bear to be apart from each other while I studied in Europe for a bit.  Skype her.  Set up a Skype date and make sure that it is at a time where she is alone or can be far away from him.  Let her know how much you care about her and that is why you have decided to tell her.  Start the conversation exactly how you wrote to us at Ask US.  Don’t be accusing or angry, but express your shock and concern.  Above all, let her know how hard this is for you.  He was the one who took it too far and she needs to know that.  This is not a situation for you to work out for her.  The next step for her and her husband is for them to decided if they want to work things out.  For that I HIGHLY recommend a licensed professional for counseling.

The longer you wait, the harder it will be so start the ball rolling.  I wish the best for the both of you. Chicks before dicks, ho’s before bro’s and besties before testes.