Obligatory Friends

What?  People you have to be friends with?  No one does that!

Hahaha! Wrong!  Especially you silly married people you.  If you have a spouse or are dating then you have your obligatory friends.  The dude you have to hang out with because you wife enjoys hanging with his significant other and vice versa.  

That doesn't mean that every couple that hangs out has an obligatory friendship.  When I met my best fem friend, her boyfriend and my husband were friends.  We actually skipped the obligatory stage and just simply became friends.  

Some people escape the obligatory phase and eventually become close and good friends.  I've had some of those.  They grow on you.

And then there are the ones that never do.  The ones that you forever just put up with in the name of your spouse.  Well, maybe not forever.  Either the mutual friend dumps the person or they move or something prevents leaving the awkward "I'm forced to hang out with you" period.

I used to think for the longest time that it was just females that did this dance.  That maybe guys just got along together easily than ladies did.  My husband has recently put me in my place on that.  I won't name who or whatever's as it won't matter once they've moved on from the obligatory stage but it's kind of adorable in an odd way to observe this from the outside.  The attempts to find similarity, the awkward moments of silence, the almost pitiful glances to his phone for something else to do/check if its time yet to leave.  I feel bad but at the same time it's almost a little cheer of "it's not me!"

The interesting thing about being a parent now too is the fun moments of this being spent with parents of other children as Harley plays with favored friends from school.  It's like dating strange people that you'd never normally be around but you're all doing it for the benefit of another.