Dear Coleen
I’m a woman in my 30s and have a group of female and male friends who I met at university. We stayed close and used to regularly meet up for nights out and weekends away. They’ve been such an important part of my life.
A couple of years ago, one couple got a few of the others to invest in their start-up, but things went pear shaped for the business recently and everyone involved ended up falling out and those who invested lost their money. It was a mess and I felt glad I hadn’t been part of it. Luckily, I couldn’t afford to invest!
My dilemma now is that I feel a bit stuck in the middle between the couple who started the business and the friends who fell out with them. I do think this couple played some mean shots and they’re to blame for the way things turned out, but they’ve also been close mates for many years.
The other friends have made it clear that they want nothing to do with them any more and can’t really understand why I still see them. I’m not defending them at all, but I wasn’t involved and feel very awkward about it all. What would you do?
Coleen says
OK, you’ve said you believe this couple were responsible for how things turned out, so I guess you have to ask yourself how you’d feel if you had been a part of it. I think you’d be feeling like your other friends – hurt, let down, angry and out of pocket. From their point of view, it’s been a disaster.
Maybe you could ask this couple for more details on what has happened, so you can understand the situation better and tell them how you feel. If I were you, I’d be concerned about what friendship means for this couple because if you had invested, they would have shafted you as well.
I understand why your other university mates no longer want anything to do with them and I think you have to accept their decision. If you decide you do want to remain in contact with this couple, maybe it could be a case of never talking about them with your other friends because they won’t want to know.
From what you’ve said in your letter, it doesn’t sound as if they tried to make amends – they’ve just walked away from the situation and left your other friends to deal with the fallout. I imagine they could be really struggling financially as a result.
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