Boundaries
Being Asked To Take Sides Between Two People You Like
When two friends fall out, each may seek an ally rather than a mediator, and staying in contact with both requires declining a request that is rarely made openly.
After two friends fall out, everybody who knows both is placed in a position. The request to take a side is often implied rather than stated, which makes it harder to decline.
The request is usually indirect
Few people ask outright for loyalty. They give an account, and the account arrives with an expected response built into it.
Agreeing is the natural conversational move, and disagreement requires an effort that feels unkind towards somebody who is upset.
So a position is taken almost by accident, and it is remembered afterwards as having been chosen.
Neutrality is read as a verdict
Declining to take a view is rarely received as neutrality. It is generally read as insufficient support, because the person telling the story believes the facts are clear.
This is why staying friendly with both is so often experienced by each as a small betrayal, and why people who intended to stay out end up losing both relationships.
Saying plainly that the friendship with each is being kept separately, and doing it early, works better than trying to appear to have no view.
Carrying information makes it worse
Once somebody knows both accounts, they become a channel, and anything they mention to one about the other is treated as significant.
Passing on even neutral news — where somebody was, how they seemed — feeds the dispute, because both parties are reading everything for evidence.
Holding a firm rule of not discussing either with the other is the single most useful thing a mutual friend can do, and it is harder than it sounds.
Groups settle faster than individuals
Where a group is involved, the practical questions are about occasions: who is invited, who is told, whether both can be present.
Leaving those decisions unmade produces repeated small incidents, and each one restates the dispute for everybody.
Deciding a simple, stated approach — both invited, both told in advance — removes the ambiguity even though it will not please either.
Some situations are not symmetrical
Even-handedness assumes a dispute between two people with comparable claims, and not every falling-out is that.
Where one person has been harmed, frightened or treated in a way that continues, treating both accounts as equivalent is itself a position rather than a neutral one.
Distinguishing an argument from harm is the first judgement to make, and where it involves safety it belongs with a professional or a support service rather than with a friendship group.
Questions readers ask
How do I stop myself giving advice?
Ask which they want before responding. It takes four words and removes the guess, which is where the whole problem originates.
What if my friend is about to do something obviously unwise?
Say it once, clearly, and then stop. Repetition converts a friend's opinion into pressure, and pressure tends to entrench the decision rather than change it.
