Your friends and best friends are not loyal to you. I am totally the worst for this. I will hunt down a mate’s ex the moment they split just to see if he is as good in bed as she was boasting while we were both single for five years. True story. And I am always telling you to fuck your friends’ ex partners. So here is why you should never trust your best friend and keep an eye on them.
Loyalty sounds lovely when you say it out loud. It sits nicely next to words like forever and soulmate and I would never. In real life it is thinner than the cheap tights you buy from Tesco when you have already spent the week’s money on oat milk and cherry vape juice. People stay until something better walks past. That is not cynicism. That is pattern recognition after enough late nights watching the same cycle repeat itself in Hackney flats and Basildon kitchens.
I spent five years single. Not the Instagram version where you post sunset photos and pretend you are thriving. The version where you eat chicken wraps in the car park after a late shift and scroll until your thumb aches. My mate spent those same years telling me, in detail, how her bloke could last, how he paid attention, how he made her forget her own name. She would laugh and say it was wasted on her because she was too busy moaning about the washing up. I listened. I filed it away. When they finally split I did not even wait for the dust to settle. I found him on a night out that was supposed to be about supporting her. One drink turned into three. The boast turned into a test. I needed to know if she had been exaggerating or if I had been sitting on the sidelines like an idiot while the good ones got taken.
She was not exaggerating. That is the part that still makes me laugh when I think about it now. She had been telling the truth the whole time and I still went there. Not because I hated her. Because I was curious and I was tired of wondering. Curiosity in a dry spell is a dangerous combination. It does not care about the group chat rules or the unwritten code we pretend exists between women. It only cares about the answer. Admittedly, since then I’ve had a guy that even put him to shame, which was a legend of a find, but it’s what we do. We always seek better. And I don’t care who it upsets. We are not here to spare the feelings of an ex that hypocritically, replaced him so quick that I’m expected to leave him him alone from a loyalty she herself has none. When a woman screws another guy, your ex becomes fair game, that’s your choice.
That is the first reason you keep an eye on your best friend. She already knows the inventory. She has heard the complaints about the snoring, the lazy Sundays, the way he never initiates any more. She has the full brochure. When the relationship wobbles she does not have to start from scratch. She just has to decide whether the brochure looks better than whatever she is currently putting up with. Most of the time it does. We tell ourselves we would never. Then the moment arrives and the never turns into well just this once. If your ex is a great lay, the best thing you can do is hand him to a mate for a night of fun. She will associate that one great time with you forever, and that puts her in your debt. And here’s the thing, if your ex has a good time with her, it puts him in your debt also. And if they get together properly, that’s the gold standard. It’s icky at first, but it’s a cure you never knew you needed it. Your new guy, as great as he is, will be living in your ex’s shadow. I bet there’s not a single woman reading this that’s not imagined the ex while being ringed by the current bloke. Once that mate has had her turn, that goes away.
Friends do it because opportunity is not abstract. It has a face and a postcode and a habit of texting at midnight when everyone else is asleep. Your best friend has been in your flat. She knows which cupboard the good wine lives in. She knows the password you use for everything because you said it out loud while drunk. She knows the exact sentence that makes your partner laugh. That knowledge is not innocent. It is ammunition stored for later.
I watch it happen in The Coven all the time. Someone posts a vague story about a row. Within an hour three people have privately asked for the bloke’s full name. Not to check he is okay. To see if he is free. We call it looking out for each other. What we are actually doing is checking the stock. The same women who will rage in the group chat about toxic masculinity will slide into the DMs of the man who just got dumped by one of us. The hypocrisy is so thick you could spread it on toast.
Women are opportunistic because we were trained to be. Not by some secret society. By the ordinary grind of watching options shrink. You spend your twenties being told there are plenty more fish. Then you hit thirty and the fish start looking the same and the rent is due and the Sunday roast at your mum’s comes with questions about when you are going to settle. The brain does the maths. A known quantity who already proved he can deliver starts to look like a safer bet than starting over with another stranger who might be worse. That calculation does not make you evil. It makes you human in a market that treats people like interchangeable parts.
Your girlfriend is running the same calculation even while she tells you she loves you. She is not plotting in a villain lair. She is noticing the way your mate’s new bloke looks at her when he thinks no one is watching. She is comparing the effort you put in last month with the effort he is putting in now. Comparison is not a choice. It is automatic. The second she clocks a gap she starts weighing whether the gap is big enough to jump.
Best friends are worse because the trust is already there. You tell them the things you would never tell a stranger. The insecurities. The private jokes. The exact spot that makes you forget to breathe. That information does not stay locked in a vault. It sits in her head waiting for the day she decides your relationship is fair game. I have seen it happen over a shared taxi home. One comment about how he never does that thing any more. A pause. A look. The next week they are both suddenly very busy on the same night.
You think the code will protect you. The code is a story we tell so we can sleep. The code dissolves the second someone is single and horny and the other person is convenient. I have broken it. I will probably break it again. That is why I tell you to watch. Not because I want you paranoid. Because I know how quickly the switch happens when the conditions are right.
Keep an eye on the late replies. The sudden interest in your partner’s job or gym routine. The way she laughs a bit too long at his average joke. The way she remembers his coffee order after meeting him twice. Those are not accidents. They are reconnaissance. She is mapping the territory in case the current occupant leaves.
People stay loyal when the alternative looks worse. The moment the alternative looks better the loyalty becomes optional. That is not a moral failing unique to women. It is the same reason men ghost after three dates when someone hotter matches with them. We all do it. We just dress it up differently depending on who is asking.
I still go to the Sunday roast. I still sit in the same chair and listen to my mum ask when I am going to bring someone nice home. I still laugh with the same friends in the same group chat. None of that cancelled the night I tested the boast. The two things exist at the same time. You can love someone and still wonder what else is available. You can be a good friend and still keep a running list of who might be next.
The ending is simple. Do not hand over the keys and then act shocked when someone uses them. Watch the patterns. Notice who asks the extra question. Notice who goes quiet when your relationship is going well and suddenly chatty when it is not. Loyalty is not a personality trait. It is a temporary agreement that lasts until a better offer appears. Treat it that way and you will be less surprised when the offer arrives.
I am not proud of the hunt. I am also not sorry. Five years is a long time to listen to someone describe something you have never had. When the chance came I took it. That is the part you need to remember. If I will do it, someone else will too. Keep one eye on the door and the other on the person sitting next to you. That is not paranoia. That is just paying attention.