[music]
People always ask,
how do you feel about
close friends of the opposite sex
when you’re in a relationship?
How do you feel about that?
[laughter]
I’m very skeptical of it.
When I say very skeptical, it depends
on the dynamic.
Because I have a lot of close friends
a lot of close female friends,
but we don’t speak every single day.
We don’t hang out all the time.
It’s genuinely like a brother-sister type relationship.
It’s all love.
If I had a girlfriend or I had somebody my life
they would meet that them, like.
It would be a very transparent situation.
but you got people who have these
opposite sex friends.
and they want to keep them away from their partner.
That’s red flag number one.
If that’s your friend they got to be my friend too.
I’m not saying my friend
like we got to hang out and talk on the phone,
but you better be able to walk in my house and show me respect.
Say hello, dap me up, whatever.
There has to be some kind of rapport there.
If there’s not,
then yes, I do believe it there’s something going on there.
Why are you hiding this person from your partner?
That is an issue.
There is something wrong there.
I think again it depends on the dynamic.
Also, how often do you speak to this person
and interact with them?
I think it’s very dangerous to where--
when we hold on so dearly to our friends
as our best friends.
We neglect making our partner our best friend
and when we lack that with our partner
we hurt the relationship.
The partner has to be best friend number one.
All right?
It doesn’t mean you can’t have other good friends,
best friends or whatever.
But there has to be a best friend number one
and I guarantee you if your partner is your best friend
you will naturally gravitate
more to them than your friends.
What people are doing is
they’re using their friends as buffers.
What I mean by that is,
you're in this BS relationship
with someone, that you don’t have a genuine connection with.
But you tolerate it
because you get what you need from your friends.
Your best friends fulfill you emotionally
to where you can deal with your BS relationship.
You're using them as a cover-up .
You may not be maliciously, consciously, doing that
but subconsciously that is what’s happening.
I guarantee you,
remove those friends
you will not last in your relationship another few days.
Because now their weaknesses,
their flaws, their things that hurt you,
are going to be magnified.
You can ignore that when you can run to your friend.
Run to your friend. Run to your friend.
It is a form of detachment
from your relationship,
so in that case,
it is unhealthy.
I think we have to evaluate each situation.
It doesn’t mean that there aren’t genuine
friendships out there of the opposite sex.
That people have while in a relationship,
but I would argue that a lot of people.
There are some things wrong
in those situations that need to be corrected.
Doesn’t mean you got to stop being friends all together,
but there’s something you need to change,
and boundaries have to be set.
You got to have boundaries in your relationship with your friends
once you are romantically involved with somebody.