Dear Lacey:

When my best friend, Anne, and I met a year ago, she was dating a guy named Alan. A few months ago, while Anne was out of town on business, Alan and I became great friends and ended up spending a lot of time together. About three weeks ago, Alan broke up with Anne even though she still has feelings for him.

The problem is that now I have feelings for Alan, and it feels like more than a crush – actually a very strong connection. He told me that he feels the same way about me. Last week he asked me out, and we went out to dinner and then back to his place. Anne found out and called my cell phone to yell at me while we were on our date! I'm so upset at her but at the same time I can understand that I hurt her by going out with Alan. What should I do?

Natalie

Dear Natalie:

Let me get this straight. Anne is mourning a painful breakup that she did not initiate, then her boyfriend and her best friend begin dating two weeks afterwards, and YOU’RE mad at HER? I'm afraid you need some perspective on the situation.

Have you ever experienced a break-up? The kind where you're still so in love with the person that you spend the next month (or more) curled up with a box of tissues and a blanket over your head, wishing the pain would go away, unable to think about anything else? Now imagine that on top of all this, your closest friend in all the world is now the person your ex desires.

To be fair to you, Natalie, attraction is a funny thing. There is no logic or reason to it. It just IS. Hopefully we're attracted to a perfect match – someone who shares our own hopes and dreams, with few bad habits and a good heart. But sometimes we can be attracted to someone we should be running in the other direction from. They may have substance abuse issues, maybe they're a boss or a supervisor, they could be married, or maybe they're our best friend’s boyfriend.

Since you met Alan through Anne, you had the opportunity to get to know each other as friends, which can create an even stronger attraction and emotional connection than, say, meeting someone in a bar. And it’s perfectly okay to have an attraction to someone. What is not okay is to act on it if you know you will be devastating someone else in the process. If this were a guy Anne just had a secret crush on, I'd be telling you all is fair in love and war. But this was a serious relationship for both of them.

I hate to tell you this, but it is likely you and Anne will not be able to get your friendship back on track, and unfortunately, you will have to bear the blame. I don't mean to be overly tough on you, because when it comes to matters of the heart, we all have our moments of weakness, where we do things with drastic consequences we can never take back.

And as far as Alan is concerned, keep in mind that people tend to follow fairly consistent patterns of behavior. That means down the line you can expect Alan to do to you what he did to Anne -- he dated you knowing it would cause her even more pain. I'd hate to see you in Anne’s position a few months from now.

So apologize to Anne. Even if she bites your head off in the process, apologizing is the right thing to do. And as for Alan, while I know it’s difficult to take an objective look at the situation while in the heady throes of attraction, consider reevaluating your relationship with him. Even if you do cool things off with him, however, don't expect Anne to be appreciative.

And by all means, chalk this up to a lesson learned. In the future, if you truly value a friendship, never allow the potential for romance to come between you and a friend. Easier said than done, I know, but if you want to keep your friends, it’s just a good rule of thumb to follow.

Lacey