Meeting the Friends: A Survival Guide

Managing first impressions when you meet your date’s “friends” can be a challenge even for the most socially astute. I’ve never been an advocate of gamesmanship in the dating pool, but there are times and places for a bit less boister and a lot more tact. It’s a good idea to “be yourself” unless “yourself” is a boorish, fight-picking, butt-grabbing, inappropriate flirt. If that is the case, I’d suggest being the least amount of “yourself” as you can reasonably pull off.

Here are a few tips to catapult you to the positive side of the friend approval meter:

1. Do your homework: Know who you’re meeting and just how important they are in your new boy/girlfriend’s world. Good news for you if you’ve been listening. Bad news if you’ve been zoned out or dating someone who does a great impression of a wall instead of communicating. When you can say something like, “Oh yeah! Billy told me all about how cool your family was on your last vacation together…” You make an immediate good impression. Whereas, if you meet her best friend of 10 years with a blank stare and ask for her name again 5 minutes later… you’ve just become “that guy/girl.”
2. This is not all about you: Yes, they want to meet you. But it’s highly likely that they are much more interested in seeing how you treat their friend and interact with the group. If you attempt to isolate your partner’s attention, have mini make-out sessions in the corner or make the friend group your pool for narcissistic gazing, you come off like a total tool. Instead, treat this as an opportunity to get to know the people who are most important to “your person.” Can you see yourself fitting in with this crew or are you completely a fish out of water? Do you like his/her friends? Do you still like your date when they are around their friends?
3. Avoid assumptions. Cute girl hugging on your guy the whole night? Guy asking you lots of very personal questions? It may be that they’ve been friends with your date since they splashed around naked in their parent’s kiddie pools or they may indeed be trying to sabotage your new relationship. One way or the other, this is someone you’ll need to gracefully handle, so do what you can to scope the scene without losing your cool.
4. Again, be yourself: Now is not the time to let insecurities overtake you by drinking too much, storming off in a huff because you feel slighted, picking arguments about touchy topics (or your nose,) flirting with the cute friend, obsessively checking your phone for messages or sneaking in snarky remarks about your partner. Most friends are pretty protective and one of these major mis-steps can find you locked out in the icy, icy cold of the winter hinterlands before you even realize what you did wrong.
5. Be positive: If anyone asks you what you think about your date or how things are going, this is definitely NOT the time to express anything negative about your relationship. Save that for your therapy session. If you are struggling to find something good to talk about, perhaps consider that you may need to find a new schnuckums.
6. Bonus Tip for the Shy Guy/Girl: Ask for your partner’s support with conversation topics and creating situations to help you meet their friends on the best footing. Most of the time, your partner wants their friends to like you and won’t mind setting you up to succeed.

The long and short of it — if your date has been talking you up, you’re going to have an easier time during the first meet-n-greet. But if there’s been even one whiff of doubt (or your new beau has a habit of bringing in the crazies,) most friend packs are going to be on the alert potential deal-breakers.

Keep in mind that as far as these people are concerned, they were there first and hope to like you but reserve the option not to. Instead of jockeying for position, take the time to enjoy meeting new people who presumably love your partner as much as you do. Even if you feel completely out of place, you all have something in common… admiration for the person who brought you to the party.

Any other survival guide suggestions for meeting the friends? I kept it to the basics, but I’m sure there are a lot more hints from readers in the trenches…