Is this normal behavior?

[ADs96r]

Is this normal behavior?

Both me and a mate where having this discussion in an ethics debate. I don’t think this is normal behavior but she does:

We where discussing a case that happened at my local campus bar so I’d guess everyone concerned is university undergraduate age.

This guy had a misunderstanding and trust issues with this girl (probably erly 20’s) he was seeing. He discussed it with some female friends didn’t know the girl he was seeing (as far as I understood but I’m not sure). As far as I can gather he told them he couldn’t understand this girl’s actions and thought she might be messing with him.
So they advised him to act standoffish and distant INCASE she was messing with him.

Now my friend argues that this is normal – that people’s loyalty is to their friends and not to other people they don’t know so they don’t need to take anything into consideration apart from protecting their friend.

However I regard it as highly immoral. Basically I regard the basis of morality to be something along the lines of ‘treat others as you would like to be treated, regardless of whether they are your friend or not’. In this vain I argued that the female friends should have at least wondered ‘what if this person is not messing’ and from this attempt to empathies, any semblance of intellectual integrity would naturally give birth to the desire to find out more. Thus the better (in my opinion) advice would have been to ‘try to find out more’ or ‘ask some of the girl’s other friends what they think’ ect.

So was what the female friends did normal? Was it moral or immoral?

Disclaimer: All the details where overheard at a bar and so may or may not be accurate or true, but I'm not really interested in the truth of it. It works as a thought experiment no matter what

 

[TLCFOLIFEBtTCHt]

OOh, I just asked someone else (yeah I can't leave an ethics question alone, tis my hobby) and she believes that it is the way of young women to be jealous about losing their man friend to other females not in their cleek and so thus where motivated, either consciously or unconsciously to actions which keep him with them and drive away any rivals for his attention.

I wounder if this guy likes the controlling type

 

[ColonelL]

I think it depends, it isn't a black or white situation at all, there are a billion and one shades of grey in fact.

 

[anotherlthing]

Don't really see the issue that seems like the kind of advice some people might give to a friend who thinks that the girl they are seeing is messing with them. It's very hard to get any idea of whether their advice was reasonable or not without knowing the ins and outs or how the situation was presented to them. I don't really think it's really got that much to do with morality.

Advising a friend to take a step back if they are being messed around seems fair enough... and it usually is something that gets to people if they are taking someone for granted/messing about on them. Talking to the girl would help but again don't know the situation so it's entirely possible the guy did this or there are some reasons he cannot.

Basic point is I don't think there is really a major moral issue with the female friends advice. It is this kind of hypothesising however which I think most guys have absolutely no interest in but females are (generally) very interested in. I suspect most replies at least from males will be like holyheadjch or more just pfff... no big deal.

 

[BijuV]

Maybe it's a female thing. You would be right in assuming all the people I'm having fun debating this with are female

It does seem though that in our society at least, the 1st and main weapon of your average scorned female is whatever power she can exert though effecting others social standing through gossip and what not.

 

[ChristopherMichael]

lol... true!

It is one of those differences though... my girlfriend is always asking me to speculate on people's motives for doing things or on others relationship scenarios and so on and 9 times out of 10 I'm like 'uhhh.... [insert common sense reply here]' which usually leads to a cheeky comment about how useless I am.

 

[mitchw]

I think their advice was common if not usual. Same advice a parent would give, if in doubt dump 'em, you're better than that.
Love tends to be blind so sometimes it might be better to listen to friends.

 

[MushroomJesus]

Girls are Evil (according to my ten year old son anyway). The girls giving the advice were probably just doing what girls do, screwing with things cuz they can. You can get some empathy from some girls some of the time, but mostly when they are not so young. No misogyny here, i like girls, just observation.

 

[Elvoalven]

I have definitely noticed that the women in England are, perhaps, a bit more defensive/protective/competitive in this way. It's floored me the few times I've come across it directly. Reminds me of the US maybe 10 or 15 years ago. It's so very sad. Women can be so awesome to each other and understanding and supportive and forgiving. But I think it's a cultural thing.

Second, the advice is incorrect. The right advice is to encourage the person to talk directly to the other person. Telling someone to back off when they're confused or afraid is a way to guarentee more confusion and fear. Open and honest communication is the way to resolve this kind of thing, not distance.

Was the advice wrong in a moral sense? The only way to determine that, I think, is to understand the advisors perspective. That we clearly don't have hear, so it's impossible to judge.

My 2 cents!

 

[Marq]

Its pretty much the advice I'd give tbh: Don't bother asking out right (experience says thats a no-no) but be a bit distant and see if they give a toss. Perhaps immoral but I doubt it. Its a normal thing now if somethings off for people to assume the worst
EDIT: Also the majority I reckon DO care more for their mates. If you told me 2 people needed support and 1 was a close friend most would go for that 1 I think.

 

[ActorBoy]

Girls? Normal/logical behavior? The two do not mix.

 

[dodge]

Normal is so open to interpretation. I would say it's common to be advised to slow down and take a step back if you're not sure where you stand in a relationship. Going behind your partners back and asking around about who they've been seeing or sleeping with is really scraping the barrel. Trust issues or not.

If the relationship has broken down to that level then it's time it ended. Somebody with those sorts of trust issues either needs to suck it up and get a life or get some help.