Woman Wants To Know If She's The A**hole For Hooking Up With Her Married Friend's Hall Pass
Does the "friends before men" rule extend to hall passes? That's the situation a couple of friends are trying to navigate through after one of them took advantage of an opportunity to hook up with her married friend's hall pass.
The friends, both 49, met about 15 years ago at their kids' preschool. The woman's friend "Sarah" is happily married with two kids. She's a divorced mother of one, free to explore certain situations when they present themselves.
The woman explains on Reddit, while trying to figure out if she's the a**hole, "Sarah has a huge crush on…I’ll call him Jake, as long as I’ve known her. Jake is a popular, but not, like stadium filling musician."
She continued, "From what I can tell, he makes a living, has had popular albums, and has toured with A-Listers, but he’s not necessarily a household name. He’s in his late 40’s."
Sarah's been to a few of his concerts, owns a lot of merch of his, considers him her hall pass, but has never met him. Not only that, she "would never actually cheat on her husband."
So there's no issue here if her friend just so happens to find herself in a situation to sleep with this middle of the road musician, right? If it was that cut and dry, we wouldn’t be here.
"Honestly, her crush never seemed off the rails to me. Like she’d joke about him wooing her through IG, but she didn’t, like, stalk him," the woman explained of her friend's crush.
To be clear, this single mom isn't one to violate the "friends before men" rule. She's never dated or even flirted with a guy a friend of hers was interested in. This situation was different.
Hooking up with your friend's hall pass only violates the rules in certain situations
She got to meet "Jake" at a charity event. He was there as the hired entertainment. The two talked and as she says, "one thing led to another… and I ended up sleeping with him. It was a one-time thing, fun and we both knew it was casual."
Now she had a "funny, wild story to share with Sarah." After all, Sarah was never going to actually use the hall pass - it sounds like - she had given herself. So she told her friend about the one-night stand and things didn't go as planned.
Sarah was hurt by the admission. She said, "She wasn’t mad exactly, but she said something like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe you actually did that,’ and she’s been distant ever since."
After initially believing the rule didn't apply in this situation, she started second-guessing everything after telling Sarah and that's when she started asking if she's the a**hole for hooking up with her married friend's hall pass.
There's a clear a**hole in this situation, and it's not the woman who hooked up with her married friend's so-called hall pass. It's the married woman. You don't get to go around declaring hall passes with no intention to ever use it.
That's not how any of this works. We have a proper society with rules for a reason. If you declare a hall pass, you've got to have the proper spousal approval, and then, if you ever are in a situation to use the pass, you have to use the pass.
There's no taking an opportunity away from a friend for something you never plan to follow through on. The friend did nothing wrong here.
Sure she could have grabbed an autograph or lifted the guy's underwear, but there's no requirement for her to do so. Don't let your friends ruin a good time with phantom hall passes.