Dear Author

I read another terrible advice column.

The writer says that her best friend's boyfriend has been making the moves on her. He's been flirting with her and they almost kissed. She's pretty interested in him but she doesn't want to ruin her friendship. What should she do?

The agony aunt advises her to tell her friend and both women should forget the guy.

And that was pretty terrible advice and I'm going to tell you why.

Let's divide the problem into two timelines. This assumes that there is no timeline where the writer can keep her best friend and steal her boyfriend at the same time. She's going to have to choose. We'll start with the path where the goal is to keep the best friend.

If she goes and tells her best friend that her boyfriend has been putting the moves on her, what do you think will happen?

A. She is super grateful that her friend pointed out that her boyfriend flirts and will dump him accordingly.

B. She doubts her friend's motives and goes to speak to her boyfriend who denies everything.

C. She is angry and claims her friend is trying to break up her and her boyfriend so she can date him.

D. She already knows he's a flirt with a wandering eye and has already accepted him as he is. Her friend trying to convince her that he isn't invested in the relationship will embarrass her causing her to lash out.

If you circled anything other than A, we agree. I'm not sure that there is a way to tell your friend that her boyfriend is potentially cheating without losing her as a friend. The friend is unlikely to believe anything she doesn't want to believe and if you pit yourself against someone else's romantic interest, you're likely to lose, even if you're their mother, sister, best friend, co-worker, or daughter. Human beings are still mammals and the urge to mate is strong.

So, I don't think telling her is a great idea. If the goal is to keep the friendship, the writer needs to stop flirting with him. If she's a careful girl, she needs to find a way to be friendly with him without flirting. If you ask me, this can be accomplished by never talking about anything remotely romantic with him.

It would also be a big help if she found herself a boyfriend of her own... preferably a big man with biceps and abs. Men find other men more intimidating than anything else. It would nip the problem in the bud pretty nicely. It would also stop our writer from craving a man who is not available.

As the final nail in this argument, I would like to point out that keeping quiet is not betraying the friendship. It was a little flirting where they almost kissed. She did not walk in on him screwing the housekeeper. She does not need to tattle. She needs to correct her own behavior.

Now onto the second path, which is the one where the writer forgets the friendship and goes for the man. Let's run through the scenarios. If she chooses the man, what are her options?

A. Fool around with him behind her friend's back hoping that he'll break up with her friend and become her boyfriend who absolutely doesn't cheat.

B. Tell him that he has to break up with her friend if he wants to date her, which he will absolutely do at the first opportunity.

C. Wait to see how things turn out. See if he wants something more from our writer than a casual flirting partner.

D. Tell her friend that he was flirting with her and she had a really good time. Maybe her friend will tell him what she said and that will be enough to break them up because he didn't realize he had a chance with our writer.

I don't think any of these things will work out. I think the truth is that the boyfriend flirts because that's his habit. He'll flirt with anyone. Our writer would be able to answer questions about this in more detail, but let's ask a few questions to gauge his interest.

1. Does he call, text, message, or email our writer? If so, how often? What does he say when he gets in touch?

2. Does she only see him when she bumps into him or they're at the same place at the same time?

These two questions are crucial because if he's not chasing our girl down and just flirts when he runs into her, he's not interested. He just flirts because that's what he does. Maybe it got out of hand that time when he almost kissed her, but if nothing actually happened, I am a little tempted to think that nothing was going to happen and our writer just got a little excited.

My advice here is she needs to recognize that he is not available. He's not an option. If she chooses him, she's going to end up with nothing. There is a very real possibility that if she tried to deepen their relationship beyond the casual little flirting game he's comfortable playing, he could be the one to take her friend aside and tell her that her friend has been putting the moves on him.

Wouldn't that suck?