Asking Eric: How do I handle a friend who is jealous of my best friend?

Dear Eric: I have a friend I will call “Linda”. She is a very sweet, lovely friend, whom I have known for about five years. A few months ago, she had a party at her house, and she introduced me as her best friend. This surprised me, but I brushed it off.

Last week my actual best friend of 30+ years, “Kelly,” was in town, and I posted some pics on my socials of me and her. Well, I got a text from Linda asking me about Kelly, how long I have known her, etcetera.

I answered her questions, and she ended up sending me a three-page email about how hurt she was that I was calling Kelly my best friend when I hadn’t even mentioned her to her, and she was the one who was always “there” for me.

This confused me because any time I needed someone to be there for me, on anything, it’s Kelly or my mom and sisters I call. Linda can be a talker/gossip.

I also always believed that if you were truly someone’s best friend, it was something you both agreed on. Once Linda and I moved on from our old workplace, I see her about once a month and talk on the phone maybe once a week/every couple of weeks.

I told her I was sorry she was feeling that way. So far, she hasn’t responded and I’m unsure of what else to say or do. I don’t want to hurt her feelings. If it matters, we’re both in our mid-40s. Any advice would be appreciated.

—Not the Bestie

Dear Bestie: At the risk of sounding callous, this is not your problem.

You’re right that best friendship is usually a mutually agreed upon status. Sure, there are friendships where one person likes the other person more. But Linda’s problem is not that you don’t like her as much as Kelly, it’s that Kelly exists at all. And that’s not really any of Linda’s business.

My heart goes out to her a bit. She might be lonely; she might not have a lot of friends. But she’s responding with a scarcity mindset that’s making her possessive. Your other friendships, even with friends she doesn’t know about, shouldn’t affect the relationship you have.

You’ve expressed sympathy and you haven’t done anything wrong, so you don’t need to do more to fix this. If Linda comes around, however, it’s worth having a conversation about boundaries and appropriate responses. It’s what good friends do.

(Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.)