…that someone’s being married to a friend will not prevent them making a pass.

It’s a tough one this. Said toughness largely derives from the fact that everyone is spending a colossal amount of energy pretending it isn’t happening: you, the miscreant, their spouse, little Johnny not inquiring as to why Daddy had his hand on Mummy’s friend’s backside. For, where the reverse gender paradigm clearly also applies, the standard scenario tends to be husband hitting on wife’s pal.

It’s not that married women don’t make moves on innocent bystanders; it’s just that they have the sense to look beyond their own living rooms. Chaps, however, frequently see no impediment to a lover who has known his partner since infancy, served as her bridesmaid, and may or may not be fully informed about his erectile dysfunction.

Let’s be clear: it’s not hitched/non-hitched flirting we’re outing here. Heaven forfend. After all, there’s many a shindig that would be intolerable without it. It’s the “accidental” slobber on the mouth when one was aiming at a cheek; the lift home to the tune of “My wife doesn’t understand me” (justly, given circs); and – yes, finally – a lunge of such a drunkeness as to require hospitalisation.

Worse, those on the receiving end simply have to grin and bear it. You know the form: nod enthusiastically when wife declares husband more at ease in female company; roll eyes in innocence when wife speculates on where he acquired that black eye. You can’t win this one: you didn’t father her children. Still, at least you’re not mother to any of his.

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