Bringing home a new guy to mom and dad may be nerve-wracking, but bringing home a new guy to your closet girlfriends is down right fucking terrifying.

Girlfriends will tell it like it is, and won’t give a new boyfriend any room for error, sometimes intuitively so. Perhaps it’s jealousy of a fellow friend’s new fun fling, or perhaps it’s truly them “only wanting the best for you”; but whatever their ill-worded reasoning, sometimes your girlfriends will just simply not like your new guy.

There are two scenarios in which your girlfriends won’t be supremely supportive of your new boyfriend:

1. They have a clear-cut, concise reasoning for disliking him.

He’s a cheater, he lies to you, he’s a misogynist, he’s an egoist, he treats them/you poorly, or he is flaky and distant toward you. In this scenario, listen to them. It’s hard to make-up or contrive spot on accusations or observations. With warning comments like the above reasons your new guy may be rubbing your gfs the wrong way, I’d air on the side of caution and maybe see if you can agree with any of their insights. If/when you see that they are totally right and that he is a flaky dick, kick him to the curb before your former-bff-then-roommate gets so fed up with your “sucky person” of a boyfriend that she kicks you out on it.

2. They simply “don’t like him”.

This is tough because, unlike within the above scenario (wherein insights of why your new bae isn’t the best are relatively indisputable), your girlfriends don’t like him simply because they just don’t like him. It really doesn’t give you anything to work with. If they attack his character then you either, A, get a wake-up call and can begin to realize that he is sorta misogynistic in the way he treats you, or B, have the opportunity to defend him because he is only so timid on taking you out because he was cheated on in his last relationship. But without any direct reasons for their distaste for him, you are sort of put in the awkward position of being like “okkaaayyy”….

So, what do you do?

Let’s say that this is one of those scenarios where they have no real reason for disliking him, (because, as we discussed before if they do have a reason then listen to ’em and dump his ass), what the HELL do you do?

Firstly, don’t fight them on it. Incessantly disagreeing with them about your boytoy will make it seem like you are arguing more
so to convince yourself than them, which increases their falsely bad intuitions about him, and can harm your relationship with your girlfriends. Also, don’t turn their negative opinions on him into an issue between the two of you. Even though it may be wrong or uncool of a girlfriend to not trust your judgements with a new guy, it shouldn’t mean that now the two of you can no longer have a friendship or open discussion. If it really starts to wear on you then have an adult-like conversation about it, but just because he doesn’t vibe her well right off the bat isn’t a reason to become bitchy or closed off toward her.

Be mature about the not-so-ideal situation. So, you’re excited about this handsome guy you’ve just started seeing, and yet your friends think he’s just sub-par and are not the biggest fans of him. So what? Be a woman and learn to turn the other cheek. Don’t start fibbing or fabricating for the sake of their wine drunken comments, and don’t in turn run back to your guy and begin to bash them. If you have a good feeling about something, then trust it and be confident about it. Lying, bashing, and being generally sketchy isn’t going to help the situation in the least, so leave the high-school dramatics at the door on your way out.

Most importantly, try not to let it wear on you or your sense of confidence in your relationship. If you truly have a connection with this guy, and feel as if their insights are superficial and not red flag raising, then continue to enjoy the relationship free of outside opinions. If everybody had the same type and the same desires for or opinions of men then we certainly would be in a worse position than we are now, right? Don’t give up on a relationship that means a lot to you just so that your girls will finally be “so proud of you”. Live for yourself and love for yourself.