Luv Doc: A Real Rasputin

Dear Luv Doc,

My closest friend (since literally kindergarten) lives about 30 minutes away from me (in Lakeway, but not the ritzy part). Until six months ago we used to talk on the phone all the time and we would see each other at least once a month if not more. Usually she would come to into Austin to go out to dinner or maybe to a club to hang out, but sometimes for coffee or just whatever. Since she has been dating this guy though, she never seems to have time to spend with me. I know she's not that busy. She works a regular office job and doesn't have a lot of other activities. The last few times we got together she said her boyfriend was acting jealous about the time we spend together and was grilling her about what we were doing. She said it jokingly, but it made me wonder. Look, I know it's natural for someone in a new relationship to spend a lot of time with their boyfriend/girlfriend, but this time it's like she has fallen off the face of the Earth. She may just be totally happy and content, but I am a little suspicious that he may be controlling. How do I find out?

– Earthbound

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It's entirely possible that your best friend's romance with this guy burns with the intensity of a thousand suns. Perhaps right now she is sitting at a pottery wheel and he is sitting right behind her guiding her hands through the clay, making a really shitty piece of pottery because all they are thinking about is making passionate post-pottery love. Or I don't know, maybe I saw that in a really horrible movie once. The point is, of course, that if you can find someone who loves you enough to engage in a messy, anachronistic hobby for hours on end, well, you've really got something there, right?

Problem is you might not notice the pottery instructor over in the corner spewing his lunch into a badly misshapen, poorly glazed fruit bowl. There is a razor-thin line between adorable and nauseating, and often that line is A-list Hollywood looks and a really nice lens blur. Truthfully though, most deeply in love people can't see anything through the intense fog of infatuation. Goddamn you, dopamine!!! You are the Lord's fentanyl!!

You could be right though. It could be your BF's new boo is a real Rasputin, a scheming Svengali, a low-down Littlefinger. Maybe he has her wrapped around the diminutive digit that shares Lord Baelish's nickname. What can you do about that?

Well, I can assure you that you're not going to break that spell by pissing on her master, no matter how attractive a fantasy that may be. If you really want to find out if your best friend's boyfriend is the puppetmaster, you are going to have to get behind the proscenium and find out what makes her dance. To be less abstruse, you're going to have to get to know this guy much better than you currently do to be able to accurately assess whether he is a controlling asshole or if – and this is an actual possibility – he's just a really incredibly wonderful guy.

Right now, however, you're just making assumptions based on really sparse, one-sided data. I'm sure you're a really wonderful person – so wonderful, in fact, that it's hard to imagine anyone wanting to spend less time with you unless they are under the spell of some really black magic, but before you try to poison this guy then shoot him and throw him in a river (I mean that metaphorically) you should at least try to get to know him. You might end up with a new BFF.