There seems to be a lot on this forum about friend issues lately. Here's a new twist: A client at the gym where I work has been actively getting to know me in a social way. We naturally click and have a lot in common. She takes my class 3x a week and stays for almost 2 hours intermittently working out and wasting time because she has nothing to do until later in the day. She is new to town, from a totally different climate and culture in so many ways, a self described introvert, and without a single friend here after living here for almost 2 years.
She needs and wants a good friend. She asks me to coffee. I love this girl already and am so excited to get to know her and if all keeps clicking, introduce her to my "Ruths" (aks best friends). That sounded kinda homosexual, not that there's anything wrong with that, but for the record, we're talking straight friends.
Here's the problem: I just figured our that her husband is the one in the local paper for threatening to do harm to our local (and struggling) economy. It's his way of trying to gain leverage to get out of paying $150,000 in fines for not following local laws and DNR ordinances. I can equate him as public enemy #1 in our small town. What he's threatening is not only unfair, it's completely ignorant and directly effects me and every single person who loves winter here. While I don't wish him harm, I would like him to quietly go away. There are people around town that hate hate hate him and I wouldn't put it past some YaHoo to destroy his property or something.
So the question is, do I get involved with her? It would do me NO good to be associated with her husband in any way. Plus, I hate what he's trying to do and also what he had done to be punished in the first place.
I know befriending her does NOT mean I'm befriending her husband, but because I'm a straight forward, brutally honest person, how can I go about nurturing a new friendship with this white elephant in the room?
What would you do? I'm a follower of Christ and I can tell ya, I'm probably gonna gain a new friend, for the good or the bad of it.