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" Almost everyone has a friend who is always around when she&amp;#039;s single, but is M.I.A. when she&amp;#039;s in a relationship. I&amp;#039;m not trying to point fingers\u2014balancing a romantic relationship with friendships is hard! Throw school, family, and a part-time job or internship into the mix and it can be really stressful! I admit, sometimes I get overwhelmed, but over time I&amp;#039;ve learned a few tricks: I try to hang out with my boyfriend and friends seperately, but whenever their interests cross over\u2014like if a band I know everyone likes is playing\u2014I bring them all together. This week, my BFF Ashley came all the way from New York to Los Angeles to visit me. You may know Ashley from Seventeen&amp;#039;s Freshmen 15. She&amp;#039;s also in the new April issue of the magazine! Ashley is my girl. I feel 100 percent myself around her and we have a blast together. We are both completely obsessed with Harry Potter. I made her read the entire series so she could see Harry Potter and the Half-Blooded Prince at midnight with me, and she&amp;#039;s been a Potterhead like me ever since! For Ashley&amp;#039;s visit, I planned out all the Harry Potter-themed places in L.A. I wanted to take her to, like a shop that serves butter beer! As excited as I was to see Ashley, I still wanted to spend time with Troy. Troy isn&amp;#039;t into Harry Potter like Ashley and me, but he loves Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit. I suggested the three of us have a Game of Thrones marathon\u2014they were both super into it! We ordered pizza and just totally dorked out. Troy&amp;#039;s a big part of my life, so it&amp;#039;s important to me that my best friend gets to know him. Using their shared interests to come up with a way for us all to hang out gave them something to bond over and it didn&amp;#039;t feel forced. No one felt like the third wheel because no one was! Can you relate to balancing friendships and relationships? Let me know! Brooklyn Brooklyn is a dating blogger for Seventeen. Read her blog from last week here. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.seventeen.com/love/dating-advice/a20301/balancing-boyfriend-friends/>