grudges: friends vs. lovers

I watch The Hills religiously...even though a lot of viewers feel that it is scripted and quite predictable, I still enjoy it nonetheless. The characters deal with very familiar and relevant situations that I can relate to on many levels. While catching up on my online viewing, an idea came to mind...

How far does a friend have to go to you in order for you to hold a grudge against them? And do we hold grudges differently based on the person's role in our lives? For example, if our romantic partner does something offensive and one of our friends commits a similar offense, who will we be more inclined to stay mad at? Using the Hills as an example, were Heidi's violations against Lauren any worst that Brody's or Jason's? That is up for discussion, but Lauren was much more willing to at least have lunch or dinner with Brody and Jason, but she is vehemently upset with Heidi, she cannot even sit at the same table with her without overheating. Why is that?

I know that in my past, I have tolerated certain behavior from people that I had previously been intimate with, but when a family member or friend did not do right by me, I would be less willing to make up with the friend or family member. The only excuse (and I loathe excuses) that I can come up with is the fact that as people, we are seemingly more than willing to take shit from the people we are intimately involved with because we fear being alone. When friends make us upset, we don't always seem to have the same amount of urgency with patching things up because our friends are not sleeping with us, cup caking with us and offering us romantic love and comfort. There is a truth that we cannot deny, we all want to be loved. 

Should we rate romantic love more important than friendships even though most friendships will last beyond romantic love episodes? We seem to place a lesser value on our friends while caught up in the rapture of our significant others of the time being, but isn't it more logical to place more emphasis on our friends and our relationships with them? Even though most people will look at these words and become defensive and claim that they do not fall into this category, go ahead and reflect of the feuds you have had with friends and how long it may have taken you to make up versus the feuds with lovers and furthermore; compare your overall amount of tolerance and patience with them. 

It would be ideal if the way we handled situations was uniform with all persons in our lives, including friends and lovers.