The selfish friend

I have quite a large close-knit group of friends at university. An almost 50/50 mixture of boys and girls, we all lived together last year in a block of 26 and now everyone except me (I am at home to save money) are living in 3 houses which are all on the same road. I spend as much time as I possibly can at their houses when I am not with the Boyfriend. Although home is great for nice meals, long relaxing baths and the general warmth you don't get in student houses I am a sociable person and really hate spending the night in my own bed alone. Within the group there are two couples and there have been a few nights of passion between others. None of which involved me.

My best friend at uni is Ellie. She is wonderfully funny, beautiful and always manages to have fun. But she is one of the most insecure people I have ever met. I personally blame her parents, he father has recently told her she should only be eating 800 calories a day because he was ashamed to introduce her to his friends! I should add her that she is definitely not fat, maybe ever so slightly overweight but its hardly noticeable. The only way Ellie can ever feel good about herself is by getting with guys, kissing is OK but if she can sleep with them she will. Because of this she has been called a slag many a time and it doesn't even work. As soon as they fail to text the next day she is miserable again.

Recently she has had a big thing for our friend Chris and over the summer and up until after Christmas they had a sort of 'thing' where they would sleep together in secret. It was totally messed up, she is in love with him and he never realised and just wanted a quick shag. Nobody could say anything to him because we had been sworn to secrecy by Ellie. Eventually in some big scenes it all came out and it is pretty much in the past now.

Me and Chris are quite close, I like being with him because I think he brings out the funny side in me and we can have a good banter. But recently some fool in our group (I don't know who) has told Ellie that they think Chris likes me. Although ever so secretly I sometimes wonder if this could be true I have absolutely no feelings for him at all. The problem is now Ellie sees this all the time, if I turn up and Chris is there she goes quiet and moody and if she sees me chatting with him she insists I am flirting with him. This only usually happens when she is drunk but I can see it there all the time. Now he has asked me to go for a drink at the student union with him after our last exam. It is very very definitely only friendly but I almost said no because I knew it would upset her. In the end I agreed but invited a few other friends along too, just to make sure.

I love her to pieces but I'm just not sure that I can keep refusing to go out or trying not to talk to people I like because of Ellie's insecurity's. I am aware that this seems quite selfish but I have to pander to her all the time and I am getting slightly fed up of it.