I have been a huge fan of anime for over 15 years. My best friend, "Riley", only saw a few anime before we met a couple of years ago, but was interested in checking out more. I'm always down to hand out anime recommendations based on people's current interests, and I did the same with Riley. So we watched some anime together; a couple of them Riley wasn't interested in right away, which is fine obviously, so we moved onto another one. In the brief time we've been friends, I've gotten them intensely hyperfixated on quite a few different anime that we enjoy talking about.
Here's where things get a little weird. Riley has a partner, "Adam" (24 M), that they've been dating for I think about three or so years now. I'm mutuals with Adam, we're in multiple servers and group chats together along with my own partner, "Bella" (27 F). Riley and I never thought anything negative of this dynamic.
However, in the past several months or so, Adam has been weirdly tense with me. We already barely talked (I didn't think much of it), but slowly Riley has been expressing concern with me that they think Adam might be jealous of our relationship. I thought that was weird at first because all four of us are polyamourus anyway so even if we were interested in pursuing a relationship (we're not), it shouldn't effect anything. When this was first brought up, I think Adam was actively dating someone else and Riley just got out of a different relationship. I even talked with Bella to make sure she wasn't feeling weird too and she just shrugged and said she gave her approval if I wanted to.
The major factor that seems to have sparked all of this is that Adam got hyperfixated on an anime recently and wanted to watch it with Riley, but Riley wasn't interested because they already knew it had one of their main triggers in it. They asked me about it and I was honest about how it had a few other themes they probably wouldn't like as well as that the story telling style wasn't one that they usually go for.
After I told them that, Riley went back to Adam and expressed why they didn't feel comfortable watching the anime. Adam tried to change their mind, telling them more and more about the anime and showing gifs of his favorite scenes, which just made Riley feel more certain that it wasn't an anime they would be interested in.
I understand getting excited about an anime and wanting to share it with your partner, trust me, Bella and I have been trading anime recommendations for nearly 9 years. But that's just not the type of anime Riley would be interested in and that's fine. I personally like it, and a couple of our other mutual friends love it, so I don't know why Adam couldn't just express his love for that anime to the people who were interested.
As the months have gone on and I've gotten Riley hyperfixated on a couple more anime, it feels like Adam is getting more and more jaded towards me. Now whenever Riley expresses interest in a new anime, Adam just asks if it's one I suggested and if it is, he's immediately not interested in checking it out with them.
Is there something I could say or do to hopefully smooth things over? I've suggested to Riley that they should go watch some new animes together with Adam where they both go in blind with zero recommendations from me in the hopes that maybe that will smooth things out. They both got recommended one by a mutual friend that I had never seen before, so hopefully they'll check it out soon together and I'll just continue to not watch it if that makes things easier.
Riley really deeply cares for Adam and I don't want them to separate in the first place, but I especially don't want to be the reason that wedge was formed. I hold no ill will towards Adam at all and would much prefer for us to either go back to being chill mutuals or maybe even become friends. I've considered asking him if he wanted to watch anime I think he would like together, but I have a feeling that would have the opposite effect. Watching anime with people is my main love language, so I'm not sure how else to tackle this.