The greatest truism in the mythology around Guy de Maupassant’s life is that he was a prolific womanizer; and it is not for nothing that Maupassant would sign some of his short stories and chronicles of the 1870s “Valmont”. Yet this truism risks simplifying a life in love and letters that was richer than this reduction implies, and it is in this context that this article revisits his 1885 novel about the rise and rise of one Georges Duroy, whose nickname gives the text its title: Bel-Ami. Via the critical language of homosociability used by Sedgwick and Marcus, and the scholarship of Hawthorne and Johnston, we address the concept of heterosociability that nuances Maupassant's notions of love and friendship (and the ambiguous zone in between), by paying particular attention to Maupassant’s use of the language of conversation.