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When you’re young, you’ll watch your best friend date a lot of duds. She’ll watch you do the same. Every year, you’ll laugh and reminisce about the previous year’s failed relationships. Maybe when you’re 12, you’ll have those crushes, and the whole relationship will be texting, meeting behind the bleachers to share one kiss, and having the whole thing blow up because he invited someone else to the dance. In your teen years, you’ll feel devastatingly in love. You may start, um, exploring some adult activities. You’ll have that first huge heartache, from which you believe you’ll never recover. And you and your bestie will be there for each other through it all. When you get into college, you’ll believe that now you finally have “real” relationships. You’ll have those first boyfriends with whom you have lots of sleepovers and spend plenty of time, without parental supervision.
With each passing phase of your life, you’ll say hello and goodbye to new stages of romance. You get used to the idea that, even if you don’t like your friend’s current boyfriend, he won’t be around for long. None of them are! Until one of them is. Forever.
What happens when your best friend announces she’ll be marrying her boyfriend you do not like? Maybe he’s fine even but, he’s just all wrong for her. Everybody knows it. The other friends. Her family. It’s starting to look like you won’t just be laughing about this relationship in a few years, the way you have about every other one. This dude may be sticking around. This is a tricky spot to be in. Do you let your friend make this mistake? Would she change her mind if you said anything, anyways? Would she stop talking to you? It’s a very different experience from having your best friend engaged to someone you adore. So, your best friend is dating someone all wrong for her. Here’s what that’s like.
The announcement
When this happened with my friend, I was so grateful she told me over the phone. Well, first she texted a photo of the ring. And I panicked, ran to my boyfriend, told him this was a huge mistake, and tried to figure out what to do. Luckily I was able to pull myself together to call her and give a fake, “Oh my gosh soooo exciting!” Imagine if she’d told me in person. I would have been screwed.
