Estimated reading time: 24 minutes
Dear Dr. NerdLove:
I’m writing to you about a friendship that’s intermixed with my relationship.
I (33F) met my girlfriend (27F) “Melonie” 2 years ago through her best friend (27F). My girlfriend needed a better paying job, and her best friend and I worked together. We had a job opening, and her best friend, let’s call her “Lin,” said she should apply for it. Melonie and I realized we had feelings for each other pretty fast and started dating. Lin was so excited that we started dating as I had trained her when she first started, and she was one of the people I was closest to at that job. Melonie and I have even talked to Lin about her ordaining our wedding, as she has her certificate. Lin is essentially the godmother except in title of Melonie’s 3-year-old son, and we consider her family.
Lin is getting married in September to a guy (“Ricky”) she started dating 2 years ago. They met at a con, and they just went to it together this last weekend. We really like him, they’re a great match, and we’ve gone on many double dates. We’ve done couples Mario Kart tournaments and often trade Pokémon cards. Lin even confided in us that of all her friends, he liked us best. They got engaged in December, and Melonie is going to be one of her bridesmaids. Lin decided she wanted her own sister to be her maid of honor due to some issue with trying to sidestep an overbearing mother or mother-in-law, but told Melonie that she would have chosen her as maid of honor otherwise. Melonie is not offended, as she’s happy to be part of the bridal party and is going to do Lin’s wedding makeup.
Here’s where it starts to get sticky: prior to the engagement, Lin had told Melonie multiple times that she “wanted Melonie to be involved in the engagement, that she wanted Ricky to tell her before he proposed so that Melonie knows he’s ready.” That was never fully explained to Melonie or I what that meant. I’d been present at several of these conversations, so I know it wasn’t something that was told to Melonie that was lost in translation to me.
Lin gave us about a 2-week warning that she thought the engagement was going to happen soon. Ricky texted us a few hours beforehand that he was going to propose to Lin. Melonie was upset, because she had interpreted what Lin said as meaning “be ready to give ring advice, be ready to sneakily get her nails done, make sure she has a cute outfit on the day of,” etc. Melonie texted Ricky back that she was frustrated he was barely giving her a heads up and that she couldn’t do any of the things she thought she was supposed to be helping with, and that the engagement day is considered one of the most important days in a person’s life and she wanted to make sure it was perfect for her friend. I went back as I was writing this and reread it, and honestly she kept it pretty tame and polite. I thought at the time should let it go because what was done was done, but Melonie is never afraid to let anyone know her thoughts and that’s what Lin has proudly said about Melonie many times. I also appreciate it about her.
Ricky… did not take it well. Lin called us the next day and said “what did you say to Ricky? He’s been an anxious mess and said you guys were upset about the engagement.” Melonie told her about it and said she wasn’t trying to derail anything; rather, she felt like Ricky had ignored Lin’s wishes. Lin was upset and said he wasn’t supposed to ask her friend for permission. She felt like it put her in a really terrible place between her best friend and her fiancé. It was a whole back and forth. Melonie apologized to both, said she hadn’t thought Ricky was supposed to ask permission and she thought was supposed to have a little more input, and said she didn’t mean to ruin their day, and hoped they could move past it.
Since then, Lin has planned basically the whole wedding with almost zero input from anybody else. We’ve oohed and ahhed over the ring, the dress, the venue, etc. Some of it has been stuff we wouldn’t personally choose ourselves (the dress in particular), but Melonie and I both really complimented her and were excited. We went to a wedding expo with them a few months ago, we gave input on their wedding invitations, and helped them narrow their wedding colors. We’ve both been really excited to go.
A few months ago, Lin had some other childhood friends with big personalities she’s been a bit rocky with in the last few years (for example: they showed up uninvited to her birthday party last year and one slapped Lin’s ass and proudly told Ricky that Lin “was still hers” and Lin later said she felt really uncomfortable when I asked if she was okay, and that Ricky had felt really uncomfortable with it, too) try to make up with her, and she decided to include them in her bridal party when she had told us beforehand that she wasn’t planning on including them. Within the week, Lin very excitedly told us that her other friends had suggested renting an AirBnB for the bachelorette weekend of games, and her friends were going to pay for a large chunk of it. I am not really part of the bridal party, but I have been invited to the bachelorette party.
Melonie and I knew that Lin would like the AirBnB weekend, as Lin has done them before, but we weren’t sure if it was what she truly wanted for bachelorette. We hoped that she wasn’t going along with her other friends’ grand gesture for the sake of it, and it was truly her choice. Some people want to do the same things they’ve done before, some people want to do something new or grandiose, etc. I reached out to another friend of Lin’s that had been her roommate before Lin moved in with Ricky and asked her if Lin would be good with it. She said yeah, Lin would be and asked me why I asked. I told her that I just wanted to make sure Lin was good with it or if we should still throw some other suggestions out there.
Well, a few weeks later, Lin went down for an AirBnB weekend for that friend’s birthday party that I had reached out to, and said that friend pulled Lin aside and asked “hey, is everything okay with you and Melonie and (me)?” Lin texted us the next day and said she was checking in, and did we have any concerns?
I told Lin that I had a friend who’d gotten married before I met her, and she was such a people pleaser whereas her mother and mother-in-law were such strong personalities that they took over the entire wedding and planned everything. That friend had told me if she had gotten married now, she would do the entire wedding differently because she regretted pretty much the whole thing. I told Lin that I didn’t think it was an uncommon scenario, and I just wanted to make sure it was right for her.
Lin thanked me and said she was good with it. I said that’s awesome, I was looking forward to the weekend and the games, etc., and hadn’t thought about it again until recently.
A few days ago, Lin made a group chat for the bachelorette party weekend, and everyone introduced themselves. Ricky’s sister introduced herself as “Hey, I’m Cheryl! Or my legal name is Trina haha.” I texted Lin in our group chat with Melonie if Cheryl was a new thing for Ricky’s sister. Lin said it was just a nickname that she’s had for a while. (I promise this becomes relevant). The next day, one of them with a traditionally masculine name sent an image that described “the Panty Game,” as a game “where everyone brings a pair of underwear that matches their personality and the bride has to guess who brought what, as she adds to her lingerie question.” The person who sent it said “Panty Party or what” and several of the others chimed in excitedly.
I thought the game was a little weird, but also weird that we were supposed to bring lingerie that described us. I also thought it was a little weird that it was the person with the masculine name who suggested it, though I have learned since that person is nonbinary. I honestly would be fine with cishet men being included in the bachelorette party, but it had never been communicated to me that there were going to be men and the optics of it felt weird for a person I’d never met. It was a funny idea, but did Lin actually want a bunch of pairs of underwear that she was never going to wear taking up room in her drawer until she inevitably got rid of them? So, I said as much in the group chat. I’m a bit of a straight-forward, blunt person, so what I said was this “Idk isn’t it kind of weird that she’s getting underwear that reflects us? Is she really going to want to keep it or wear it, or is it going to live in the corner of her drawer until she throws them away? She’s not getting married to us, she’s getting married to Ricky. I see the vision but the execution of the person who posted that could use some tweaking.” I was honestly trying to gauge the temperature and thought was a variation we could do.
There was immediate defensiveness from almost everyone in the bachelorette chat that I hadn’t met, saying “well, it was Lin’s idea…” The woman who slapped Lin’s ass said “yeah, Lin saved that idea on her Pinterest because she thought it would be fun and Lin tends to like goofy stuff like that lol also I’m pretty sure we all know Lin enough to know what kind of underwear she’d wear on the daily.” I do not have Pinterest so I hadn’t seen Lin’s posts about it. Melonie and I didn’t say anything since we felt a clear divide, and Lin texted an hour or so later that she thought it would be cute and had saved it to her Pinterest. I thumbs up’d it, and Melonie said “Okay” with a smiley emoji. I know we could have smoothed things over a little bit more, but it had been odd how everyone else formed an immediate team that we were not a part of, so we just left it at that.
The next morning, Lin texted Melonie separately and said “hey, is there something going on with you guys and Ricky and I getting married? I feel like there’s been a lot of weird or negative feelings whenever something revolving it is brought up. It feels like you guys want to be involved and when you are, something is off. Idk it’s just something I’m noticing and want to check in.” Melonie texted her that yeah, everything is fine, we’re good, but could they talk sometime this week to hopefully clear anything up that might get miscommunicated by text?
I also texted Lin and apologized, and repeated what I had said earlier about my friend who regretted a lot of the choices made in her wedding, and repeated that I really wanted to make sure Lin didn’t feel bad about anything later. I also repeated that I thought while the underwear game would be funny, it did seem like a lot of wasted underwear that would sit in her drawer. I said it was harder for me to gauge the vibes of everyone since I hadn’t been in the planning chat, only just added to the bachelorette party chat. I asked if there was a better way to check in and make sure things were what Lin wanted without making her feel like we’re negative about it or judging anything? I also added that I wanted clarification on the game, because the post that was sent said the personality of the person bringing it, whereas her friend had said “Lin’s style.”
The answer I got back was long and vague, and didn’t really resolve anything. Lin said she didn’t want to be second guessed, which I had guessed she was feeling after I asked if she was good with everything. She said she didn’t have any suggestions on how to check in, just that she “hopes we’re all on the same page,” and “no underlying concern from you guys.” She said she thought the underwear game would be silly fun, but she trusted we would “keep her style in mind,” which still didn’t answer my clarification about the game. She said she just wanted to check in and make sure we’re okay, friend to friend.
Melonie and her spoke on the phone later, and… it didn’t seem to go well. Melonie said she mostly just listened. Lin told her that she was considering taking Melonie out of the bridal party, or me out of the bachelorette party, or both of us. She said she wasn’t sure what to do. She said she’s been getting a very negative vibe from us both for months, and that the only thing she felt we were genuinely happy for her on was her wedding dress, and that everything else we didn’t seem excited for her. Yes, the same wedding dress that I earlier mentioned both of us were meh on, but made sure to keep to ourselves. Note: we did not tell her that her comments about the dress were ironic considering Lin already thought we were being too negative.
Lin said she had felt a very negative vibe from me, and she felt like I was constantly questioning everything. She made it sound like there were a lot of instances where I was rude to her, and when Melonie asked her when, Lin could only specifically point to me asking her other friend if Lin was good with the bachelorette weekend choice, me asking the bachelorette group if the game was a little weird, and that I texted about Ricky’s sister’s nickname “which was really weird and off-putting.” She said that she felt really upset by my text where I asked if there was a different way we could check-in, because she’s “not our manager and my question made her feel like she was my manager.”
I was quite upset at the whole thing, but by the time Melonie recounted the nickname question, I was outraged. If I can’t even ask a neutral question about a nickname, then apparently, I can’t say anything to her without her thinking I’m weird and off-putting. I have NEVER gotten the impression that Lin was upset with me before this. I’m also extremely upset that she’s dangling being a part of her bridal party above Melonie’s head. I don’t think it was her intention, as Melonie described her as “spiraling” when she talked to her, but it’s manipulative. Melonie doesn’t deserve this treatment and neither do I. I told Melonie that it feels like we’re being made to sing and dance to a song we don’t know and can’t hear.
I really don’t know what to do here. If this is just coming from Lin, then it feels like she’s been two-faced to us for a long time if she’s been holding on to these grievances and letting them build into resentment. If it’s not coming from her, I feel extra justified in asking the few times I did if she was good with her party choices and they were what she wanted to do. This doesn’t seem like the person that either of us know, who’s always been very level and down-to-earth. I know weddings cause stress, but we’re still almost 6 months away from the wedding and they have all their contracts and everything settled on.
I don’t want to force Melonie to choose between us, but I also told her that her friend wasn’t treating her right. I said that if Lin never apologizes to us both or doesn’t really say anything else, I’m not going to be Lin’s friend. I don’t have time to give to people who treat me like that. We’ve both apologized profusely to Lin, even though we’re completely baffled at most of her accusations. I know that’s a really hard place for Melonie to be.
I’m guessing there’s some sort of combo of wedding stress, plus me being a little blunt, and her not mentioning being upset at anything that’s lead to this build up. As Melonie told her, I can’t fix what she doesn’t tell me she’s upset by, and I also even asked if I could do something differently, which she found appalling. Lin also implied that she was still hurt about the engagement mix-up, which I suspect also means that Ricky is still hurt about it and has been telling her. I realized writing this that part of my screwup with the bachelorette chat is that I don’t use Pinterest, so when I said the person that posted the image, what I meant was the person who edited the image and uploaded it to Pinterest. Maybe Lin and everyone else thought I meant her. I would message her and ask if she thought that’s what I meant, but… I don’t think that’s going to be well-met.
When I was at the end of my 20s, I lost 2 friendships that had meant a lot to me. When Lin and Melonie have jokingly asked me about the end of your 20s and turning 30, I’ve told them about the loneliness of losing friendships and the struggle to try to make new friends as an adult. Maybe it’s universal, maybe it’s not, but it does feel like there’s an abrupt cliff where friendships meet the chaotic structure of navigating adult life and the friendships often disappear. I knew about it and had been trying to actively stave it off myself, and yet I still lost those friendships.
I don’t want Melonie to have to lose her best friend over me, nor do I really want to lose Lin’s friendship, but I also don’t really want to be “friends” with someone who thinks so poorly of us. I’m hoping Lin realizes she’s being unreasonable and we’re able to make some sort of amends, but we’re at a loss on how to go about it. She left off with Melonie saying that “Melonie’s choice is up to her,” yet she didn’t really clarify what choice she was giving Melonie, just implied it with the threats to yank her from the bridal party or me, etc. My mom said she thought it was a shitty situation all the way around, but that I should do what can to support Melonie. I agree with her, though I also want to stick up for me. Melonie is definitely on my side and wants to support me, but she herself doesn’t know how to proceed.
Can you give some advice based on several possible scenarios on how Lin reaches out to us (or doesn’t)?
Bridal Glower
OK, this is a lot (literally, it’s close to 3k words…) but it really seems to come down to a whole lot of failure to communicate and wildly different ideas about what you’re being asked for and what you’re asking for. I suspect that the fact that much of this is also getting distorted because of perceived attitudes and how much of this is one person relaying what a different person said, turning relatively simple questions into “so-and-so told such-and-such told this-person that Ferris passed out at the 31 Flavors last night”.
In fact, the one of the first issues that I’ve noticed that seem to come up the most often are how Lin seems to expect people to be able to read her intent in her words, how nobody seems to ask clarifying questions, and how often people’s issues are being passed around third hand. All of these are great ways to have what should be a simple matter get tangled and knotted until it feels like a bad reality show on Bravo. Doubly so when you’re dealing with something as stressful and insanity-provoking as planning a wedding.
Part of the problem here is that it seems like there’re too many people being given responsibilities without a rundown on what those responsibilities entail, as well as an assumption that everyone is following everyone else on the same social networks and has also seen every relevant post on the matter. There is no checking in to make sure everyone’s on the same page, making sure that everyone has seen X post on Y site or even just saying “ok, just so I’m clear, when you say B, you mean C?”
This is why poor communication kills. If you’re going to be planning a wedding like it’s the D-Day invasion, the first and most important step is making sure that everyone has a clear and unambiguous understanding of what’s expected of them and when, a centralized location for all relevant and important information, and the exact boundaries of everyone’s responsibilities. It also helps if there’s one person who’s serving as the coordinator for everything not under the direct purview of the bride.
The fracas around Ricky finally proposing is a prime example. Lin asked Melonie to give her a heads up when Ricky was going to propose; as you said, there was no further explanation as to what that entailed. This is precisely the time when follow-up questions could have saved a hell of a lot of frustration, because that just sounds like “hey, give me a heads up if/when Ricky is going to propose”. What it doesn’t sound like is “Ricky needs to give a full day’s advance notice so that Lin can get Instagram-ready and have pics she can post to all her socials,” which seems to be how Melonie took it. And since nobody seems to have told Ricky about what any of this might have entailed (a “hey, give me a day’s notice for when you’re going to propose” would’ve helped), I’m not surprised that things took a header almost immediately. Melonie is frustrated because she feels like she hasn’t been given time to accomplish what she thought her job was, Ricky is upset because he feels like Melonie is upset at him for reasons, Lin is upset because everyone else is confused and upset and thus everyone is pissy at everyone else.
You couldn’t have created more chaos if the goddess Eris had showed up to wing an golden apple marked “for the least problematic” into the crowd.
But another issue that seems to come up a lot is how much you are letting your feelings and impressions lead you to get involved in things that really aren’t really your responsibility. You’re not in the bridal party, and you were only involved in the planning in as much as you were there with Melonie to accompany Lin to the various appointments and make appropriate noises over the cake flavor and decorations. That was the entire extent of your lane and what should have been your involvement in the planning. If you’d stuck to that lane, there likely would have been far less drama involved, and the most difficult part would be putting up with some of her friends at the bachelorette party.
Part of the problem is that you were making a lot of assumptions based on facts that weren’t in evidence but were, instead, based on your anxieties and what people entirely unconnected to this had experienced. While it’s admirable that you wanted to make sure that your friend was getting the wedding she wanted, it wasn’t your responsibility to be managing this for her; you weren’t the maid of honor, nor her closest friends. It would’ve been one thing if Lin had come to you and vented about how much of a nightmare this wedding was turning into and how it was getting away from what she wanted. Taking it upon yourself to check and double check, without checking in with Lin first, lead to a lot of the conflicts.
I suspect that this well-intended desire to help is what caused everything to keep spiraling. While I can appreciate your wanting things to go well for your friend and you were worried about her big day, you seem to have come to things – especially once her friends were involved – from a perspective that Lin was incapable of advocating for herself. This was coming from a good place, but I think it contributed to the “tone” that other people were apparently hearing. You were trying to protect your friend, but because there doesn’t seem to have been anything to protect her from, it came off more negative or judgmental than you intended.
Now to be fair, I think the fact that it was the collision between both your wanting to make sure Lin was getting the wedding she wanted and the poor communication from her and others in the bridal party that caused everything to go sideways. The intersection of those two problems is what started to tip dominoes that might not have fallen otherwise. Take, for example, the inherent challenge of trying to merge into a pre-existing friend group that you had only literally just met. There clearly were dynamics, history, in-jokes and lore that you weren’t party to (yet), and that contributed to the social turbulence. That, admittedly, can be a tricky thing to handle, especially if these are long-term friends who’ve known Lin for longer and in contexts that you haven’t experienced. But it is doable.
In my experience, the best way to manage it is to roll with it as best you can, and see if one of the friends will be willing to be the in-group translator that you could ask for clarification if you weren’t sure about what was going on. As it was, it seems pretty clear that you tripped over a few things that you couldn’t be aware of, but folks expected that you already know… somehow. Which wasn’t necessarily cool of them, but I suspect that was more out of a lack of thinking than any sort of weird mean-girl games. But it still became one more domino on the pile.
The ultimate issue, though, is that none of these were isolated incidents that happened in a vacuum. What we have are a series of events that, in isolation, don’t amount to much. But stack them all on top of one another, and I can see how it starts creating a weird feeling. It’s a filter issue – once something sets a tone, everything often gets seen through that filter. The miscommunication around the proposal is what set the storm clouds to gathering. While it was a clear issue of miscommunication, I think that this is what started the feeling that you and Melonie had issues with Lin and her wedding.
The lingerie exchange game is a prime example. I’m with you: I had no idea what the hell the panty exchange thing was and had to look it up to see if that was a real thing. Apparently, it is, so… learn something new every day, I think. But I think it would’ve been better to just clarify “ok, am I supposed to be bringing ones that I think she would like, or ones that are supposed to represent me?” and leaving it there; understanding what – if anything – Lin’s supposed to do with all the excess (and possibly unwanted) underwear is something you could’ve left unspoken or asked later.
The gender-non-specific name of one of the members of the bachelorette party is another example. If they were an established member of this group, and if everyone else, Lin included, seemed to have no problem, I think it would’ve been a safer move to just roll with it and trust that there was context that you weren’t seeing. Bringing it up in the group chat, when everyone else clearly knew who the person and were cool with them suggesting it, ended up creating conflict that was otherwise pretty avoidable.
I agree that the stress of the wedding is part of this. The stress of planning a wedding is a motherfucker of a brain-melter, even when complicated parts seem to be going smoothly and everything is locked in. It’s not a time when people are at their most level-headed and thinking clearly, and even less so when Instagram and Tiktok algorithms seem almost custom-designed to send future brides into a spiral. Tempers get short, sanity starts to fray and what would otherwise be minor and easily resolved mistakes just pile up like pebbles leading to an avalanche. And so here we are, on the verge of an avalanche.
That’s why at end of the day, the thing that you needed to do – and should still do – is less. Do less. Offer less. Less in this case is indeed more, because less means less stress, less miscommunication and less simple misunderstandings getting blown out of proportion.
And less includes trying to clarify things or protest how you’re being misunderstood. These are not the circumstances where anyone is going to be receptive to hearing about how they are getting things all wrong. Taking this personally and getting upset about how Lin thinks about you or sees you is going to end up creating more conflict where none needs to happen. Yeah, I know it’s hurting your feelings, but I hope you see how this cycle is perpetuating itself. Everyone’s keyed up, everyone’s defensive, nobody is thinking clearly and you are all seeing other people’s behaviors in the least flattering light possible. The cycle needs to be stopped somewhere, and the person who’s best able to break it is you.
Which, as I said, means doing less. You’re in a hole right now – not one entirely of your own making, but still a hole. That means that the first thing to do is stop digging. I know that feels frustrating. You want to be taking an active role in making things better or making sure people understand. But right now, that’s not going to help. Sometimes the best option is the one that’s just least bad, and you have to ask if this really is the hill you want to die on.
I think the best thing you can do for now is take a step back. You don’t have an official role in the wedding or the bridal party, and Melonie’s is currently on thin ice. Lin knows where to find you and how to reach you. When and if she wants your involvement in the planning, let her be the one to make the move. If and when she does, be proactive in asking simple, clarifying questions to make sure you’re on the same page about what she wants, especially if what she asks for is vague or uncertain. Phrase it as “OK, if I’m understanding you correctly, you’re asking for X and Y and this entails Z. Is that correct?” Leave everything else for later.
Right now, trying to clear things up runs the risk of kicking off a new round of tone policing, misunderstanding and overall negative vibes that aren’t actually there or intended. There will be time to say “hey, I know things got stressful and [Melonie and I] ended up contributing to that and we’re both very sorry,” which is all that needs to be said about it… but that time is later, when things aren’t piling up. It may mean dealing with some icy behavior from Lin for a bit. It may mean having to eat some crow when you do. I promise you: if what you want is to preserve your friendship with Lin and especially to support Melonie keeping her friendship with Lin, then taking the short term hit to your ego will be a small price to pay.
Good luck.
