Can I Uninvite My BFF's Man To My Wedding?

Self-helpy AF!

I cut my great-grandfather out of this 1927 wedding photo, kind of like one of the readers wants to do to her best friend’s shitty boyfriend!

Welcome to an advice column by me, Sara Benincasa, a person with many opinions. This column will not diagnose or “cure” anything. Hopefully, reading it will entertain and perhaps comfort you. Think of it as a pleasant aromatherapy massage with hot stones and also somehow it is freaking free?! Send questions to saratoninnewsletter@gmail.com. You can also DM me at Instagram.com/SaraJBenincasa. If I use your question, I’ll  keep you anonymous. I always alter details and edit/revise questions for space and for your privacy.

Dear Sara,

My best friend’s boyfriend is the most obnoxious person alive. He’s rude, loud, and stingy. He is not evil, but he is insufferable. My husband-to-be also thinks the dude sucks. I want my best friend to be the maid of honor in my wedding. Am I allowed to tell her not to bring that man? — Not a Bridezilla

Dear NAB:

Yes. It’s your fucking wedding. I assume she knows you don’t like him. This is a bigass party and it’s probably an investment. You don’t need to waste money on him. Be polite and direct with her. Don’t pad it with apologies or excuses. But do be prepared for an array of potential consequences.

Here’s an example — and definitely have this conversation in person or over the phone, not via text or email: “Tanya, I love you and would be so happy to have you as the maid of honor in my wedding. I would prefer you not bring Barry. I respect your right to date whomever you choose. I will always support what makes you happy and healthy. But on my wedding day, I’ll be more comfortable without him there.”

Don’t talk shit about him. Don’t say you’re sorry for how you feel — you aren’t sorry! Don’t get caught up in longwinded explanations, or trying to sell her on the idea. Be brief, informative, friendly and firm (shout out once again to the BIFF method).

Understand that she may get upset. Perhaps she loves him and he’s dicking her down better than any previous gentleman could. Your speaking up could even end the friendship. It could certainly usher in an Ice Age between you gals. After all, you’re asking her to have a potentially uncomfortable conversation with somebody she presumably loves.

I encourage more consideration before you have the conversation. If she marries this fellow and/or reproduces with him, and you want to have a lifelong relationship with her, you’re up against some difficulties. But let’s not trip out on a potential future.

I don’t know Barry, and he could be an amazing man, and you could be a selfish fool. But even so, you’re the selfish fool throwing the damn party, and it’s your right to have people you like there.

Dear Sara,

I know Wonkette is not a nutrition or wellness site [author’s note: correct, it is a recipe blog]. But lately I am feeling bad about my weight for a reason that feels petty and childish.

I have a few friends who have dropped a lot of weight quickly. I don’t want to be upset about it, but I am.

One of them is very open about using Ozempic, and I am glad for her. She is very funny about it, too. She does not brag, and she will tell you about the side effects (sometimes in too much detail). But she is happy about it and unashamed. She is one of the Type II Diabetes patients for whom it was invented. I have seen her exercise more, change how she eats, and generally feel more confident. It seems like it has motivated her. Yes, her appearance has changed, but that is secondary to the other things that have changed (medical issues invisible to others but that I know about as her close friend).

The other two friends don’t admit to using any weight loss drug. I mostly believe one of them. She went on a very strict diet that sounds very unappealing to me, but she stuck to it. She also goes to the gym often.

The other friend is clearly not telling the whole truth. I try not to get angry at her, but it is hard to not feel like she is lying when she posts photos in her new clothes and talks about how much she loves the gym and how better eating and good sleep is doing this and blah blah blah. I know it must be the drug because of the swift weight loss and because of the way her face looks now.

Why is she being dishonest? Why am I letting it make me feel bad in comparison? I feel like an idiot for even caring. — Jealous Jerk

Dear JJ:

You’re not a jerk. These friends have made changes that are holding a mirror up to you — and I don’t mean your physical body, but to your values.

What I’m hearing is that you don’t like lying, and you feel that one of the friends is lying by omission. But she doesn’t owe you the truth about her private medical decisions, or even what she does with diet or exercise. In the poetic words of Jay (of Jay and Silent Bob) in the 1999 Kevin Smith film Dogma: “A woman’s body is her own fucking business.”

Still, I get why you feel this way.

It may feel to you as if she’s cheating in some manner. Through medication and other means she has managed to get herself closer to the white supremacist capitalist ideal of thinness.

Your TMI friend sounds hilarious and like a gal after my own heart. You seem to respect her spunk. But you also seem to feel it’s only okay for her to lose weight on a prescription drug because she’s taking it for the FDA-approved reason versus the off-label use that has propelled the drug to superstar status.

As for the friend you actively resent right now — let’s proceed assuming her weight loss was in fact assisted by the use of a medication. Let’s also assume it was not prescribed for any medical reason. She may have taken the drug to get thin, to be received in the world a different way, or hell, to feel good about herself. Maybe she’s always thought that if she were slimmer, she’d be happier.

I remember a man I loved (dear Lord) saying to me, “You’d be perfect if you were the same weight and shape but just six inches taller.” It will perhaps come as no surprise that this is the only person I’ve ever dated who hit me, which seems like an out-of-context detail but truly isn’t. Physical criticisms from ones who are meant to love us are often just the tip of the controlling iceberg.

He was parroting what he’d been fed his whole life. Look in mainstream magazines or at digital ads and see what is typically sold to us. In Mainstream Advertising World, if a woman is curvy, she has to be slim thicc — tiny waist, big ass (no cellulite allowed), big perky boobs, toned arms, probably a flat tummy too.

Culturally, there are some variations here. In some communities, certain features are prized over others. But the number one all-American bestseller is still a thin body with buoyant bosom that is ample but not TOO big as to be “sloppy” or “saggy.”

But enough about that, and back to your specific issue. Jealousy is a natural response when we watch somebody seemingly leapfrog over all the expensive, torturous steps we are told we must take to look a certain way. But you do not need to stay jealous. Let’s dig in here.

I’ll throw a few questions at you that I have asked myself in the past.

1. Why do I care?

2. Would I have the same reaction if it turned out they were dealing with a private medical condition?

3. Do I wish I looked more like them?

4. If so, why?

5. What do I love about my own body?

6. What do I criticize about my own body?

7. Why do I criticize that aspect of my body?

8. Are there patterns in what I say when I look in the mirror?

9. Is there something I wish to change about my own body?

10. Do I want to make a plan to change that thing?

This leads our eyes back to our own paper, where they belong. Obviously, I judge people too. I get envious, jealous, and even just wistful about these matters. But I find it healthiest to use that judgement as a signal that there’s something about myself with which I’m not satisfied (unless I’m judging the person for being an actual abusive piece of shit, in which case they can fuck off into the vast ocean forever).

In conclusion, whatever you’re feeling and thinking is fine. It’s what you do with it that matters.

Take some time, perhaps with a trusted friend who knows you well and does not know this other woman, to examine why you’re particularly irritated about this. You may uncover some deeper answers about yourself, and possibly about the friendship.

You’re not a bad person for feeling this way. I expect more and more people to have to confront these sorts of feelings as these blockbuster drugs get even more popular. Never in history has it been easy for those with money to change the shape of their bodies. It’s okay to have reactions to this new reality.