Friend or Foe: My Friend's Fiance Has Sex With Dudes!

Welcome to "Friend or Foe," a regular DoubleX advice column for your queries about the trickiest of all love affairs: friendships. Lucinda Rosenfeld, author of I'm So Happy For You [2], a novel about best friends, is now taking questions at lucinda@imsohappyforyou.com [3].

Dear Friend or Foe,

I’m in my 30s and have been friends with “Erin” since we were 6. Erin is getting married next month. I think she's making a mistake. I like her fiance as a person, but he strung her along for nine years as she waited for some kind of commitment beyond, "I like you a lot." (He said he didn't believe in marriage, so she left him. Three times. And kept going back.) She also frequently complains to me that their sex life is nearly nonexistent. What’s more, she confided last year that he admitted to having a one-night stand with another man. I am certain this guy is gay and that he is marrying her because they are best friends and she can be his "beard." In fact, she expressed fears about his sexuality just a few months before he proposed.

I happen to be a bisexual person in a committed, monogamous, hetero-marriage, so I'm not judging him based solely on one bicurious episode. But a couple that only has sex twice a year before they walk down the aisle seems destined for serious intimacy issues.

Should I suck it up, play along, and hope she knows what she's getting into? Or should I say something? Please note that, since we live in different states, I haven't been around to witness any of this. I only know what she's told me. And all her other friends (who live near her) seem ecstatic that they're finally getting hitched. I’ve also agreed to participate in the wedding ...

Sincerely,
Help—My Friend Is Marrying a Gay Man

Dear HMFIMAGM,

“But love is blind and lovers cannot see; The pretty follies that themselves commit; For if they could, Cupid himself would blush,” Shakespeare wrote in The Merchant of Venice [4]. In short, mind your own beeswax. Erin apparently finds the guy irresistible, and—guess what—she’s the only one who has to do so. Plus, she’s had 10 years to realize the guy plays for the wrong team (and it apparently hasn’t stopped her from wanting to referee). Nor will she be the first straight woman to marry a gay man. Or a bisexual man, or whatever. If Sex and the City [5] taught us anything, it was that many women secretly prefer the company of gay husbands to straight ones. (Fewer Super Bowl parties, more shopping expeditions, anyone?)

As for Erin and Not-Quite-Straight’s sex life, what do you care, so long as you’re not being asked to make a threesome? Please also note that, for many married couples, sex plays a role so minimal that laundry is always prioritized. It’s also possible that Erin is planning an open marriage and just hasn’t told anyone about it.

In any case, it seems ironic that someone who goes both ways and yet maintains a committed hetero relationship (i.e., you!) would doubt a man’s ability to do the same.

Of course, if Not-Quite-Straight starts fooling around post-wedding, the honeymoon period will probably be over faster than you can say Tuscany. In the meantime, please attend your friend’s wedding with bells on (and a big smile on your face). Erin’s really psyched. You should be, too.

Sincerely,
Friend or Foe

Dear Friend or Foe,

I had a childhood best friend, “Mary,” who was like a sister. Our families were really close and we saw each other all the time until she moved away when we were both 11. We kept in touch as best we could but quickly lost contact. All these years I've missed her, wondered how she was, and basically felt a huge sense of loss. I've been searching for her online as long as online searches have been possible, but her incredibly common name meant I had no luck tracking her down.

A year ago, Mary joined Facebook, and I found her. She accepted my friend request, but there was no joyful reunion, just a couple of brief, casual messages. I can accept that she may not have felt the loss of our childhood friendship as acutely as I did. But here's the catch: Two years ago, I learned that the reason her family moved out of state is that my mother and her father had an affair.

My parents subsequently divorced, and it seems that hers stayed together. It was a chaotic and painful time for me—and probably for her, as well. I long to be able to talk to her about this terrible experience we both shared. But there's the chance that she has no idea what happened. And I worry it would be cruel and selfish to tell her if she doesn’t already know.

I suppose she could be entertaining the same fear. At any rate, I find myself visiting her Facebook page longingly and feeling stupidly melancholic and powerless to resolve anything. What should I do?

Sincerely,
Obsessed With Spilling Beans to Long-Lost Friend

Dear OWSBTLLF,

Wow, that’s quite a story. It seems to me that there are two separate issues here. One is that you long to reconnect with your childhood best friend who vanished on the cusp of adolescence. Which seems only natural. Curiosity and nostalgia are both powerful agents. The modern twist is that, thanks to search engines and social networking, we can now find out what happened to Little Carly From Down the Block. Which is cool, sort of, but also, maybe, just a little bit of a bummer?

The other issue is that you recently learned a new sordid detail regarding your parents’ divorce. You don’t say whether you were already aware that the chasm was due to or at least aided by infidelity. Either way, judging from your letter, I’m guessing that you have yet to work out all your feelings connected to this traumatic childhood event. Have you ever talked about what happened with a therapist? If not, this might be the time to splurge (and purge).

As for spilling legumes to Mary, before you go there you need to figure out what you hope to gain by telling her. Are you looking for someone to share and validate your pain? Are you secretly looking for some kind of apology? Are you hoping she has further details to add to the story, so you can better understand how it happened?

The real problem with telling Mary is not that you risk hurting her—though there is always that possibility, too—but that there is no context for it. As things currently stand, your “friendship” with Mary is a phantasm, built entirely out of ancient memories. You were friends as young children, which is not the same thing as being friends as adults, or even as teenagers. It seems to me that you’d want to achieve a certain level of closeness (again) before you’d dare to “go there.” If that’s not going to happen, I’d leave well enough alone.

One of the hardest things about growing up is accepting that some things (broken hearts, for one—but also broken families), can never be resolved.

Sincerely,
Friend or Foe

Dear Friend or Foe,

I'm writing to ask about your take on the person who chronically cancels plans at the last minute—namely, my friend “Petyon.” Make that, she makes plans, but then doesn't show up at least half the time. Of those occasions, she might actually TELL you she's bailing on you 25 percent of the time. The rest, you're left wondering what happened to her, texting her, texting other friends, or assuming she's bailed yet again. It concerned my group of friends the first couple times, but now this girl is notorious for it and if she doesn't show up, nobody is worrying about her too much.

What's worse is that while you know it's coming, you still feel bad when she does it. I can't tell if this is a personal sensitivity of mine, but it definitely makes me think of times when I was a kid or young teenager when I felt like the friend had found something better to do, someone cooler to hang out with, and I wasn't anyone to worry about.

There's so much about her behavior that's disrespectful, and if she were just any friend I'd move on and not bother with her. But the kicker is that she's a coworker and at the center of my group of work friends. There's no way to ditch her without ditching the group in some way, even though we all agree the behavior is awful. We have told her how rude it is, asked her to at least text us that she won't be coming so we know she's OK, but she's still no better than she used to be. How do I handle the behavior, and also the insecurities she brings up in me?

Sincerely,
Chronic Canceller Playing On My Fears of Being Not Cool Enough

Dear CCPOMFONBCE,

Peyton will get the message that her behavior is unacceptable if you stop inviting her out. If and when she finds out the gang went bowling without her—and expresses displeasure at not having been included in your plans—you can say, “But you never come anyway! We all just assumed you’d be busy.”

If, on the other hand, she seems completely fine with the new arrangement, you’ll know that she actually does have friends with whom she prefers hanging at the alley.

As for your fears of sitting alone in the cafeteria—so to speak—the reality is that there always is someone cooler out there. But as we age, most of us begin to realize that the cool kids aren’t actually great company. The people who get our jokes are usually huge geeks. (And we love them for it.)

Sincerely,
Friend or Foe