alone in the crowd

15 girls, a messy bride-to-be, and a weekend I'd rather not relive.

Preface: I am an imperfect being. I am a judgmental being. I am an insecure being. Thank you for sharing this space with me anyway.

I have never thrived in groups. Not the big, lost in the sea of people I’ll never know type of groups. And not in large groups of people I know well.

It’s that sweet spot where people I don’t know, but know of, congregate, that, for some reason, lights my nervous system on fire.

I’ve written about this before. My long-standing relationship with social anxiety. How it kept me from going to school or involving myself at a normal social level in college. Or how it manifested in complicated ways within a friend group I helped form but never felt like part of.

Sometimes, I can just be one with the pack, usually under the influence of some socially lubricating substance, but sometimes, I can access the level they are enjoying themselves on and find myself enjoying it too. Most of the time, however, I am the awkward girl standing on the outside looking in at something I don’t understand, being asked to converse in a language I never learned how to speak.

And in all of my growth into adulthood, and for all that I feel largely content with my spot in life, I still feel the deep pang of insecurity in spaces like a bachelorette weekend for one of my best friends.

I became friends with B in my sophomore year of college when she transferred in, and the only person she knew was my friend and roommate, A. A told my other two roommates and me about B on the first day of school that year, asking if we would be okay with her coming over for a few hours. We agreed and, innocently enough, spent the evening playing Monopoly, which we had not so innocently adapted into a drinking game. And well, we must have sucked because the rest of that evening is a blur none of us can remember. What I do know is, from that night on, B and I were fast friends.

B has an aura that attracts. It certainly attracted me, and as our friendship unfolded into drunk nights dancing together in frat house basements or drinking wine sitting by the nearby river, it became clear the attraction was there for all who she met and collected along the way. Bubbly, gorgeous, and wild, to be in her presence was to feel alive and free.

B and I maintained a long-distance friendship outside of college, somewhat miraculously. Her younger sister went to San Diego State, so she was a frequent enough visitor. And each visit carried the same excited, alive buzz, and each night would be epic and adventurous.

But, with all of the memories that fortify our friendship, I am quite certain that had I stayed in the city, where B still lives, after college, our friendship would not have lasted long. Because B has anger issues, and nothing triggers them more than her deep insecurity around friendship.

Her friendship with A, her longest and most loyal friend, is tumultuous and survives only because A keeps showing up regardless of what B does to her. I have heard more stories than I can count of B deciding a person was dead to her because that friend couldn’t attend one of her parties or otherwise disrespected her via mild and unintentional inconvenience.

B once visited me, and though I took her to 3 of the coolest spots I knew in San Diego consecutively in one night, she still threw a very public and intense fit on the side of the road downtown when R, I, and her partner of 10+ years decided we were ready to go home. She refused to get in the Uber, and when she finally did, she didn’t talk to anyone the rest of the night.

Our relationship became strained when I started to pull back on drinking and stopped finding enjoyment in long nights on the town. Her visits became infrequent, as did my own, but still I was one of three people invited to surprise her during her engagement.

Then, one day, rather abruptly, B decided she was going to be someone who woke up at 5am to journal and do yoga. She stopped using her phone as much as possible and started to only eat vegetables. Conversations with her shifted from stories of parties thrown and nights out to meditation and personal awakening. She became a different kind of difficult, because now, you couldn’t have a genuine conversation with her at all. She had no tolerance for negativity in her space, and if you came to her for a vent, she would tell you to smell a flower and write in your gratitude journal (not bad advice, but from her, it was a wild and unbalanced pivot).

She cried for hours to me after a birthday picnic one year because her “friends”, formed before this newfound sense of woo entered the chat, brought cocktails and a raucous energy to her quiet birthday celebration in the park.

B visited me a few months ago, ever in her era of performative enlightenment. We drank tea on my patio, went on walks to admire spring in full force, and talked about all things big and small.

One of those things being B’s dating life. A bit of a surprise, as she’s been in a relationship with the same guy since her sophomore year of high school. But there we were, driving to nowhere in particular, when B turns to me and tells me she’s dating — women.

After swallowing my shock so as not to make her feel instantly uncomfortable about sharing something so personal, I asked what that meant. She told me she’d confronted her fiancé about a month ago to tell him she needed to explore her interest in women. And much to his credit or his insanity (jury is definitely out on this), he received her openly, and they figured out how it would work for them. B told me her first date was to be the following week.

Fast forward now several months, and B'’s been seeing the same girl — who is also in a heterosexual committed relationship as well outside of this fling with B… because I guess there is an app for that — and she’s told me in no uncertain terms that if she weren’t so committed to her fiancé, she would not even consider dating a man from this point forward.

And honestly, we love a girl figuring out what she wants in life and what sexually fulfills her. I think what B did was incredibly brave and likely terrifying because she knew what she was risking by getting curious about and exploring her truth. Not all of us have the moxy.

What dampens my happiness for her is the somewhat elusive attachment she describes with her fiancé. He is a great guy, everyone loves him, and for many, their 15-year relationship sets the standard. But behind the scenes, B has cheated several times, much earlier on in their relationship (all of which her partner knows about and has forgiven her for). They also have never seemed to like or be interested in much of the same lifestyle, each adapting to the other, but always, I’ve thought, with a bit too much sacrifice of their own. And I’m hard-pressed to see how such a long relationship formed in the bowels of adolescence avoids some level of co-dependency.

But with her fiancé well aware of her choices and a mutual understanding between them, she’s not technically doing anything wrong.

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So here we are, at the long-awaited bachelorette weekend. There are 15 (!!) of us in attendance. Mostly names I’ve heard and faces I’ve seen but never met. Various factions of B’s life come together in her honor to stay in one of her favorite places in the world.

A and I were already dreading it. We aren’t really cut out for this type of socializing. Generally, I had kept my morale up, committed to going with the flow and not letting my own woeful anticipation bring me down early. A had no such commitment and had already complained about every single thing she could think of to anticipate the weekend as we drove together Friday morning.

We arrive to the maid-of-honor and her sister smoking a joint on the deck, and everyone else out on a walk. A little confused by the disjointed start to the day, we found our room, put our stuff down, and then shrugged at each other and decided to go get a donut at a place we passed on the way in.

They were all gathered around the back porch of the house when we got back, talking lively about the night before…? And this confused us because, as far as A & I knew, we all had arrived this same morning. Turns out we just weren’t invited to join the group that came Thursday night, which would be fine by us, except we all paid equally for this rental, meaning effectively the 9 girls who weren’t there Thursday paid for the ones who were.

A and I side-eyed but didn’t vocalize as we somewhat awkwardly joined the chittering group and waited with them for the other weekend attendees. The day progressed somewhat slowly. A lot of sitting around awaiting instruction that never came.

Toward the evening, there were a few planned games. We had all submitted a memory to the MoH via text earlier in the month and were to read each other’s memories anonymously on cards for B to guess who wrote them. Cute concept, and one that you might think would be relatively obvious in a group of your best friends — and granted, I was not the guesser, so credit to B for being put on the spot — but B could not identify the first 6 memories read. And not just who they were with, but even a recollection of the memories occurring. Save for one, the memories were fairly specific: “the time when we came home drunk and didn’t have the gate key for my apartment, so I hopped the gate and landed flat on my face,” or “when we met up for the first time in 12 years outside of X bakery.”

Super. Freaking. Awkward.

Then it was time for another awkward classic: the Newlywed Game. The premise being that, for those unfamiliar, B’s fiancé had pre-recorded answers to the same questions that were now going to be asked to B, and their goal was to answer as similarly as possible.

Generally, this game consists of black and white answers like favorite coffee shop, the song you listen to when you’re sad, a shared love of _____, etc. But Miss MoH decided to take a rather deep spin on the game and ask questions more along the lines of, “what’s the greatest lesson you’ve learned from one another?” and “what do you think the other person will say the greatest thing you do for them is?”

There is no doubt that B and her fiancé know each other well. And as jaded as this sounds, I can’t help but feel like it’s scripted between them. Like they wrote the book on how they want their relationship to appear, and are both so deeply committed to it that there is no room for vulnerability or weakness. B herself admitted to me recently that she has never seen him mad. Ever. And not just like throw-a-fit, lingering grudge mad, just any degree of frustrated/annoyed/peeved/etc. I literally thought she was kidding, but she assured me she wasn't, going on to cite it as something she loved about him.

So, in this Newlywed Game, her fiancé revealed that the thing he had learned most from B was how to stand up for himself, and I’m just not buying it. This girl has revealed that she has cheated on him at least 7 times, and she’s never seen him mad. She broke up with him a few years back because she had a crush on someone she worked with one summer, slept with the guy, then immediately got back together with her fiancé because she got what she wanted from the breakup. And he says he knows how to stick up for himself….?

And now she’s regularly sleeping with and dating another woman 5 months before their wedding.

Maybe I’m the crazy one, but I certainly do not have this level of chill he possesses.

And all throughout this game, there are murmurs of “awe” and “goals” from the girls in the group. B proclaims her three best traits are that she’s “honest, transparent, and true” (all the same thing, btw), and A and I actually make eye contact to mentally scream at one another.

The final ask of her fiancé was that he leave her some parting words as she sits in a group of her very best friends. His advice is “look around at all of the people you’ve accumulated, now you can stop saying you have no friends and that no one loves you.” (Does anyone else find this extremely cringeworthy??? Just me???)

We get in bed that night like whoa, and genuinely, we wonder if it’s just us who know can see all of the weirdness surrounding this wedding. Whether because we know the most, have seen all of the B’s phases enough to call BS when we see it, or because we're just being judgmental bitches ourselves… either way, the vibes are all wrong.

Day 2, we woke up, not in time for the slated 5 AM sunrise yoga, but much to our relief, neither did anyone else. People are mostly scattered about their house in small groups, and B is nowhere to be found.

We spent most of the day sitting around with various factions of the group. One of B’s best friends had strategically opted out of this gathering in its entirety, opting instead to drive in for a few hours. This is a girl I hear about regularly for her closeness with B. They send each other pictures of the meals they’re eating throughout the day and generally talk about everything over 15-minute voice memos and daily calls. It had been pretty clear so far that B was grappling with said friend’s decision to not fully immerse herself in this experience — going so far as to choose to tell his group of strangers that she was newly pregnant months before she’d feel confident enough to tell her own family (or even confirm it with a second test). Womp womp.

Eventually, A and I went to our bedroom to lie down, in mild disbelief at how weird the vibes were of this whole thing. We came out a few times to see if we were missing anything, and never were. Finally caving to our need for fresh air, we went on a walk, and of course, came back to find all of the girls sitting around the living room playing Scattegories (with INSANE rules, they literally were accepting anything).

“Oh, I knocked on your bedroom door,” B told us as we walked into the living room, looking confused to find them all gathered for such a clearly intentional activity.

Didn’t text us, wasn’t on the itinerary. Cool. Now we’ve officially confirmed our loner status.

We knew we were equally unequipped to fit into this environment, but it’s also starting to feel somewhat intentional, too? Like a purposeful if not directly intentional othering. Maybe that’s my inner middle-school girl talking, though.

That night, we’re going out to dinner. B has not been drinking, at least to our knowledge, for about a year. But I’m pretty sure I saw her take a few shots on the way out the door with several of the other girls.

A drive us to the restaurant and I’m in the passenger’s seat somehow designated carride photographer, taking photos of B and her two friends in the back seat.

15 girls in one restaurant, so we ended up in our own little room with two tables to split ourselves between. A and I chose our table poorly. It was the bigger of the two, and at first, we were next to B, until she decided she liked how the second table shook out more and jumped ship.

Now we’re just at a table of the already drunkest cohort of our bunch who are already screaming at each other for no reason.

Our waiter comes in and clocks us immediately. Trashy bachelorette of drunk girls and a FAT tip potential coming his way. First line out of his mouth, “Wow, so many beautiful ladies, I’m going to have to card you all because there’s no way you’re all older than 21.” This is met with general whoops of delight from this late-20s, early-30s crowd… I saw one girl adjust her cleavage in response… cringe.

As he comes around, I’ve already seen enough of the menu to know that A and I won’t be eating much tonight (long-time vegetarians as we are) and certainly won’t be drinking, so I ask that he split our check off from the larger group. He gives me a disdainful look and says that’s a question for later in the meal, and continues on to wink at one of the more fun girls across the table as he takes her ID.

When drinks arrive, there’s a toast to our bride-to-be, and the girl across from me at the table decides to scream “JIZZ JIZZ JIZZ” as part of her toast. And I mean scream it.

Someone’s weed vape gets passed around, and one girl in particular hits it a little too hard and is suddenly on another planet as she launches into a story about a wild night in Miami, where she was so drunk that she peed her pants while dancing in the middle of a group of British men at a private party she crashed. She was pretty sure she got away with it, but after hearing the story in detail, I have my doubts.

B’s sister launches into a tale about her anti-semetic, racist, bigoted ex (ex because he broke up with her). — This ex is the reason she is not the MoH, and the reason she was uninvited from this event and the wedding until their breakup. — and with this rant, she starts another girl on a story about her ex-fiancé, whom most of the girls in the room know and are still friends with, and with the most hypocritical rant of all time, she proceeds to talk non-stop for the next 2 full hours.

Here are some fun quotes I texted my husband during this dinner…

“I miss my Botox”

“Women are so much hotter than men”

“You can not mother a man and ever want to fuck him again.”

“He’s an ex-con and drug addict, but he told me I never have to work again once we have kids, so I’m pretty locked in.”

“If I’m going to give birth to something, I better have the option to stay the fuck home” (honestly, snaps)

“Two skinny spicys and a pino gris” (complete with a legitimate finger snap to the waiter as this order was placed)

Reading a text from the ex-con: “I can’t wait for you to be a stay-at-home wife, you’ll fuck with that vibe and be so hot with the other moms.” Response from the group: “WOW, that is so respectful and self-aware of him. That’s a real man.”

The waiter to one girl: “If you need me to fuck someone up for you, just say the word, sweetheart. wink”

Girl to waiter: “This is sooooo chaotic of me, but do you have a pair of scissors?” Waiter to girl: “You’re not one of those sad people who want to hurt themselves, are you, because that might cause problems for me.” Girl to waiter, pulling her top down, “Nooooo, see these straps, they have got to go.”

Girl to me and A randomly for no reason at a level 10 volume, “I THINK I WAS FRENCH IN ANOTHER LIFE.”

At this point, it’s been almost three hours, and the table behind us has been playing cards for at least an hour. Ex-con future mom is talking to B’s sister about the tragedies of bad men who don’t do enough for them. B is talking to MoH, trashing the pregnant girl who opted out of the weekend, but doing it in whispered voices while face to face, inches away from one another, making complete goo-goo eyes.

A turned to me when she saw this and said, “Why don’t they just kiss already? They both are allowed to.”

At one point, I hear B say to MoH, “I have so much respect for you leaving your husband, I think I just need to stick it out with X a little longer. I owe that to him.” (X being her fiancé). Like girl, WHAT are we all doing here…

A to my left is so cold she’s turning blue, despite the pot of tea I ordered just so she could hold something warm.

Then, finally, B seems to come to from her intimate moment with MoH, and realizes it’s time to go. Thank god I split the check off from the group because we ate a slice of cornbread for dinner and clung to our $7 pot of tea with dear life, and it still cost A and me $25 each.

We drive the partiers to a bar, and we hold our smiles until the last door of A’s car slams shut, and then she cranks up the heat, and we just start screaming.

Back at the house, we realize it’s been thoroughly trashed, and we are not interested in lingering tomorrow morning longer than necessary while 14 hungover girls drag out the cleaning process. We stare at each other, and without saying a word, we both start in on the wreckage.

It takes us just over an hour to put the house back together, which doesn’t even look like much since we opted not to touch people’s things strewn about in every nook and cranny of this place.

Then we crawl into bed defeated.

To each their own.

A saying I repeat often. To myself and to others when fruitless judgment kicks up.

Commiserating has an important place. I love a good vent sesh. I judged this weekend harshly, in part because of my own insecurity and in part because, well, it was warranted.

I found myself questioning my relationship with B, where I stand with her, and how well I even know her. She’s one of my best friends, so I aim not to blame her for anything because I genuinely believe this was her weekend, and I’m so happy that for her, it seemed to be everything she wanted it to be. But I felt sad that after all of this time, I still feel like I only see a version of her that she curates just for me.

I don’t need to be friends with her friends, I don’t need to like them or even see them again outside of her wedding. So, though they certainly were not my type of people, I can let that go fairly easily once the peak of the interaction discomfort is behind me.

I wonder if my feelings toward the weekend say more about me than any of them (probably). I could see their own insecurities reflected in their behavior and words, and with that, I could empathize. But I still couldn’t do more than give a half-smile/half-grimace and try to mentally tough out the remaining hours.

Some of it was A’s presence. Her negativity and her need for me to be in it with her did color the weekend more strongly than I might otherwise have. But then again, had I been there solo, I either would have needed to be thoroughly intoxicated or to have left early.

And, most of all, A and I bonded for the first time this intensely since our college days. I think that ultimately made up for the rest of the weekend for me, at least. I felt closer to her than she usually lets herself get, and I’m grateful for this experience for giving us that.

In the wise words of the Stones…

We can’t always get what we want.

But if we try sometimes, we just might find, we get what we need.

anyway, here it is…

-June

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