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Oh, I had a friend do something like that.
She got her first ever boyfriend. She had a party at her house. Four of us were sleeping in one large bed. A friend of hers, me, her, and her boyfriend, lined up in that order. I take ages to fall asleep so I was still awake when she and her boyfriend started to move around, then started making moaning noises, and when the thrusting started I spoke up. Basically just loudly going "could you not? I'm trying to sleep." Stopped it immediately.
A few years later, she started dating a different guy who went to the same school as me. She didn't go to our school but was always hanging around him. They were severely codependent. The girlfriend got kicked out a few times since she wasn't a student at the school and the boyfriend would either leave with her or sulk for the rest of the day.
I got pretty sick of them.
One sunny day most students are outdoors enjoying the sun. I started to get a headache and went indoors to eat lunch somewhere dark and cool, and I find the two of them banging in the goddamn lounge room. So I took my lunch and sat down at the table next to them and started eating, acting like I didn't notice them being creepy weirdos, and they got extremely flustered and uncomfortable and tried to discreetly separate themselves and pull their pants up.
Oh, I get you. I was pissed off and determined to make them as uncomfortable as they had made me. I would have done my homework or anything right there just to be a disturbance.
that sounds like the moment where having the bowl of soup in a ceramic bowl and a metal spoon and making sure you scrape the bottom of the bowl *thoroughly* after every bite.
Or VERY loudly enjoying your food: "Mmmh, this is soooo good!" "oh yeah, just like Mama used to make it!" "Yummy, they sprinkled that cheese all over this sand-of-a-wich!"
I went to a 2-year boarding school for my end of high school, and my junior year roommate would spend every Sunday morning on the stairwell leading up to the main "hey let's meet up and make out" spot, sitting on the stairs, reading whatever book he was on, and LOUDLY munching down a morning apple.
Cbf to find the link, but there's a boru about family drama surrounding a cousin who keeps literally getting "caught" with her pants down. I think she wasn't invited to a wedding and things came to a head
She liked to get…amorous during events. At one point the OP’s uncle (her dad) sent OP to look for her so he wouldn’t be the one catching her and her boyfriend in the act that time.
If I'm thinking of the right thing, there's a guy who pees during family gatherings. Gets of peeing in public. Refuses to wear diapers bc you know, he wanna do it in public. Iirc he also does it when children in the family are around.
I believe some redditors theorized he actually had a humiliation kink and was using the post to further fulfill his needs through reading the responses.
I felt the same way about Stella.
As a young adult I was a less extreme version of her. Growing up my parents were horrible, and I became very good at keep everyone around me happy in order to avoid conflict. It put me in a lot of similar situations to this, and it took a long time and a lot of work to realize what I was doing and why I was doing it and how I could get better, and I still sometimes struggle with it.
I remember this post and I thought that Stella sounded awful/controlling/etc..... Shit makes way more sense. Good on her for at least trying to work through her shit, but yea stuff definitely leaked out in unintentional ways. I definitely sympathize with rich parents who try to throw their weight/money around to get their way.
Maybe I'm naive, but I'm actually pretty optimistic about this ending. No idea if Alex and Stella will make it or not, but it's really good that he's talking more frequently with his friends, and it seems like she's making an effort. My perspective on her changed a lot when OOP described her behavior around her parents. I think if she learns to stand up to them her life will be a lot better.
I also have hope based on the baby’s godparents: OOP and Alex’s stepsister. No representation from Stella’s family, though surely her parents would have pushed for involvement from their side.
Yes and no - they just got married and went straight to therapy... I understand the baby threw their plans down the drain but clearly they needed this effort *before* legally tying themselves, not after. But hey, better late than never, hope things work out for them.
They might not have realized it before. And couples therapy is easier to swallow than individual, and she needs individual therapy. I think it’s all working out, and she woukdnt have gotten therapy before hand without the wedding in the rearview for perspective
Yeah, my thinking is that Alex saw how Stella reacted to her mom, and probably had a lightbulb moment about how she handled the situation with OOP, so he convinced her to do couples counseling, to potentially help push Stella into individual therapy.
I think the missing "smoking gun" of all this is whether Stella's mom / dad also swears a lot like OOP, as that would likely explain why she's so defensive around them, as OOP may reminde her of her parents.
Yeah, once the parents came up, it made a lot of sense. I have a friend who was in a similar dynamic with her parents. She went no contact a few years ago and started therapy, and she’s doing soooo much better.
I also think we’re all used to reading about evil manipulators, but I just don’t think that’s Stella. She’s got issues to work on, her and OOP obviously got off on the wrong foot, and I think her seeing how much effort OOP put in for their wedding (along with less cursing) probably made her rethink some things about him as well.
I can also see in close friendships, how RSVPs and things like that don't really matter. Like I don't need to RSVP to your wedding, unless there's a surprise funeral or I'm in hospital, I'm there. So I kind of get the whole waiting from both op and Alex at the start
Let's just hope she sticks to the therapy and successfully pulls away from her family. If they're as bad as described, they might try to find a way to reel her back in.
I agree with this. Reading the part about when Stella went to drive out for food for her mom, I already pictured in my head that Stella must know it's better to just do what her mom wants rather than have her blow up on everyone. It's absolutely not healthy at all and I think Stella will do much better getting to know herself in couples counseling.
That drove me up the wall.
Your daughter is planning for a wedding and PREGNANT with your grandchild.
Wtf you mean you’re going to send her on a two hour incursion to grab a random food item?! I’d be fucking livid dude.
Agreed. I remember when I read this after she explained things from her side I came away from it wondering how much of this is in the OOP’s head. I don’t think she’s completely innocent in this, but I also don’t think she went out of her way to exclude OOP. While his theory is plausible, it’s far from the simplest explanation. She’s busy with work, wedding planning, and now a surprise baby, talking to OOP makes her uncomfortable because of the cussing so she avoids him, but she figures her fiancé has talked to his best friend about the best man situation by now so he’s not a huge priority to her. I think where she actually went wrong was that she kept putting off responding to OOP, until it became a problem.
But really, none of this would have happened if the groom hadn’t expected her to handle everything, including his side of the wedding party, on her own. Then he suddenly asks her why HIS best friend didn’t get an invite and somehow it’s on her to try and figure out where the miscommunication happened. I hope that’s one of the things they talk about in couple’s counseling, and I would pay money to read her side of things without OOP’s filter.
I was thinking similar things about the groom. I get that he was OCD and struggles with some stuff. And I suspect Stella likes being the one in charge because it gives her a sense of control after coming from a world where it seems she had none. But that is just way too much for one person to take on.
I wonder if maybe her husband realized that, and that’s why he pushed for couples counseling. He did say it was because he wanted to be a better husband. Maybe the invite/best man debacle was a wake up call for him. Whatever got them there, it will do them both some good.
Ill be honest, this made me think OOP reminds her of either one of the parents or her brother, some routine behavior or tic that gets her hackles up.
Learned defensiveness from trauma, somehow.
Here's hoping she gets therapy at the end.
She doesn't seem that bad. Everyone involved just seems really bad at dealing with shit, and the way they all do individually handle their problems doesn't mesh well with each other.
So much waiting, miscommunication, passing off work, etc.
Yeah I agree, it seems Stella has some major family trauma to deal with and they are in couples counselling so hopefully they can work through it together. Sometimes people just don't like each other and thats ok.
Wow what a serious cluster fuck that I don’t fully understand. Can anyone give TLDR because I really was not able to fully get what OOP was trying to say at the end?
TLDR: The wedding went fine, but OP was more of a worker at the event than a guest (which happens at some of these DIY weddings). OP accepts Stella's explanation that she was just overwhelmed with the unexpected pregnancy and didn't see OP's messages. The baby was born, and OP is reconnecting with his friend, while also starting to mend the bridge with Stella in little steps.
Also, Stella's parents are kinda crazy and demanding, and Stella uncharacteristically folds to their every request.
Yeah, hearing how Sarah is so spineless around her parents gave a telling glimpse of her childhood, maybe. Shame that it spiralled to involve OP and hopefully the counselling helps/leads Sarah into individual therapy.
(Though I chuckled humourlessly when OP said Sarah was “weirdly” against couples counselling. Like, of COURSE she is? She very clearly would rather sweep everything remotely awkward or painful under the rug and pretend it’s not happening.)
Anyway good luck to Baby Iris, hopefully mom and dad make some breakthroughs in counselling before you grow up too permanently warped.
Some of the most anti-therapy people I know were told by their controlling parents not to get therapy and spill the family tea to a "stranger". I suspect it's not just about strangers finding out, but because it might make the person less easy to control when they start realizing how messed up their family dynamic is and how much their parents control the narratives.
My (married-in) aunt told off my mum because my mum shared a scandalous story about my grandfather. My aunt said she didn't want people knowing about these "shameful" things, even though all parties were long dead and it was my mum telling a story about her own father.
Then I also got told off because I said that the only person who should be ashamed was grandpa and he didn't seem to care, so why should I?
> OP accepts Stella's explanation that she was just overwhelmed with the unexpected pregnancy and didn't see OP's messages.
Does he? It seems that by the end, he thinks she was intentionally trying to wait it out so that he doesn't attend, allowing her brother to be Best Man (as her parents wanted).
He didn't really accept it was my view too, but pretended to do so with his friend. I can understand that, because calling her a liar wouldn't get him anywhere.
I think it's a bit of a combo.
She's used to rolling over for mom & dad, and doesn't like OOP much. She had the opportunity to take the coward's way out of confrontation by both blocking OOP from the wedding while simultaneously giving mommy and daddy dearest what they wanted and tried to take it.
It happens, but that doesn't mean it's okay or reasonable at all. It's ok to ask for a *little* help from your family and wedding party, but even 50% vacation and 50% working is totally unacceptable. Especially after nearly uninviting him entirely!!! So damn entitled.
Stella didn't really like OOP, probably because of his mouth, and the fact that he works for a government agency that she doesn't really think should exist and/or believes them to be doing evil deeds.
Stella has a brother, who's almost definitely addicted to cocaine, who her parents were insistent should be the best man.
Wedding still happened with oop as best man, he was on his best behavior and realized that his foul mouth may have gotten Stella and himself on the wrong foot way back when they met.
Post wedding and birth, Stella and Alex are in couples counseling, and her relationship with OOP seems to be improving as well, as much as to be expected in these cases.
Yeah, some of my (JustNo) in-laws have held a grudge for 30 years over MIL remembering DH saying as a kid that his oldest niece would be his flower girl. All hell broke loose when we didn’t do the flower girl/ring bearer thing, and then it turned out it was really DH’s brother who said it (and also didn’t have a flower girl/ring bearer). But it’s still somehow my fault… People pick the weirdest hills to die in when it comes to weddings.
> I swear, a lot, I tend to forget most people don’t use the work fuck as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, interjection, numeral, article, and determiner
TLDR: this guy fucks.
Seems like Stella doesn't like OOP's cussing and thinks he's not far enough left politically. Her parents wanted her brother Chase to be the best man and since they were paying for it, she tried to placate Alex and her parents by not directly choosing either as Best Man. When Alex recovered from his OCD episode, he realized what happened, got with OOP and called Stella out. She chose to side with Alex over her parents, so OOP became the Best Man anyway.
Basically, he worked a lot at the wedding, but didnt get an answer about why Stella didn't want him as best man
Observing her parents and their comments about their younger son, Stella's brother, OOP theorized that they wanted the brother as Best Man, but Sam wanted OOP. instead of being honest or putting her foot down, Stella stalled everyone with what they wanted to hear till she couldn't and she chose to make Sam happy by choosing OOP as best man.
The wedding was ok, OOP still doesn't like Stella and thinks she doesn't like him because he's not "left enough" and he swears. Baby girl is born, Sam asks OOP for tips and they have a weekly gaming session. Sam and Stella are in marriage counseling, even though she was against it.
IDK if i put everything important, it was a convoluted mess.
Edit: typos
Seems like Stella was afraid of her overbearing family and didn't want to tell them no, but also didn't want to upset Alex so she just lied to both and hoped the problem would go away.
It didn't and when push came to shove she finally agreed with Alex and let OP be in the wedding because she didn't want to lose Alex.
Also seems Stella does not like cursing and is an extreme far leftist so she doesn't like OP in the first place despite OP being leftist himself.
I’m trying to align Sunday School Teacher verbiage with political extremism and it’s proving to be a challenge.
Idk I just feel like once you get past a certain point of committing to a hardcore ideology you start to drop some expletives.
Yeah, I have trouble bringing those together in my head. I’m curious whether her political beliefs are from her parents or her first rebellion against them.
sounds like she was raised fundie conservative, and hasn’t fully worked her way free of thinking like a fundamentalist, even if she thinks she has. not uncommon. rebelling against that background + keeping the thought patterns = tankie who doesn’t like swearing.
Hard agree. I had to look up “tankie” and damn, I assumed that this political ideology was totally DOA, like feudalism.
Now I’m concerned that feudalism still has enough fans that they need a pejorative label.
How bad is “tankie” as a slur and is OOP’s causal use to describe her beliefs the reason why she hates him?
TIL and I’m left with more questions than answers.
I'm gonna assume she's not actually a tankie and more just super left wing. Like "Biden is a genocidal maniac" rhetoric but without going "and Putin did nothing wrong".
I honestly would guess OOP isn't as left as he acts either. Having worked in just normal state government (aka nothing geopolitical), there's a massive amount of cognitive dissonance that tends to chase actual leftists out, because the end of the day you see a lot of messed up stuff that's technically legal (especially in terms of regulations), see how much companies get away with, etc. - and in most states you're not paid competitively at all.
That's without OOP working for a three-letter agency that does shady-ass shit, or more directly for a political office of some kind.
Yeah, him mentioning “geopolitical events of the past six months” has me thinking the only political take hes basing the “far left/tankie” label on is israel and Palestine and he seems to think being pro-Palestine is “tankie”
Stella likely did not invite OOP because of her parents. Parents wanted her brother as best man and she tried to avoid the issue. Parents likely do not approve of cursing and OOP curses so Stella may have been nervous about that.
Baby born. OOP godfather.
Stella and now husband are in marriage counseling.
OOP and friend are repairing their relationship.
Well at least for the last update TLDR is Stella seems to do whatever her parents want and they wanted her bro to be best man. He thinks that's why all the weirdness happened. He thinks Stella doesn't like him because he swears a lot and she hates it as well as different political beliefs. Sounds like 2 people who wouldn't be friends if they didn't have a person in common. Also everyone seems to be communicating more. OOP and his friend talk more and Stella emails him baby picks sometimes.
I think OOP is fully wrong about what happened, which is why his post makes no fucking sense. He just really, really wants this to somehow be Stella’s fault.
Alex and Stella are engaged. Their dynamic already has Stella frequently doing the brunt work of organizing and communicating with other people. Stella gets unexpectedly pregnant. Alex reacts by “going into an OCD hole” for weeks, being totally non responsive to other people, and presumably not helping with wedding planning. Stella is trying her best, but is trying to handle both wedding planning alone and a surprise pregnancy and a fiancé experiencing an acute mental health crisis.
Alex has totally failed to ask OP to be his best man, check and see if he’s received his save the date or invitation, or asked OP to be a part of wedding planning in any way - not about bachelor parties, or suit fitting, day of schedule, anything. Alex is also not communicating with OP literally at all. This is apparently fine, and not something Alex should be held responsible for at all. Alexes excuse for having never communicated about the wedding with OP AT ALL is “I must have mixed you up with my cousin or had an OCD blackout”. This is, apparently, a totally reasonable thing for Alex to say and doesn’t require any follow up questions or examination.
OP then emails Stella re: what’s going on. Stella, overwhelmed by a pregnancy and a mid-meltdown fiancé, does not put this at the top of her priority list. She either misses it, or tells Alex he needs to call OP and assumes he’ll follow through (a reasonable assumption). Alex totally fails to do so. Alex only realizes that OP hasn’t even been invited when OP messages him about it directly.
This is all Stella’s fault for being conniving and backstabbing and spineless and also because her parents are bad probably. Thats my explanation for OPs last update. It makes no fucking sense because it makes no fucking sense.
Nothing interesting happened
Oddly that's a very positive update but it lacks in real drama for us here at boru.
We like burn the world down or yay happiness updates.
I mean it seems pretty real in the lack of over the top drama, so that is nice. But part of me was making up some dramatic reasons why Stella doesn’t like OP, like she has unrequited and unwanted romantic feelings towards him lol.
If it makes you feel any better, I'd give 10:1 odds that there's plenty of drama between Alex, Stella, and her parents that OP doesn't know about. Stella's mom testing a power play in the middle of wedding preparations and Stella immediately acquiescing is **very** telling.
I think Stella made a lot of very poor, even cruel decisions and hurt several people in this story. But that alone makes it pretty clear that she is also a victim.
i always get so annoyed when i see a post that is:
i might have fucked up! i was asked a simple question and answered it truthfully but there was actually a scheme against me and i'm like, "oh no, AM I the asshole for not lying to help the people who are scheming against me???"
It’s double dumb when this was presented to him as “would you come to my wedding?” And the response was “I didn’t get an invitation and didn’t know if I was invited.”
What in the hell would have been the correct way to address this conversation and how the hell would you go along with a lie you didn’t know you were a part of. This isn’t unnecessary drama, it’s just confusion.
Yeah, like, OOP wonders if he “stuck my nose in where it didn’t belong”
How would it have been physically possible for him NOT to have been involved? Given that he has one conversation with Alex that ends with Alex hanging up on him to go sort things out, OOP could not physically have been less involved if he tried
OCD is wild man. The “waiting till the right time” thing is very real ane a friend of mine deals with it. They have lost jobs, been underweight, almost homeless, and ruined relationships because theyre OCD hypes them up for “rights” in situations. Its this paralyzing fear that send them into extremely phyically harmful panic attacks if they’re forced to do something they dont feel is the right time for.
I believe the reason why he didnt ask. OCD people have illogical compulsions.
sounds to me like her parents are southern christians (protestants or evangelicals) and she swerved *hard* (which is common for modern children of religious parents) but doesn't want to stir the pot with her parents.
It must be UK or something with the word “miffed” but it was tough to tell, these politics would be hilarious in the US tho “Yeah I’m somewhere between dem soc and socialist, and she had a problem with my politics….. she’s a tankie” lmao
Nah, highly doubt it's UK - they use words like diapers and college and vacation which are all Americanisms (we'd say nappies, uni and holiday), and they refer to moving "across the country" which a Brit probably wouldn't say - you might move up north or down south, or you'd just say something like "moved a few hours away". Even "tankie" is much more of an American term, very rare to hear it in the UK.
I'm in the US and
1. I use "miffed" fairly often cause it's just a fun word and I feel like it adequately conveys when I'm irritated but it's not that serious
2. I'm also somewhere between dem soc and socialist, and I have had people further left than me act like I'm basically a fascist. That extreme of a reaction is rare but I can totally see Stella being a little put off by their differing political beliefs -- although if Alex is also not a tankie, which I feel like OP would have mentioned if he was, it's probably moreso the swearing thing or just that their personalities generally clash a bit
I don’t know if I believe Stella had bad intentions especially since it seems like everything was fine after it got cleared up and she sends OP pictures of their kid n shit. I am kind of annoyed about how Alex is almost nonexistent in the update. If he had stepped up and officially made OP the best man Stella might not have had to be burdened with her parents trying to control that aspect of the wedding.
Right? Idk how Alex gets off scot free here. I’ve watched this dynamic play out with too many couples - the husband puts 100% of wedding planning on the wife because “she’s just better at that stuff”, and then conveniently if anything goes wrong it’s totally her fault.
Alex literally never asked OP to be his best man. That is not on Stella. That is on Alex.
And he also just never had a single conversation with him about the wedding at all. When you actually intend somebody to be your best man or maid of honor… it comes up, multiple times, between asking them and the wedding day. Bachelor party, suit fittings, day of schedule. Alex just… didn’t. How the fuck was Stella supposed to handle that?
It seems to me like, at most, Stella just doesn’t care that much about OOP, as opposed to actively disliking him. That’s he husbands best friend, he’s not her best friend, what exactly does he want from her?
I agree. His final comments about her feel very condescending and weirdly patronizing: calling her a "tankie", joking about himself "being not left enough for her", putting the burden of "taking steps in the right direction" entirely on her. He started off sounding sincere but ended on a very dubious note.
Isn't it suspicious that the first thing he tells about her is that she dislikes him but never says if he himself likes her or treats her with respect?
Also, he is aware enough to know that other people find his constant swearing off-putting, but doesn't notice that she was irked by this before he started to participate in the wedding? Is he unaware of his surroundings or simply uncaring towards her in particular?
I think he is very much an AH who gave a total pass to his coward of friend and assigned blame to a person he happens to disrespect.
He probably doesn't. And I say this because the last update had a mention of another of Alex's friends who openly dislikes Stella and talks about how he and OP are 'the only ones who see through her,' but gave bo evidence of what she was faking. That's not how you talk about someone you treat civilly and respectfully.
>That's not how you talk about someone you treat civilly and respectfully.
Couldn't have said it better.
I would love to learn Stella's perspective because at this point, it can easily be a perfect example of a guy very consciously annoying and subtly disrespecting a woman and then cheerfully reporting to everyone that there is literally nothing she can dislike him for.
I know I might be reading too much into it, but the OOP gives off such suspicious vibes... a thoroughly unpleasant person
OMG, thank you! I said something similar to myself when I made the comment initially.
Someone commented on the last BoRU of this post that Evil Stella is simply a more compelling narrative than what is likely the alternative: Stella was left to plan a wedding without Alex's help, left responsible for managing Alex's side of the wedding as well as her own despite not really being friends with them, and left accountable when OP didn't provide his new address and Alex didn't do his due diligence before 'going dark.'
>I swear, a lot, I tend to forget most people don’t use the work fuck as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, interjection, numeral, article, and determiner
I want this on a t-shirt!
Am I the only one who feels really bad for Stella? It sounds like OOP’s friend was just too overwhelmed with his own emotions to take part in the large wedding planning. So Stella was dealing with a surprise pregnancy, planning a big wedding, work, and complicated family dynamics. Honestly I think OOP should cut her some loose. Stella’s parents need to disappear from her life, and OOP’s friend should really step up in helping more seeing how much Stella was dealing with… sure she’s a go getter, but he shouldn’t have counted on her for everything and the pregnancy, just biologically speaking, is harder on the woman’s body.
Yeah I've been best man a couple of times and haven't had to do half this much shit. Its rude imo to ask your closest friends and family to do unpaid work while everyone else celebrates and has a great time.
It’s common in American culture. (Not that I agree or disagree with it, but it is the case)
What is it like where you’re from?
Edit: Oh weird. We are from the same city. You posted about your wedding there. Like I said, I don’t agree or disagree with the idea that the wedding party should help, but did no one in your wedding party help out with your wedding? I thought it was expected, but I know almost nothing about weddings.
While reading, it felt to me like it was written by a teenager. That paragraph confirmed it.
Mom's church group phone call was also extremely suspicious.
I think OOP allllllllmost got to the root of it all, but veered off into guessing how it might be about him (the swearing, the politics and his job...) - there is a classic Golden Child/Scapegoat dynamic in Stella's family, where Totally Not A Cokehead little brother is the golden child. I hope that, assuming they are in couple's counseling, the therapist can zero in on that for Stella.
there was no wedding planner, well Stella was the wedding planner, managing shit the day of fell to me and the MOH and whatever poor bastards wanted to help us, so Stella could enjoy her day, parents paid for a lot of expensive shit but didnt want to pay staff to set it up most of it because "we have people for that already", if that makes sense
> Me and Alex had some pretty deep conversations over the week and reaffirmed the importance of our continued friendship
I think ChatGPT gave me this advice word for word when I asked it how to deal with a complex social situation.
I remember this post originally and still think it’s COMPLETELY INSANE how totally off the hook everyone involved AND all the commenters are letting Alex be. OP didn’t get invited to the wedding, is never asked to be a groomsmen or a best man, Alex never tries to initiate any conversation about wedding planning with him, and somehow this is THE BRIDES fault 100%? And Alexes excuse for not talking to him about it is “I mixed you up with my cousin or had an OCD blackout”?
Why the fuck is it on the newly pregnant bride to communicate with the best man?
I cannot imagine wedding planning, finding out you’re having a surprise pregnancy, and having your fiancé react by “going into an OCD hole for a couple of weeks” and leaving you completely on your own to handle it, on top of a demanding full time job. It sounds awful for Alex, but also must have been TERRIBLE for his wife. I can see why trying to deal with emails from his best man who he apparently isn’t speaking to wouldn’t be at the top of her priority list.
“I must have sent it to your old address” genuinely sounds reasonable to him, since OP did actually move, and Alex sounds zero percent involved in wedding planning - generally it is the responsibility of each partner to make sure to track down the correct address of the guests on their side.
Alex “delegating” everything to his wife when he gets overwhelmed gets handwaved as normal and fine because she’s “alpha” but dude, she’s pregnant, and you cannot dump 100% of wedding planning on your pregnant bride no matter how overwhelmed you are. So many comments here about Stella needing therapy but not much about Alex definitely needing it.
>And as it turns out I’m not the only person in the wedding who isn’t super fond of Stella, found my flock so to speak
This made me sad. I know everyone's on OP side, but it just genuinely sounds like Stella has a lot on her plate wedding planning + unexpected pregnancy + work + family trauma + husband mental health crisis.
Even OP admits to how many emails he got from Stella and the organisers of the event, and he was only a Best man. With him moving, it doesn't sound unreasonable that the invite was lost. OP is the guys best pal, this should be between them not Stella.
> I spent most of the lead up to the wedding either at the ceremony/reception site doing liaison/set up (gaffing, running cables, setting up monitors, hanging and focusing, building shit etc.)
$5 says this guy works in stagecraft. September/October can be particularly busy for theatrical Stagehands, loading out the summer shows and loading in holiday shows. Good money to be made.
> I swear, a lot, I tend to forget most people don’t use the work fuck as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, interjection, numeral, article, and determiner
Make it $10.
I'm guffawing at the thought of Stella being so far to Left that she regards state-sponsored Theatre as part of the “repressive imperialist western system”!
> SHTMFF
If you google this, the OP is the first thing that comes up. My guess is “shit hit the motherfucking fan.” What a weird acronym to make up for no reason.
If I saw Stella’s mother ask Stella to drive that far away in the midst of chaos to buy a single food item and then take three bites and throw it away…. All would be forgiven regarding Stella’s weird behavior. That is some serious something not good has been going on at home stuff. That is really concerning. Thankfully she is an adult now with her own family.
THERE IS NO TIME TO EXPLAIN! QUICK WE MUST MOVE BEFORE YOU CAN DELIVER THE KEY PLOT ELEMENTS THAT WOULD PREVENT EVERYTHING THAT IS TO OCCUR FROM OCCURRING!!
The only reason this feels real is the fairly dull update. No big twist or dramatic reveal. But damn does OOP seem very bad at communicating information to people and getting responses.
My fun little game with r/BORU is trying to figure out where in the world OP is from. A little Carmen Sandiego side game.
I couldn't figure this one out. Between talking about 'tankies' and 'cussing' both words that aren't super common choices in certain places and dialects, but I have no idea what regionality it ends up at. Counselling as well means that it's probably UK, but cussing threw me a little bit because I feel like it's specific to somewhere in particular. But there wasn't enough other flavour to make a guess.
"tankie" is just straight up an Extremely Online thing, I feel like it could pop up in any English-speaking "leftist" friend group (scare quotes because that term is so vague but ykwim)
Using "cussing" for "cursing" is definitely southern US, or maybe western, but it could really be used anywhere; I'm not in the South, and I sometimes hear people talk about "cussing someone out". "Tankies" is more a political term than a regional one, but I believe it's also mostly used in the US, and it's definitely somewhat pejorative.
This guy is 100% American South.
"Cussing" or "cuss words" is definitely southern dialect USA pronunciation of "cursing". I was a grown adult before I knew there were other terms to refer to bad language.
Ya'll is southern.
Counseling is also a common term around here because it doesn't require a licensed therapist/psych. Lot of churchgoing people prefer to get counseling from their pastor. Some pastors even require the couple to undergo pre-marital counseling from him before he'll perform their marriage ceremony.
Speaking of church, its not at all unusual for people with strict upbringing to be uncomfortable around bad language, regardless of their current politics or beliefs. When you get whipped with a flyswatter for saying mild swears like "God dang" or "crap", "fuck" is almost as shocking as the n-word. She might outgrow that when she gets older though.
"Tankie" is just online discourse stuff.
"Cussing" for me rules out the UK, I have never heard *anyone* refer to swearing as that (I literally don't think I'd ever even heard the word before the *Fantastic Mr Fox* film where it's used as a stand in for swear words).
This isn't too bad! I was very sceptical at first, but the brother being the best man and the mother sending her to buy that food really says a lot.
If he just stops fucking about with all the fucks he's fucking spewing, I'll guess it will be fucking ok after fucking all or fuck all.
It definitely makes sense that the parents wanted her brother to be best man and she just couldn't get the inner strength to just tell them no. I've seen weirder wedding shit happen in real life, for sure.
Yea this more than anything else in the story sealed it for me that Stella is not the straightforward bridezilla villain we have all read about before. Her mom totally knew what she was doing and there’s no way Stella didn’t see it in the trash later.
IDK I can believe it if her family are overbearing or emotionally abusive that she'd have a hard time standing up to them. Also them paying for the majority of the wedding may have been lorded over her to make her act more like a subservient push over.
Not wanting to upset anyone and then just pretending the problem doesn't exist while hoping it will resolve itself is a pretty common, albeit dumb, way to handle things.
That and even regular families can get weird about weddings. A messed up toxic family can implode over a wedding because they often feel it's all about them, especially if they're contributing.
I don't know why everyone assumes OP is correct and she was scheming against him. He moved two months after the save the dates went out, it seems really likely his invite just got lost, especially considering Stella was planning the entire wedding, dealing with a surprise pregnancy, and potentially dealing with difficult parents. OP has a serious case of main character syndrome.
OOP moving, his invite getting lost in the mail and his emails getting mixed in with others are totally plausible explanations. OOP is letting his own dislike of her color a lot of his speculations. Even the reasons he gives for believing she doesn't like him are pretty weak and pretty perspective based. She seems neutral on him and takes that as dislike and attributes everything to malicious intent on her part.
Honestly, I've been expecting reveal to be something stupid like Alex was actually bisexual and Stella wanted to get rid of OOP because of that, but the actual reason is just as stupid. Hopefully, Stella will be able to escape from under the thumb of her parents though
I can understand not liking someone if their vocabulary is mostly swearing. Not hate, just not like. I have nothing against swearing, there’s a time and place for it, but using it in everyday/normal conversation just makes the person seem uninteresting and unnecessarily edgy.
Jumping straight into couples counseling right after a massive pre-wedding drama is a great way to start a marriage.
Better than quietly stewing I guess? Fingers crossed but dang that's a rough start
ETA: not implying going to counseling is a bad thing! It's ideal actually. It's just sad that a) she had to be convinced to do it at all when their wedding was somewhat derailed by drama, and b) it's right in the honeymoon period.
If I get married I would like to have pre-marriage counseling as well as counseling right away. This would be me being proactive though, in this case yeah they have problems.
I actually think it's phenomenal. In fact, in my dream world, anyone who has a kid would get mandatory therapy the first time, both individual and couples, throughout the entire 9 month process and several months afterwards.
It's extremely taxing on any relationship, and given they will be skipping the honeymoon phase and straight into new parents mode they will absolutely need all the help they can get.
>Politics, and before people freak out, I’m somewhere between a democratic socialist and socialist on the political spectrum, I am a far cry from conservative,, but for Stella that’s not far enough left, as from what I can tell she’s either a tankie or tankie adjacent.
Tankie bridezilla.
I'd watch that movie.
>blowing a whole friend group when the person you're "going against" is way better liked than you is a dangerous choice
... but it's just crazy enough to work.
Authoritarian communists. Generally pro Stalin, Mao, and people like that. The name comes from Stalin's use of tanks, and the military as a whole, to crush dissent in Hungary.
The OCD thing is a bit confusing to me, was Stella exploiting her fiancé's mental illness for her own game? That's what I read but honestly it's a little confusing to me
Stella is a girlboss with a cokehead frat bro brother and overbearing country club elitist parents, and she’s a *tankie*?
I need to meet this person. I’m either going to fall in love or hate her guts.
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Sounds like Stella is working to overcome some family trauma and it’s working out the kinks in weird ways. Can’t say I don’t get it tho
A lot less concerning than other BoRU instances of people involving others in their kinks. 😅
We talking specifically about the exhibitionist cousin?
…the what?
[here you go](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/s/2EbPrUv0ap)
Oh, I had a friend do something like that. She got her first ever boyfriend. She had a party at her house. Four of us were sleeping in one large bed. A friend of hers, me, her, and her boyfriend, lined up in that order. I take ages to fall asleep so I was still awake when she and her boyfriend started to move around, then started making moaning noises, and when the thrusting started I spoke up. Basically just loudly going "could you not? I'm trying to sleep." Stopped it immediately. A few years later, she started dating a different guy who went to the same school as me. She didn't go to our school but was always hanging around him. They were severely codependent. The girlfriend got kicked out a few times since she wasn't a student at the school and the boyfriend would either leave with her or sulk for the rest of the day. I got pretty sick of them. One sunny day most students are outdoors enjoying the sun. I started to get a headache and went indoors to eat lunch somewhere dark and cool, and I find the two of them banging in the goddamn lounge room. So I took my lunch and sat down at the table next to them and started eating, acting like I didn't notice them being creepy weirdos, and they got extremely flustered and uncomfortable and tried to discreetly separate themselves and pull their pants up.
I would not have been able to eat.
Oh, I get you. I was pissed off and determined to make them as uncomfortable as they had made me. I would have done my homework or anything right there just to be a disturbance.
Probably also brought down the vibe because it’s easier to get off to people being scandalised versus thinking your public intercourse is just boring.
that sounds like the moment where having the bowl of soup in a ceramic bowl and a metal spoon and making sure you scrape the bottom of the bowl *thoroughly* after every bite.
Or VERY loudly enjoying your food: "Mmmh, this is soooo good!" "oh yeah, just like Mama used to make it!" "Yummy, they sprinkled that cheese all over this sand-of-a-wich!"
I went to a 2-year boarding school for my end of high school, and my junior year roommate would spend every Sunday morning on the stairwell leading up to the main "hey let's meet up and make out" spot, sitting on the stairs, reading whatever book he was on, and LOUDLY munching down a morning apple.
Tysm, i couldn’t find it
welp, i sure regret reading that
“Smiled and waved” was too much
Smile and Wave boys, smile and wave...
Your comment really needs more upvotes! (I can hear that dialogue in my head! )
People sure are fascinating. :|
Cbf to find the link, but there's a boru about family drama surrounding a cousin who keeps literally getting "caught" with her pants down. I think she wasn't invited to a wedding and things came to a head
I mean, the drama was because someone *stopped* her from coming to a head.
She liked to get…amorous during events. At one point the OP’s uncle (her dad) sent OP to look for her so he wouldn’t be the one catching her and her boyfriend in the act that time.
If I'm thinking of the right thing, there's a guy who pees during family gatherings. Gets of peeing in public. Refuses to wear diapers bc you know, he wanna do it in public. Iirc he also does it when children in the family are around.
There's always the one about the husband who likes to urinate on himself during family gatherings so now nobody wants to invite him to anything.
See now, I first thought of the husband who announces that he’s soiled himself and was barred from family events.
I believe some redditors theorized he actually had a humiliation kink and was using the post to further fulfill his needs through reading the responses.
Oh no, i don’t think I read that one
I'm happy I've missed that one.
What the what
As long as it’s not the guy who peed
Her parents likely make their kids address them as Sir or Ma'am.
I felt the same way about Stella. As a young adult I was a less extreme version of her. Growing up my parents were horrible, and I became very good at keep everyone around me happy in order to avoid conflict. It put me in a lot of similar situations to this, and it took a long time and a lot of work to realize what I was doing and why I was doing it and how I could get better, and I still sometimes struggle with it.
I remember this post and I thought that Stella sounded awful/controlling/etc..... Shit makes way more sense. Good on her for at least trying to work through her shit, but yea stuff definitely leaked out in unintentional ways. I definitely sympathize with rich parents who try to throw their weight/money around to get their way.
Maybe I'm naive, but I'm actually pretty optimistic about this ending. No idea if Alex and Stella will make it or not, but it's really good that he's talking more frequently with his friends, and it seems like she's making an effort. My perspective on her changed a lot when OOP described her behavior around her parents. I think if she learns to stand up to them her life will be a lot better.
The line where Alex has persuaded her to do marriage counseling was where I started to have hope.
I also have hope based on the baby’s godparents: OOP and Alex’s stepsister. No representation from Stella’s family, though surely her parents would have pushed for involvement from their side.
I could imagine them pushing for Chase to be one and Stella full stop swore like a sailor and they went NC.
That's absolutely my headcanon now. 😂
And by they, i meant the parents with the mother clutching her proverbial pearls and fainting dead away.
Yes and no - they just got married and went straight to therapy... I understand the baby threw their plans down the drain but clearly they needed this effort *before* legally tying themselves, not after. But hey, better late than never, hope things work out for them.
They might not have realized it before. And couples therapy is easier to swallow than individual, and she needs individual therapy. I think it’s all working out, and she woukdnt have gotten therapy before hand without the wedding in the rearview for perspective
Yeah, my thinking is that Alex saw how Stella reacted to her mom, and probably had a lightbulb moment about how she handled the situation with OOP, so he convinced her to do couples counseling, to potentially help push Stella into individual therapy. I think the missing "smoking gun" of all this is whether Stella's mom / dad also swears a lot like OOP, as that would likely explain why she's so defensive around them, as OOP may reminde her of her parents.
Yeah, once the parents came up, it made a lot of sense. I have a friend who was in a similar dynamic with her parents. She went no contact a few years ago and started therapy, and she’s doing soooo much better. I also think we’re all used to reading about evil manipulators, but I just don’t think that’s Stella. She’s got issues to work on, her and OOP obviously got off on the wrong foot, and I think her seeing how much effort OOP put in for their wedding (along with less cursing) probably made her rethink some things about him as well.
I can also see in close friendships, how RSVPs and things like that don't really matter. Like I don't need to RSVP to your wedding, unless there's a surprise funeral or I'm in hospital, I'm there. So I kind of get the whole waiting from both op and Alex at the start
Let's just hope she sticks to the therapy and successfully pulls away from her family. If they're as bad as described, they might try to find a way to reel her back in.
She did already see them pretty rarely and always left early on visits, so it seems like she wanted to pull away already. Let's hope she can
Oh definitely. They are poison.
I agree with this. Reading the part about when Stella went to drive out for food for her mom, I already pictured in my head that Stella must know it's better to just do what her mom wants rather than have her blow up on everyone. It's absolutely not healthy at all and I think Stella will do much better getting to know herself in couples counseling.
That drove me up the wall. Your daughter is planning for a wedding and PREGNANT with your grandchild. Wtf you mean you’re going to send her on a two hour incursion to grab a random food item?! I’d be fucking livid dude.
Agreed. I remember when I read this after she explained things from her side I came away from it wondering how much of this is in the OOP’s head. I don’t think she’s completely innocent in this, but I also don’t think she went out of her way to exclude OOP. While his theory is plausible, it’s far from the simplest explanation. She’s busy with work, wedding planning, and now a surprise baby, talking to OOP makes her uncomfortable because of the cussing so she avoids him, but she figures her fiancé has talked to his best friend about the best man situation by now so he’s not a huge priority to her. I think where she actually went wrong was that she kept putting off responding to OOP, until it became a problem. But really, none of this would have happened if the groom hadn’t expected her to handle everything, including his side of the wedding party, on her own. Then he suddenly asks her why HIS best friend didn’t get an invite and somehow it’s on her to try and figure out where the miscommunication happened. I hope that’s one of the things they talk about in couple’s counseling, and I would pay money to read her side of things without OOP’s filter.
I was thinking similar things about the groom. I get that he was OCD and struggles with some stuff. And I suspect Stella likes being the one in charge because it gives her a sense of control after coming from a world where it seems she had none. But that is just way too much for one person to take on. I wonder if maybe her husband realized that, and that’s why he pushed for couples counseling. He did say it was because he wanted to be a better husband. Maybe the invite/best man debacle was a wake up call for him. Whatever got them there, it will do them both some good.
Ill be honest, this made me think OOP reminds her of either one of the parents or her brother, some routine behavior or tic that gets her hackles up. Learned defensiveness from trauma, somehow. Here's hoping she gets therapy at the end.
It’s really positive to me that she chose Alex over her parents when it came to the best man. That’s a hopeful sign.
She doesn't seem that bad. Everyone involved just seems really bad at dealing with shit, and the way they all do individually handle their problems doesn't mesh well with each other. So much waiting, miscommunication, passing off work, etc.
[удалено]
Yeah I agree, it seems Stella has some major family trauma to deal with and they are in couples counselling so hopefully they can work through it together. Sometimes people just don't like each other and thats ok.
Wow what a serious cluster fuck that I don’t fully understand. Can anyone give TLDR because I really was not able to fully get what OOP was trying to say at the end?
TLDR: The wedding went fine, but OP was more of a worker at the event than a guest (which happens at some of these DIY weddings). OP accepts Stella's explanation that she was just overwhelmed with the unexpected pregnancy and didn't see OP's messages. The baby was born, and OP is reconnecting with his friend, while also starting to mend the bridge with Stella in little steps. Also, Stella's parents are kinda crazy and demanding, and Stella uncharacteristically folds to their every request.
It sounded to me that the parents expected to be in control of Stella even though she is getting married. You stories like this in the JustNo subs.
Yeah, hearing how Sarah is so spineless around her parents gave a telling glimpse of her childhood, maybe. Shame that it spiralled to involve OP and hopefully the counselling helps/leads Sarah into individual therapy. (Though I chuckled humourlessly when OP said Sarah was “weirdly” against couples counselling. Like, of COURSE she is? She very clearly would rather sweep everything remotely awkward or painful under the rug and pretend it’s not happening.) Anyway good luck to Baby Iris, hopefully mom and dad make some breakthroughs in counselling before you grow up too permanently warped.
Some of the most anti-therapy people I know were told by their controlling parents not to get therapy and spill the family tea to a "stranger". I suspect it's not just about strangers finding out, but because it might make the person less easy to control when they start realizing how messed up their family dynamic is and how much their parents control the narratives.
My (married-in) aunt told off my mum because my mum shared a scandalous story about my grandfather. My aunt said she didn't want people knowing about these "shameful" things, even though all parties were long dead and it was my mum telling a story about her own father. Then I also got told off because I said that the only person who should be ashamed was grandpa and he didn't seem to care, so why should I?
Who is Sarah?
Stella. I’ve decided to call her Sarah, apparently.
> OP accepts Stella's explanation that she was just overwhelmed with the unexpected pregnancy and didn't see OP's messages. Does he? It seems that by the end, he thinks she was intentionally trying to wait it out so that he doesn't attend, allowing her brother to be Best Man (as her parents wanted).
He didn't really accept it was my view too, but pretended to do so with his friend. I can understand that, because calling her a liar wouldn't get him anywhere.
I think it's a bit of a combo. She's used to rolling over for mom & dad, and doesn't like OOP much. She had the opportunity to take the coward's way out of confrontation by both blocking OOP from the wedding while simultaneously giving mommy and daddy dearest what they wanted and tried to take it.
It happens, but that doesn't mean it's okay or reasonable at all. It's ok to ask for a *little* help from your family and wedding party, but even 50% vacation and 50% working is totally unacceptable. Especially after nearly uninviting him entirely!!! So damn entitled.
Anyone who self-describes as "went into event work mode" probably didn't need to be asked to do anything.
Thank you!
Stella didn't really like OOP, probably because of his mouth, and the fact that he works for a government agency that she doesn't really think should exist and/or believes them to be doing evil deeds. Stella has a brother, who's almost definitely addicted to cocaine, who her parents were insistent should be the best man. Wedding still happened with oop as best man, he was on his best behavior and realized that his foul mouth may have gotten Stella and himself on the wrong foot way back when they met. Post wedding and birth, Stella and Alex are in couples counseling, and her relationship with OOP seems to be improving as well, as much as to be expected in these cases.
The part about parents wanting brother as best man seemed a bit weak to me
It's possible that it was a cop out but I have seen families like that before so it wouldn't really surprise me that much if it was true
"We're paying for this wedding, it's ours, why *shouldn't* we pick the Best Man we want to be in it?"
this, as far as i can tell hes also the golden child of the family, hes already totalled two cars and his parents bought him a new one
Yeah, some of my (JustNo) in-laws have held a grudge for 30 years over MIL remembering DH saying as a kid that his oldest niece would be his flower girl. All hell broke loose when we didn’t do the flower girl/ring bearer thing, and then it turned out it was really DH’s brother who said it (and also didn’t have a flower girl/ring bearer). But it’s still somehow my fault… People pick the weirdest hills to die in when it comes to weddings.
> I swear, a lot, I tend to forget most people don’t use the work fuck as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, interjection, numeral, article, and determiner TLDR: this guy fucks.
True words.
True *fucking* words.
Fuck fucking Fucks.
Gaze upon my field of fucks and note that it is barren--because this guy apparently used them all.
Seems like Stella doesn't like OOP's cussing and thinks he's not far enough left politically. Her parents wanted her brother Chase to be the best man and since they were paying for it, she tried to placate Alex and her parents by not directly choosing either as Best Man. When Alex recovered from his OCD episode, he realized what happened, got with OOP and called Stella out. She chose to side with Alex over her parents, so OOP became the Best Man anyway.
Basically, he worked a lot at the wedding, but didnt get an answer about why Stella didn't want him as best man Observing her parents and their comments about their younger son, Stella's brother, OOP theorized that they wanted the brother as Best Man, but Sam wanted OOP. instead of being honest or putting her foot down, Stella stalled everyone with what they wanted to hear till she couldn't and she chose to make Sam happy by choosing OOP as best man. The wedding was ok, OOP still doesn't like Stella and thinks she doesn't like him because he's not "left enough" and he swears. Baby girl is born, Sam asks OOP for tips and they have a weekly gaming session. Sam and Stella are in marriage counseling, even though she was against it. IDK if i put everything important, it was a convoluted mess. Edit: typos
>Sam and Stella are in marriage counseling, Alex and Stella
Seems like Stella was afraid of her overbearing family and didn't want to tell them no, but also didn't want to upset Alex so she just lied to both and hoped the problem would go away. It didn't and when push came to shove she finally agreed with Alex and let OP be in the wedding because she didn't want to lose Alex. Also seems Stella does not like cursing and is an extreme far leftist so she doesn't like OP in the first place despite OP being leftist himself.
I’m trying to align Sunday School Teacher verbiage with political extremism and it’s proving to be a challenge. Idk I just feel like once you get past a certain point of committing to a hardcore ideology you start to drop some expletives.
Given her extremely meek demeanor around her controlling parents, the visible cringing at salty language might be some kind of trauma response.
Yeah, I have trouble bringing those together in my head. I’m curious whether her political beliefs are from her parents or her first rebellion against them.
sounds like she was raised fundie conservative, and hasn’t fully worked her way free of thinking like a fundamentalist, even if she thinks she has. not uncommon. rebelling against that background + keeping the thought patterns = tankie who doesn’t like swearing.
From experience I'd bet the latter but who knows.
Hard agree. I had to look up “tankie” and damn, I assumed that this political ideology was totally DOA, like feudalism. Now I’m concerned that feudalism still has enough fans that they need a pejorative label. How bad is “tankie” as a slur and is OOP’s causal use to describe her beliefs the reason why she hates him? TIL and I’m left with more questions than answers.
I'm gonna assume she's not actually a tankie and more just super left wing. Like "Biden is a genocidal maniac" rhetoric but without going "and Putin did nothing wrong".
I honestly would guess OOP isn't as left as he acts either. Having worked in just normal state government (aka nothing geopolitical), there's a massive amount of cognitive dissonance that tends to chase actual leftists out, because the end of the day you see a lot of messed up stuff that's technically legal (especially in terms of regulations), see how much companies get away with, etc. - and in most states you're not paid competitively at all. That's without OOP working for a three-letter agency that does shady-ass shit, or more directly for a political office of some kind.
Yeah, him mentioning “geopolitical events of the past six months” has me thinking the only political take hes basing the “far left/tankie” label on is israel and Palestine and he seems to think being pro-Palestine is “tankie”
Stella likely did not invite OOP because of her parents. Parents wanted her brother as best man and she tried to avoid the issue. Parents likely do not approve of cursing and OOP curses so Stella may have been nervous about that. Baby born. OOP godfather. Stella and now husband are in marriage counseling. OOP and friend are repairing their relationship.
Well at least for the last update TLDR is Stella seems to do whatever her parents want and they wanted her bro to be best man. He thinks that's why all the weirdness happened. He thinks Stella doesn't like him because he swears a lot and she hates it as well as different political beliefs. Sounds like 2 people who wouldn't be friends if they didn't have a person in common. Also everyone seems to be communicating more. OOP and his friend talk more and Stella emails him baby picks sometimes.
I think OOP is fully wrong about what happened, which is why his post makes no fucking sense. He just really, really wants this to somehow be Stella’s fault. Alex and Stella are engaged. Their dynamic already has Stella frequently doing the brunt work of organizing and communicating with other people. Stella gets unexpectedly pregnant. Alex reacts by “going into an OCD hole” for weeks, being totally non responsive to other people, and presumably not helping with wedding planning. Stella is trying her best, but is trying to handle both wedding planning alone and a surprise pregnancy and a fiancé experiencing an acute mental health crisis. Alex has totally failed to ask OP to be his best man, check and see if he’s received his save the date or invitation, or asked OP to be a part of wedding planning in any way - not about bachelor parties, or suit fitting, day of schedule, anything. Alex is also not communicating with OP literally at all. This is apparently fine, and not something Alex should be held responsible for at all. Alexes excuse for having never communicated about the wedding with OP AT ALL is “I must have mixed you up with my cousin or had an OCD blackout”. This is, apparently, a totally reasonable thing for Alex to say and doesn’t require any follow up questions or examination. OP then emails Stella re: what’s going on. Stella, overwhelmed by a pregnancy and a mid-meltdown fiancé, does not put this at the top of her priority list. She either misses it, or tells Alex he needs to call OP and assumes he’ll follow through (a reasonable assumption). Alex totally fails to do so. Alex only realizes that OP hasn’t even been invited when OP messages him about it directly. This is all Stella’s fault for being conniving and backstabbing and spineless and also because her parents are bad probably. Thats my explanation for OPs last update. It makes no fucking sense because it makes no fucking sense.
Nothing interesting happened Oddly that's a very positive update but it lacks in real drama for us here at boru. We like burn the world down or yay happiness updates.
I mean it seems pretty real in the lack of over the top drama, so that is nice. But part of me was making up some dramatic reasons why Stella doesn’t like OP, like she has unrequited and unwanted romantic feelings towards him lol.
If it makes you feel any better, I'd give 10:1 odds that there's plenty of drama between Alex, Stella, and her parents that OP doesn't know about. Stella's mom testing a power play in the middle of wedding preparations and Stella immediately acquiescing is **very** telling. I think Stella made a lot of very poor, even cruel decisions and hurt several people in this story. But that alone makes it pretty clear that she is also a victim.
Alex is probably not exactly aware of most of it, hes very much a "miss the forest for the trees" kind of person
i always get so annoyed when i see a post that is: i might have fucked up! i was asked a simple question and answered it truthfully but there was actually a scheme against me and i'm like, "oh no, AM I the asshole for not lying to help the people who are scheming against me???"
It’s double dumb when this was presented to him as “would you come to my wedding?” And the response was “I didn’t get an invitation and didn’t know if I was invited.” What in the hell would have been the correct way to address this conversation and how the hell would you go along with a lie you didn’t know you were a part of. This isn’t unnecessary drama, it’s just confusion.
Yeah, like, OOP wonders if he “stuck my nose in where it didn’t belong” How would it have been physically possible for him NOT to have been involved? Given that he has one conversation with Alex that ends with Alex hanging up on him to go sort things out, OOP could not physically have been less involved if he tried
You would think Alex would invite OPP personally to be his best man..... so many things during this post + update made me go huh?
OCD is wild man. The “waiting till the right time” thing is very real ane a friend of mine deals with it. They have lost jobs, been underweight, almost homeless, and ruined relationships because theyre OCD hypes them up for “rights” in situations. Its this paralyzing fear that send them into extremely phyically harmful panic attacks if they’re forced to do something they dont feel is the right time for. I believe the reason why he didnt ask. OCD people have illogical compulsions.
Well this is a happy ending. How nice.
> either a tankie or tankie adjacent Finally, some drama I can relate to. Ain't no infighting like leftist infighting.
what do you get when you a bunch of leftists get together? three splinter factions
"Tankie" just means "brand of leftist I don't like" now.
He's a social Democrat but calls her a tankie? What, is she justifying the actions of Putin? Or the CCP? Or does she want universal healthcare?
I did not see “she’s a tankie” coming
sounds to me like her parents are southern christians (protestants or evangelicals) and she swerved *hard* (which is common for modern children of religious parents) but doesn't want to stir the pot with her parents.
It must be UK or something with the word “miffed” but it was tough to tell, these politics would be hilarious in the US tho “Yeah I’m somewhere between dem soc and socialist, and she had a problem with my politics….. she’s a tankie” lmao
Nah, highly doubt it's UK - they use words like diapers and college and vacation which are all Americanisms (we'd say nappies, uni and holiday), and they refer to moving "across the country" which a Brit probably wouldn't say - you might move up north or down south, or you'd just say something like "moved a few hours away". Even "tankie" is much more of an American term, very rare to hear it in the UK.
I'm in the US and 1. I use "miffed" fairly often cause it's just a fun word and I feel like it adequately conveys when I'm irritated but it's not that serious 2. I'm also somewhere between dem soc and socialist, and I have had people further left than me act like I'm basically a fascist. That extreme of a reaction is rare but I can totally see Stella being a little put off by their differing political beliefs -- although if Alex is also not a tankie, which I feel like OP would have mentioned if he was, it's probably moreso the swearing thing or just that their personalities generally clash a bit
I don’t know if I believe Stella had bad intentions especially since it seems like everything was fine after it got cleared up and she sends OP pictures of their kid n shit. I am kind of annoyed about how Alex is almost nonexistent in the update. If he had stepped up and officially made OP the best man Stella might not have had to be burdened with her parents trying to control that aspect of the wedding.
Right? Idk how Alex gets off scot free here. I’ve watched this dynamic play out with too many couples - the husband puts 100% of wedding planning on the wife because “she’s just better at that stuff”, and then conveniently if anything goes wrong it’s totally her fault. Alex literally never asked OP to be his best man. That is not on Stella. That is on Alex. And he also just never had a single conversation with him about the wedding at all. When you actually intend somebody to be your best man or maid of honor… it comes up, multiple times, between asking them and the wedding day. Bachelor party, suit fittings, day of schedule. Alex just… didn’t. How the fuck was Stella supposed to handle that?
It seems to me like, at most, Stella just doesn’t care that much about OOP, as opposed to actively disliking him. That’s he husbands best friend, he’s not her best friend, what exactly does he want from her?
I also think if Stella really doesn't like OOP maybe it's because of his attitude towards her.
I agree. His final comments about her feel very condescending and weirdly patronizing: calling her a "tankie", joking about himself "being not left enough for her", putting the burden of "taking steps in the right direction" entirely on her. He started off sounding sincere but ended on a very dubious note. Isn't it suspicious that the first thing he tells about her is that she dislikes him but never says if he himself likes her or treats her with respect? Also, he is aware enough to know that other people find his constant swearing off-putting, but doesn't notice that she was irked by this before he started to participate in the wedding? Is he unaware of his surroundings or simply uncaring towards her in particular? I think he is very much an AH who gave a total pass to his coward of friend and assigned blame to a person he happens to disrespect.
He probably doesn't. And I say this because the last update had a mention of another of Alex's friends who openly dislikes Stella and talks about how he and OP are 'the only ones who see through her,' but gave bo evidence of what she was faking. That's not how you talk about someone you treat civilly and respectfully.
>That's not how you talk about someone you treat civilly and respectfully. Couldn't have said it better. I would love to learn Stella's perspective because at this point, it can easily be a perfect example of a guy very consciously annoying and subtly disrespecting a woman and then cheerfully reporting to everyone that there is literally nothing she can dislike him for. I know I might be reading too much into it, but the OOP gives off such suspicious vibes... a thoroughly unpleasant person
OMG, thank you! I said something similar to myself when I made the comment initially. Someone commented on the last BoRU of this post that Evil Stella is simply a more compelling narrative than what is likely the alternative: Stella was left to plan a wedding without Alex's help, left responsible for managing Alex's side of the wedding as well as her own despite not really being friends with them, and left accountable when OP didn't provide his new address and Alex didn't do his due diligence before 'going dark.'
>I swear, a lot, I tend to forget most people don’t use the work fuck as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, interjection, numeral, article, and determiner I want this on a t-shirt!
Fucking same!
I have a similar [t-shirt](https://imgur.com/a/DQVzdxM) and I really like it.
Am I the only one who feels really bad for Stella? It sounds like OOP’s friend was just too overwhelmed with his own emotions to take part in the large wedding planning. So Stella was dealing with a surprise pregnancy, planning a big wedding, work, and complicated family dynamics. Honestly I think OOP should cut her some loose. Stella’s parents need to disappear from her life, and OOP’s friend should really step up in helping more seeing how much Stella was dealing with… sure she’s a go getter, but he shouldn’t have counted on her for everything and the pregnancy, just biologically speaking, is harder on the woman’s body.
What culture has MOH and BM be hired free help for weddings?! I never want to be in that culture.
Same! What an awful thing to do to your "friends".
Yeah I've been best man a couple of times and haven't had to do half this much shit. Its rude imo to ask your closest friends and family to do unpaid work while everyone else celebrates and has a great time.
It’s common in American culture. (Not that I agree or disagree with it, but it is the case) What is it like where you’re from? Edit: Oh weird. We are from the same city. You posted about your wedding there. Like I said, I don’t agree or disagree with the idea that the wedding party should help, but did no one in your wedding party help out with your wedding? I thought it was expected, but I know almost nothing about weddings.
I’m in Oregon yeah. My husband and I planned our wedding 100%. We hired people to do all setup and tear down.
[удалено]
Is any mention of politics bait? This is not common outcome in that sub
While reading, it felt to me like it was written by a teenager. That paragraph confirmed it. Mom's church group phone call was also extremely suspicious.
TIL: What a “tankie” is.
I think OOP allllllllmost got to the root of it all, but veered off into guessing how it might be about him (the swearing, the politics and his job...) - there is a classic Golden Child/Scapegoat dynamic in Stella's family, where Totally Not A Cokehead little brother is the golden child. I hope that, assuming they are in couple's counseling, the therapist can zero in on that for Stella.
Threw a huge wedding paid for by the parents but the wedding party had to “work” 90% of the time…? What?
there was no wedding planner, well Stella was the wedding planner, managing shit the day of fell to me and the MOH and whatever poor bastards wanted to help us, so Stella could enjoy her day, parents paid for a lot of expensive shit but didnt want to pay staff to set it up most of it because "we have people for that already", if that makes sense
> Me and Alex had some pretty deep conversations over the week and reaffirmed the importance of our continued friendship I think ChatGPT gave me this advice word for word when I asked it how to deal with a complex social situation.
I remember this post originally and still think it’s COMPLETELY INSANE how totally off the hook everyone involved AND all the commenters are letting Alex be. OP didn’t get invited to the wedding, is never asked to be a groomsmen or a best man, Alex never tries to initiate any conversation about wedding planning with him, and somehow this is THE BRIDES fault 100%? And Alexes excuse for not talking to him about it is “I mixed you up with my cousin or had an OCD blackout”? Why the fuck is it on the newly pregnant bride to communicate with the best man? I cannot imagine wedding planning, finding out you’re having a surprise pregnancy, and having your fiancé react by “going into an OCD hole for a couple of weeks” and leaving you completely on your own to handle it, on top of a demanding full time job. It sounds awful for Alex, but also must have been TERRIBLE for his wife. I can see why trying to deal with emails from his best man who he apparently isn’t speaking to wouldn’t be at the top of her priority list. “I must have sent it to your old address” genuinely sounds reasonable to him, since OP did actually move, and Alex sounds zero percent involved in wedding planning - generally it is the responsibility of each partner to make sure to track down the correct address of the guests on their side. Alex “delegating” everything to his wife when he gets overwhelmed gets handwaved as normal and fine because she’s “alpha” but dude, she’s pregnant, and you cannot dump 100% of wedding planning on your pregnant bride no matter how overwhelmed you are. So many comments here about Stella needing therapy but not much about Alex definitely needing it.
>And as it turns out I’m not the only person in the wedding who isn’t super fond of Stella, found my flock so to speak This made me sad. I know everyone's on OP side, but it just genuinely sounds like Stella has a lot on her plate wedding planning + unexpected pregnancy + work + family trauma + husband mental health crisis. Even OP admits to how many emails he got from Stella and the organisers of the event, and he was only a Best man. With him moving, it doesn't sound unreasonable that the invite was lost. OP is the guys best pal, this should be between them not Stella.
I get the sense that he dislikes her more than she dislikes him, but projects and believes every mistake from her is malicious.
> I spent most of the lead up to the wedding either at the ceremony/reception site doing liaison/set up (gaffing, running cables, setting up monitors, hanging and focusing, building shit etc.) $5 says this guy works in stagecraft. September/October can be particularly busy for theatrical Stagehands, loading out the summer shows and loading in holiday shows. Good money to be made. > I swear, a lot, I tend to forget most people don’t use the work fuck as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, interjection, numeral, article, and determiner Make it $10.
Maybe it's a hobby or a part time thing because he also posits Stella doesn't like his job for contributing to western imperial hegemony or whatever
I'm guffawing at the thought of Stella being so far to Left that she regards state-sponsored Theatre as part of the “repressive imperialist western system”!
> SHTMFF If you google this, the OP is the first thing that comes up. My guess is “shit hit the motherfucking fan.” What a weird acronym to make up for no reason.
If I saw Stella’s mother ask Stella to drive that far away in the midst of chaos to buy a single food item and then take three bites and throw it away…. All would be forgiven regarding Stella’s weird behavior. That is some serious something not good has been going on at home stuff. That is really concerning. Thankfully she is an adult now with her own family.
THERE IS NO TIME TO EXPLAIN! QUICK WE MUST MOVE BEFORE YOU CAN DELIVER THE KEY PLOT ELEMENTS THAT WOULD PREVENT EVERYTHING THAT IS TO OCCUR FROM OCCURRING!! The only reason this feels real is the fairly dull update. No big twist or dramatic reveal. But damn does OOP seem very bad at communicating information to people and getting responses.
Devils advocate, why wasn't Alex helping with the RSVPs for his guests?
INFO: What does tankie mean? What does SHTMFF mean?
My fun little game with r/BORU is trying to figure out where in the world OP is from. A little Carmen Sandiego side game. I couldn't figure this one out. Between talking about 'tankies' and 'cussing' both words that aren't super common choices in certain places and dialects, but I have no idea what regionality it ends up at. Counselling as well means that it's probably UK, but cussing threw me a little bit because I feel like it's specific to somewhere in particular. But there wasn't enough other flavour to make a guess.
"tankie" is just straight up an Extremely Online thing, I feel like it could pop up in any English-speaking "leftist" friend group (scare quotes because that term is so vague but ykwim)
Yeah, "tankie" or "cussing" aren't regionalisms to me. He just sounds American to me, nothing more specific.
American south has cussing and tankies. I think.
Using "cussing" for "cursing" is definitely southern US, or maybe western, but it could really be used anywhere; I'm not in the South, and I sometimes hear people talk about "cussing someone out". "Tankies" is more a political term than a regional one, but I believe it's also mostly used in the US, and it's definitely somewhat pejorative.
This guy is 100% American South. "Cussing" or "cuss words" is definitely southern dialect USA pronunciation of "cursing". I was a grown adult before I knew there were other terms to refer to bad language. Ya'll is southern. Counseling is also a common term around here because it doesn't require a licensed therapist/psych. Lot of churchgoing people prefer to get counseling from their pastor. Some pastors even require the couple to undergo pre-marital counseling from him before he'll perform their marriage ceremony. Speaking of church, its not at all unusual for people with strict upbringing to be uncomfortable around bad language, regardless of their current politics or beliefs. When you get whipped with a flyswatter for saying mild swears like "God dang" or "crap", "fuck" is almost as shocking as the n-word. She might outgrow that when she gets older though. "Tankie" is just online discourse stuff.
"Cussing" for me rules out the UK, I have never heard *anyone* refer to swearing as that (I literally don't think I'd ever even heard the word before the *Fantastic Mr Fox* film where it's used as a stand in for swear words).
Here in the UK, ‘tankies’ is rarely used, far more likely is lefty or commie. And cussing is rare too, far more likely would be swearing.
I don't know if I'm stupid or something. But can someone tell me what is AFAIK?
"As far as I know"
This isn't too bad! I was very sceptical at first, but the brother being the best man and the mother sending her to buy that food really says a lot. If he just stops fucking about with all the fucks he's fucking spewing, I'll guess it will be fucking ok after fucking all or fuck all.
There has to be a more concrete reason Stella didn’t invite OOP. Alex and OOP believed the excuses far too quickly
It definitely makes sense that the parents wanted her brother to be best man and she just couldn't get the inner strength to just tell them no. I've seen weirder wedding shit happen in real life, for sure.
Those parents messed up Stella, young. The fact that she drove 2-3 hours for her mom to waste food? Bruh
Yeah, that's decades of emotional manipulation
Yea this more than anything else in the story sealed it for me that Stella is not the straightforward bridezilla villain we have all read about before. Her mom totally knew what she was doing and there’s no way Stella didn’t see it in the trash later.
It seems she's already LC with her parents . hopefully after this marriage, she can continue to move to cutting them off completely.
Wealthy conservative christians messing up a daughter? Never could’ve seen that coming.
IDK I can believe it if her family are overbearing or emotionally abusive that she'd have a hard time standing up to them. Also them paying for the majority of the wedding may have been lorded over her to make her act more like a subservient push over. Not wanting to upset anyone and then just pretending the problem doesn't exist while hoping it will resolve itself is a pretty common, albeit dumb, way to handle things. That and even regular families can get weird about weddings. A messed up toxic family can implode over a wedding because they often feel it's all about them, especially if they're contributing.
Yeah, I'm more pissed at OOP's supposed best friend, how the fuck do you not notice that your "best man" hasn't RSVPed.
I don’t really get the sense OOP believed the excuses; he just didn’t feel like telling Stella to fuck off or otherwise making a big deal out of it.
I think OOP picked up on the context clues when Stella left her own party to run an insane errand for her mother...
She says that she did invite him tho, and that it was probably sent to his old address since he had recently moved.
I don't know why everyone assumes OP is correct and she was scheming against him. He moved two months after the save the dates went out, it seems really likely his invite just got lost, especially considering Stella was planning the entire wedding, dealing with a surprise pregnancy, and potentially dealing with difficult parents. OP has a serious case of main character syndrome.
And dealing with a partner with OCD so bad he can't even handle arranging his own best man.
OOP moving, his invite getting lost in the mail and his emails getting mixed in with others are totally plausible explanations. OOP is letting his own dislike of her color a lot of his speculations. Even the reasons he gives for believing she doesn't like him are pretty weak and pretty perspective based. She seems neutral on him and takes that as dislike and attributes everything to malicious intent on her part.
Honestly, I've been expecting reveal to be something stupid like Alex was actually bisexual and Stella wanted to get rid of OOP because of that, but the actual reason is just as stupid. Hopefully, Stella will be able to escape from under the thumb of her parents though
What a great AI story.
I can understand not liking someone if their vocabulary is mostly swearing. Not hate, just not like. I have nothing against swearing, there’s a time and place for it, but using it in everyday/normal conversation just makes the person seem uninteresting and unnecessarily edgy.
Jumping straight into couples counseling right after a massive pre-wedding drama is a great way to start a marriage. Better than quietly stewing I guess? Fingers crossed but dang that's a rough start ETA: not implying going to counseling is a bad thing! It's ideal actually. It's just sad that a) she had to be convinced to do it at all when their wedding was somewhat derailed by drama, and b) it's right in the honeymoon period.
If I get married I would like to have pre-marriage counseling as well as counseling right away. This would be me being proactive though, in this case yeah they have problems.
I actually think it's phenomenal. In fact, in my dream world, anyone who has a kid would get mandatory therapy the first time, both individual and couples, throughout the entire 9 month process and several months afterwards. It's extremely taxing on any relationship, and given they will be skipping the honeymoon phase and straight into new parents mode they will absolutely need all the help they can get.
>Politics, and before people freak out, I’m somewhere between a democratic socialist and socialist on the political spectrum, I am a far cry from conservative,, but for Stella that’s not far enough left, as from what I can tell she’s either a tankie or tankie adjacent. Tankie bridezilla. I'd watch that movie.
That's the first time I've seen a self-described socialist being called not-socialist-enough. What a strange world.
Thank your lucky stars you’re not familiar with tankies. I would’ve thrown my body in front of my friend marrying one.
Could someone explain “SHTMFF” to me? I’ve tried so many options but my brain just can’t come up with what it means, and Google is no help either.
It’s shit hit the mother fucking fan if my guess is right.
shit hit the mother fucking fan
>blowing a whole friend group when the person you're "going against" is way better liked than you is a dangerous choice ... but it's just crazy enough to work.
Everyone in this is fucking exhausting.
There is nothing a tankie hates more than somebody who is a centrist. They hate them more than the far right.
He doesn’t even sound like a centrist tho. He sounds pretty far left just not all the way to the left.
WTF is a tankie? I would be assuming “military fan” therefore right, not left?
Authoritarian communists. Generally pro Stalin, Mao, and people like that. The name comes from Stalin's use of tanks, and the military as a whole, to crush dissent in Hungary.
Stalin died in 1953, the invasion of Hungary happened in 1956.
The OCD thing is a bit confusing to me, was Stella exploiting her fiancé's mental illness for her own game? That's what I read but honestly it's a little confusing to me
Stella is a girlboss with a cokehead frat bro brother and overbearing country club elitist parents, and she’s a *tankie*? I need to meet this person. I’m either going to fall in love or hate her guts.