I Always Suspected There Was Something More Going on With My Best Man. One Drunken Night Confirmed It. This Cannot Ruin the Wedding.

How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Jessica and Rich here. It’s anonymous!

Dear How to Do It,

Daniel and I are both 28 and have been best friends since college. He’s gay; I’m straight, and I’m getting married to an amazing woman. He’s one of the few people who really understands me, and he’s the kind of friend who’d drop everything to help. I’ve always valued that loyalty. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t flattering to know someone admires me that much—maybe more than he should.

A few weeks ago, we went out to celebrate me landing a big promotion.

We drank way too much, ended up back at my place, and things happened that shouldn’t have. It was confusing and completely out of character for me. The next morning, I told him I was sorry and that it didn’t mean anything. I just wanted to clear the air and move on with my life. He didn’t take it well. He said he needed “space” and has been distant ever since.

Now he’s clearly struggling. He made a cryptic post on social media about feeling “used.” I sent him a direct message to ask him straight up what the post meant, and he didn’t respond. Daniel’s roommate told me that Daniel is in love with me, which I guess makes sense—I’ve always known he was a little more attached than normal. I care about him, but I can’t keep walking on eggshells just because he caught feelings. I don’t want to let this derail my wedding by having Daniel turn me into the villain here. At the same time, I don’t want to humiliate him by asking him to step down as best man. So what’s the right move? Do I let him stay in the wedding and hope he handles it like an adult, or do I quietly replace him before things get weird?

—Tied Up in Knots

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Jessica Stoya: First of all, Daniel is a person. Secondly, the woman you’re close enough to marrying that you have made agreements about who is in the wedding party is also a person.It’s not Daniel turning you into the villain that will or will not derail your wedding; you’re already doing that. You shouldn’t go into a marriage with all this baggage. Don’t do that to the woman you’re going to marry. Don’t do that to yourself. You’ve already hurt Daniel, so deal with that.

Rich Juzwiak: Right. If a wedding is going to happen at all, several conversations need to be had with Daniel and his future wife.

I don’t think Daniel is dealing with this particularly well, especially if he’s cut off communication. You can’t have a wedding with a best man who’s not talking to you. He has certain duties, and he’s going to have to rehearse. So that definitely needs to be cleared up.

“It didn’t mean anything” is probably a really big sticking point, I’m guessing, for somebody who’s in love, and that’s really tough. At the same time, I do wonder if this was all going to come to a head anyway, sooner or later. But I don’t think you get through this without having an actual conversation and figuring it out, and that should prioritize your what I assume is a continued interest in keeping the connection. Not sexually, but platonically.

Jessica: I love that you’re focused on the thing the writer wrote to us about, and I’m just not there. I am waking up and choosing violence. But yes, absolutely, the writer needs to apologize to Daniel and figure out what their friendship will be moving forward. But he also needs to take some serious stock of what he’s done because people don’t get drunk and have sex that they have zero interest in very often. It’s just not common. You have to do the introspection and deal with where that’s coming from.

Rich: It came from something. Obviously, alcohol complicates things, but it doesn’t, in general, make you a completely different person. And if you really do become a totally different person when you drink and make choices that you never would otherwise, that are based on no kind of reality, then you need to look at your drinking. I think that’s what that situation’s telling you.

Jessica: But if it is based on any kind of reality, do the introspection, figure out what you want and what you need, and make sure your planned future wife is OK with that. Don’t keep this a secret, marry her, and once a year get trashed and hook up with a man and be like, “It’s not me, I don’t do that.” Don’t do that to another person.

Regardless of what the sexual preferences are, when they’re being repressed and really stuck in a box and never acknowledged, that’s when you get behaviors like messy, sloppy cheating that puts other people at risk. It puts yourself at risk, and puts other people at risk. Because if you’re trashed enough to be able to justify sex that’s at odds with your identification, you’re probably not paying attention to practicing safer sex. Those things are not usually as present as they are in purposeful, clearheaded sexual interactions.

But, God, weddings and marriages are such a thing to walk back from. There’s paperwork. There are community and familial expectations.

Rich: As for the options he poses, if he were to quietly replace Daniel, I think it could be the final blow in their friendship. That could absolutely end the relationship. So if you want to be really shitty, you can do that and create a potentially traumatic event in this person’s life. Just imagine him going through that. Daniel holds some accountability here, too. He’s been conducting a platonic friendship with this person all this time, and he decided to go for it. That wasn’t very wise. They have both made bad decisions.

But to go through all that and to be actually in love with this person, and then be dumped from the wedding after this—I think that would really hurt somebody who is apparently meaningful enough to you to call a best friend. Don’t do that to a best friend. If the relationship needs to end or be modified, sure, but I think that you’ve committed him to best man in this wedding, and you have to do what you can to see that through (if there even is a wedding). That’s the responsible human thing to do for someone that you care about and who’s been good to you.

Jessica: It might also be helpful to really purposefully put himself in Daniel’s shoes. Take the “Daniel is in love with me” statement from the roommate. Imagine as though that is true and replay the important events leading up to that night, what he remembers of that night, and then the next morning, and consider at every step how that might’ve felt for Daniel. That empathy is going to make any apology or olive branch more profound.

Rich: That’s right. It’s very easy to think about yourself when you’re getting married because it’s your special day. But you and Daniel will both still be alive after the wedding. So I know that this event is very important, but what you’re doing will impact your future. Act wisely and keep the people in your life who are important to you and good to you.

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