Dear Jane,
I’ve really screwed up. In a really embarrassing and stupid way that I think may have cost me the people I was once closest to in my life.
To illustrate a little, I have had a very close circle of friends for the last four years. I moved from Australia to chicago for work and I basically came here knowing absolutely no one except for a mutual acquaintance who I was introduced to through a colleague back home.
Thank goodness she turned out to be wonderful, and went out of her way to introduce me to people, take me around town, recommend restaurants… she even helped me move into my new place and came furniture shopping with me.
We got along surprisingly well, and during the first few months I was in Chicago, I also became very close to his circle of friends.
Dear Jane, I made an incredibly stupid mistake that has made all my best friends hate me; I don’t know how to show you how sorry I am.
One of those girls is getting married in July and we will all be bridesmaids. We have been receiving 1,000 messages back and forth about the dresses and High school, and everything you can imagine. My phone rings all day, every day. Sometimes it’s a little overwhelming.
That’s how all this stupidity started.
We were all talking about what rooms we were going to have at the bridal shower, and at the same time, I was chatting with my family at home.
There’s a girl in the group who has really horrible breath. We are talking about toxics. It’s not like she just ate garlic bread, it’s like a medical grade situation.
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And I have something strange with smells. She’s very nice, but I can never get that close to her without feeling dizzy. I never really had any idea if she was aware of it, so I never mentioned it except to my family.
My mom had sent me a message asking who I was hoping to share a room with at the bachelorette party and I responded saying I’d be happy with anyone, but not this girl because her breathing problem was so bad I thought I’d end up vomiting.
But of course I didn’t send it to my mom. I sent it to the bridesmaids group chat.
Within 30 seconds I realized what I had done, but by then it was too late: everyone had seen it. The girlfriend immediately called me and yelled at me on the phone, asking me what the hell she was thinking, how she could be so mean and if she didn’t know that this poor girl had always had a complex with her breath.
Since then, I’ve basically been excommunicated by the entire group. I don’t even know if the bride wants me to go to her wedding, much less be in it.
I have tried to apologize 1000 times but it seems like all my messages and calls have fallen on deaf ears. It’s been a week and I’m trying to give them time to get over this, but I’m starting to panic that they’ll never be my friends again.
It sounds really pathetic, but without them, my life here is basically empty. And I’m miserable.
How can i fix this?
Of,
Foot in mouth
Dear foot in mouth,
I’m very sorry to have to give you the bad news, but I’m not sure this can be solved.
I know you didn’t mean to send a mean text message to everyone, but now that the cat is out of the bag, there’s no way to get it back in.
You can hope that time will help them see that we all make mistakes, that we all make mistakes, that we sometimes say cruel things without thinking, especially to our family, but none of that means they will forgive you.
There is nothing else you can do other than send a short message to the bride asking her to clarify whether you are still invited or not. I suspect the answer will be no, which you’ll have to accept.
It’s painful and brutally difficult to be excluded from a group of friends, especially because you know you made a mistake.
The lesson of this is to never, ever put anything cruel in writing. Whether joking or confiding in family, don’t write words on the page or on the phone that we wouldn’t want anyone to see.
I’m so sorry you had to learn this lesson the hard way, but I suspect it’s time for you to find a new experience. As upsetting as it may be, you’ve done it before, which tells you that you will meet good people again. .