DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: My girlfriend of 4 months is going to be going to a bachelorette trip in Miami with a few of her girlfriends. I’ve never met these friends as they are high school friends; of course, one of them is getting married and has been in a relationship for 7 years.
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However, it obviously concerns me that I haven’t met her friends and I don’t know the moral character of them. I trust my girlfriend wholeheartedly, but when alcohol is involved in a “feral” weekend(direct words from the bride to be), I get a little bit nervous. We only live about 30 minutes from Miami and they will be sleeping at one of their friends’ houses who live in Miami and attending the bachelorette weekend, so I’m happy that her safety is going to be taken care of.
I wanted to know how I can get over this anxiety and worry about what could happen. I feel like I’ve been brainwashed by modern media, movies and TV shows that depict bachelorette parties as a “final night as a free woman”, and how her friends who I don’t know could influence her.
Any advice is appreciated!
Feral Weekend, Indoor Cat
DEAR FERAL WEEKEND, INDOOR CAT: Normally I would leap in on this with both feet, but I’m trying to start the year by giving people a bit more of the benefit of the doubt. So with that in mind, I want to point something out in your letter that I’m not sure you realize you’re saying, FWIC: you’re talking about your girlfriend as though she were more of a pet or a child than a grown-ass woman.
It’s the little things: “I haven’t met her friends and I don’t know their moral character”, “her safety is going to be taken care of”, and “friends who I don’t know could influence her.” These all come across as though you see your girlfriend as some helpless naïf, an ingenue who’s too pure and innocent to be left on her own out in the wild wide world.
That’s not a good place to start from, quite frankly, and it makes me cock an eyebrow when you say “I trust my girlfriend wholeheartedly” and then toss out a “BUT” so large that Sir Mix-a-Lot pulled up quick to get with it. That “but” means that everything after “I trust my girlfriend” is thrown into question by the rest of your letter.
The anxiety and worry suggests that no, you don’t trust your girlfriend – either to not cheat, to not be able to take care of herself or not be able to handle herself over a party weekend away from your watchful gaze. It suggests that you would feel better if you could control things, help guide her decisions and… well, not allow her to be a person with agency and to make her own choices.
Well I’m here from the future to tell you: it won’t help, and getting hung up on who she’s going out with comes a lot closer to Andrew Tate-level bulls--t than most people are going to feel comfortable with. You can’t control her and trying to exact control over the situation – such as checking the “moral character” of her friends – is only going to make things worse.
And it’s certainly not helped by dwelling on “what may happen”. Having seen more than a few bachelorette parties in party destinations – South Beach, Vegas, Bourbon Street, Dirty Sixth, etc. – I can tell you what’s likely on the agenda: drinking, scavenger hunts, brunch, hangovers AT brunch and generally having a good time with the acknowledgement that rather than her “last night as a free woman” this is going to be the last opportunity for a while for a group of friends to have a weekend that’s just all about them having a good time together before the responsibilities of life creep back in.
Maybe that’ll involve being outrageously flirty and acting out in a way they feel like they can’t in their day to day lives. Maybe there’ll be trying some things that they don’t normally do when they’re at home and have to be at work the next day. But there’s what porn, Reddit and movies will tell you is likely to happen and then there’s what I’ve seen over the years of not just seeing bachelorette parties out and about but watching the dudes who follow them like seagulls following a shrimp boat.
Because here’s the thing: I have seen a ton of guys try to peel someone away from a bachelorette party because they think like you do – they’re drunk and wild and looking to get crazy because it’s their last night of freedom. Every time the guys learn the same lesson: it may be their “last night of freedom”, but bachelorette parties are like the Rangers: they never leave a soldier behind. They may be out to party hard, but there’s a difference between “partying hard” and “roving maenad orgy”. They’re out to have a good time, not to blow anybody’s life up. And considering the risks that women face that aren’t faced by men in similar circumstances, I suspect they’re far more aware of the potential pitfalls than you are.
I get that you’re anxious and worried. That to me suggests that either you don’t trust your girlfriend or you don’t trust in your own value and the strength of your relationship. That’s leading you to feel like the answer is to try to maintain some degree of control. It’s not, and you can’t, and at four months, you really aren’t going to have much of a leg to stand on to make demands. You either trust her to make good choices or you don’t. And if she hasn’t shown a tendency to make poor choices? Well, then that’s coming down to being a you problem, not a her problem.
The best thing you can do is make like Elsa and let it go. Wish her a good time, remind her to drink plenty of water, not to take Tylenol to deal with the hangover and then find some ways to occupy your time so you aren’t preoccupying yourself on what she’s getting up to in your absence.
Trust is a practice. So trust her. Otherwise, you may as well end things now, because trying to make this an issue is going to end up being far worse for you than whatever she gets up to in Miami.
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Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com