The Official 2013 Wedding/Friendship Matrix

There's nothing like the wedding season to find out just where you rank in your friend's life. Will you rate an invitation to the engagement party? Are you supposed to plan the bachelorette night? Will you make the cut for an official wedding invite, and, if so, are you on the A-list (first on the wedding guest list) or on the D-list (included only after the happy couple's top three choices for your slot have declined the invite)? And, most important of all, do you feel that your soon-to-be-married friend is worth the expense of an airline ticket, hotel room, rental car, wedding present, new outfit - all to get 5 minutes of face time and a fuzzy first dance photo on your iPhone that you immediately post to Facebook? You need answers, so here is the Wedding/Friendship Matrix!

Inner Circle: You're in-the-know, almost like a wedding chief of staff. You're close friends with the bride or groom, and you were probably among the first few to ask, "is this The One?" when your friend started dating this person. You were among the few to receive a phone call directly from your friend within the first 24 hours of their engagement. You know the wedding colors, the wedding theme, and the first dance song. You've given up your weekends in order to accompany the bride or groom to select their wedding dress or wedding tux, and to lend your taste buds to wedding cake selection. You stay behind to help clean up after the engagement party, and you meticulously plan the bachelorette night. You're definitely in the wedding party and you can bustle the bride's wedding dress in your sleep! You'll remember her purse with the lip gloss, her phone, and her mini roll-on perfume, and you'll hoist up her dress when she has to pay a visit to the ladies room. You'll dance like it's "Flashdance" with the other bridesmaids and you'll mug for any camera pointed near you. You'll always have extra bobby pins for the bride and when the last dance is danced, you'll dash back to the hotel for a quick change so you can arrange for the after-party at the hotel bar, and you'll wake up early enough to join the newlywed couple and their family for the day-after brunch.

Expect to be invited to: engagement party, bachelor/bachelorette party, bridal tea, rehearsal dinner, wedding ceremony and reception, wedding after-party, post-wedding day brunch

Supporting Cast: While you might not be in the Inner Circle, you orbit around the Inner Circle. Maybe you're a super-close co-worker with the bride or groom-to-be, or you're a sorority sister or fraternity brother who grab beers together after work, take in a baseball game, and are invited out to celebrate each other's birthdays. You might not have been there when the groom was picking out the ring, but maybe you were there when your friend introduced their significant other to the group. You don't know how to bustle the wedding dress, in fact, you're not in the wedding party, but you're sitting wedding party adjacent at the reception and you can smile knowingly through the toasts with all of their inside jokes. You'll hit the dance floor HARD, and you'll get several rounds of shots going. You'll know not to let boozy Aunt Rita anywhere near the gin, and you'll stay long after the cake cutting. 

Expect to be invited to: bachelor/bachelorette party, wedding ceremony and reception, wedding after-party, post-wedding day brunch

The Fringe: If you're working The Fringe, then, chances are, you're an old friend who possibly knew the bride or groom-to-be during elementary school or high school, before a job opportunity caused one of your families to move away. You've reconnected over the years, thanks in large measure to Facebook, and there have been the occasional Fourth of July barbecues and other large events with a cast of thousands on the guest list (including a high school or college reunion). Your invitation to the wedding, then, is really a tribute to the ghost of your friendship past, and, as such, you can just sit back and enjoy. You'll have zero responsibility, and if there's a buffet with a top shelf open bar, then live it up. Just don't go overboard or you'll never eat wedding cake in this town, again!! As for seating, while you obviously won't be in the Inner Circle seating or in Supporting Cast seating, the bride or groom will try to logically place you - so you may just end up at a table with the other Fringesters. One thing is for sure, in The Fringe, attendance at the wedding is OPTIONAL!!! (that was my Oprah voice:) So if the flights and hotels are economically out of your reach, opt for something nice from their gift registry and a heartfelt card.

Expect to be invited to: engagement party (if it's back in the "old neighborhood" where you grew up and where your Fringe friend and his/her Fringe mom and dad still live), wedding ceremony and reception, wedding after-party

The Outer Limits: Have you ever received an unexpected wedding invitation in the mail from someone you sort of know? Well, welcome to The Outer Limits! Friends who occupy this realm are either surprised that this relationship even exists, or they're annoyed that they're not already in the Inner Circle. You've got the worst seats for the cake cutting, but you're close to the kitchen or the bar or the bathrooms or the exits. Your table is comprised of you, your date, and 6 empty place settings, or a rogues' gallery of oddball cousins that don't even fit with the bride or groom's families. Do yourself a favor and don't go. You'll save yourself the aggravation of forced, canned laughter over the tedious, insidery toasts, and you'll save the happy couple from having to constantly ask each other for the next 50 years or more of their married life just who in the hell was that couple at the cousins table!! As for the gift, don't get the most expensive item on the gift registry. Hell, don't even go for the mid-priced items. 

Expect to be invited to: well, nothing. 

I hope this helps and happy wedding season!

The "Here We Go Again" File: Newlyweds and Reality TV

Not so long ago, in late summer of 2003, the world (well, at least the part of the world that watched MTV) was introduced to former boy-bander Nick Lachey and his wife, pop princess Jessica Simpson. She was the buxom "dumb blond" known as much for her purported virginity and controlling daddy/manager as her singing chops, and Nick was the level-headed, down to earth chap who tolerated Jessica's naivete bordering on idiocy. He laughed at her, we laughed at them, and after 41 episodes of their televised marriage (and 3 years of their ACTUAL marriage), the pair filed for divorce. And while the two have moved on to other partners, the damage was done, and soon, like lambs led to the slaughter, other couples signed up for their 15 minutes of fame and reality TV marital curse was born.

Bravo's "Real Housewives of Orange County" launched in 2006 (a.k.a. the year that Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson's divorce was finalized) and a whole new crop of husbands and wives were spilling the inner workings of their relationships on basic cable. By the end of the first season, marriages were on the brink, and now, seven years later, all of those first season Orange County marriages have ended. In fact, in successive iterations of the  "Real Housewives" franchise, reality TV marriages from Beverly Hills to Atlanta to Washington, DC, New York, New Jersey and Miami have continued on the fast-track to reality TV divorce. 

So, we've all learned a valuable lesson, right? 

Marriage + reality TV = bad news

Apparently, I'll need to adjust the learning curve because Bravo debuted a new show called simply, "Newlyweds: The First Year" which puts four newlywed couples in front of the cameras for the first 365 days (and nights) of their marriages. There's John and Kathryn, the former independent city gal who left the mean streets of Manhattan for the life of a stay-at-home wife with a honeymoon baby on the way. Tarz and Tina - he, a tech entrepreneur and she a Bollywood actress looking to have a baby before her biological clock stops ticking. Blair and Jeff - the handsome gay couple overcoming Jeff's painful rejection by his family. And, lastly, Alaska and Kim - the A&R rep for a music label and his stylish stylist wife, torn between the east and west coasts, and struggling for control in their marriage. 

So why would anyone sign up for this? What would possess two people who have committed themselves to a partnership eternal to allow cameras access to every fight, every pregnancy test, every eye roll, every empty toilet tissue roll, dirty bath towel, and unintended slight? I don't have an answer, but, for those of you with dreams of spilling the beans about your marital habits on camera, DON'T! 

Look, I'm a married woman and I have lots of friends who are married, as well, and the one thing that a marriage definitely doesn't need is an audience. Your marriage is not a play, it's not a movie - if it was, you'd have better writers and your choice of actors and actresses to stand in as a body double for some of those close-ups. Like Ben Affleck's Academy Awards acceptance speech, marriage is messy, in that there generally are no clear-cut winners and losers. There is commitment and love and partnership, and they form the boundaries within which the chaos and challenges of lives lived together exist. A camera is not a silent, objective witness that can settle your domestic clashes, but the couples featured on reality TV treat the camera as such. Instead of building love and trust and good communication with each other, reality TV couples argue their case before the camera, and, once the episode airs, before the social media universe. True intimacy is destroyed as viewers line up behind Team Kim or Team Alaska. 

Now, if you think that I'm anticipating an epidemic of more reality TV-induced divorces, I'm not. But, I am concerned that the bad habits of reality TV might have filtered into our everyday lives. Pay a visit to YouTube and you'll see thousands of videos in the "promposal" genre, an adolescent off-shoot of the unique proposal phenomenon that has been going full-steam over the past few years. This isn't cute - it's a cry for help that you shouldn't click to view. I'm just saying:)

Run Like Hell: A How-To Guide When Couples You Know De-Couple

While the world seems focused on Charlie Sheen and his polyamorous ways, I started thinking about the marital break-up that precipitated this current free-fall. While Charlie's plight has some very Hollywood elements to it, all marital break-ups have one thing in common: friends caught in the middle. And while no-fault divorce exists in the courtroom, in the living room or dining room or wherever friends gather, there is only war. Couples become friends with other couples, but if the marriage of one of those couples falls off of a cliff, then you might just find yourself hurtling into the void.

But how does this happen? Sometimes, it starts small, with little drips of information about the relationship being unintentionally leaked during an unguarded moment by Spouse A. Then, maybe there's an invitation to coffee where Spouse A wants to ask your advice about Spouse B. Next thing you know, you and your significant other are at dinner with this couple, and you're being dragged into the middle of a sudden disagreement between Spouse A and Spouse B.

But, you may say, I'm a reasonable person and I have a great relationship with MY spouse, so there's no danger in my counseling Spouse A. And I'd have to say you're completely wrong!

A marriage ending is like a bomb going off and it can injure those in closest proximity to it. So here's an easy to use how-to guide to get you through someone else's rough patch:

1. Screen Your Calls - In this era of high-tech gadgetry meant to keep us in constant contact, you are always accessible. This is a not good if you've got a needy couple in crisis texting/calling/emailing every hour on the hour to tell you what an A.S.S. their significant other is. Call-screening is a time-honored practice, dating back to the very first answering machine.
2. Get Thee to a Therapist - Maybe I shouldn't be the one that has to tell you this, but, guess what? You're probably not a therapist. Your combative couple friends may know that, but they willfully choose to ignore it when they start the Debbie Downer Download. And while it's nice to feel needed, don't give into the Siren Song of Seduction that is the Couple in Crisis. Instead, learn this phrase, practice it until it is burned into the synapses of your brain: "You know, maybe you should see a therapist." Now relax and breath. Ah:)
3. Forget Neutral - Some friends of the de-coupling couple like to try to remain friends with both parties, and think that by stating this, and then listening to all of the pains and woes and trials and tribulations of both spouses that they're being fair and balanced and remaining neutral. News flash: there's no such thing as neutral in this situation. At some point, one or both of them will try to pump you for info on the other, and soon you'll find yourself called to testify in their testy divorce proceedings. Or, worse, your own spouse will choose a side and you'll find your own home life compromised as somebody else's mess seeps into your home. 
4. Stop Making Friends with Other Couples - After the couple has moved from crisis to counseling to divorce and onto living the newly single life, reflect back on your friendship and instead of trying to be friends with 2 people, why not try a friendship with one person. You see, couple friendships are so tricky because they're built on a false premise - the premise that if I like you that I must also like your spouse. That's such bunk! Friendship, true friendship, is a choice that happens when two people like each other and spend time with each other of their own free will. Deep friendship is an emotionally intimate relationship that grounds you and uplifts you. This isn't about liking one spouse and dis-liking the other spouse, it's truly about connection.

I'm just saying!