
This year has posed a helluva lot more questions than us mere mortals were designed to answer. Not only do we have to navigate surviving a deadly virus, but we have to work out the morals, ethics, and etiquette of an entire new culture that is constantly shifting beneath us. Lord, do we need a nap.
On Saturday morning, I missed my friend Jody‘s Zoom wedding stream. Not on purpose, I just forgot.
Watch: Things people NEVER say at weddings. Post continues below.
I was on my couch watching Rage, but my mind was elsewhere. I had quit my Sydney office job in a manic state the previous day to work at a bong factory in Queensland, and I was a little preoccupied figuring out if that in fact really was the best decision I could have made.
I was also wondering how I’m going to get someone to fill my room and pay the rent that I signed a lease on until February. In addition to this, I was pondering what it is exactly that I’m doing with my life, and thinking I should maybe tell my family, friends and roommates that I’m yeeting the state for good within seven days.
I only realised I missed the wedding stream on Sunday night when a photo of the ceremony went up on her Instagram. I suddenly felt a pang of overwhelming guilt about my no-show. I thought about what a terrible, horrible, no-good, narcissistic person I was. I immediately and nervously double-tapped so hard and fast that I managed to unlike and re-like it a couple of times.
But as the hours passed I tried to be kinder to the man in the mirror by reminding myself that I didn’t miss her wedding, I wasn’t invited to the ceremony; I was invited to watch the stream. And although I watched it after the fact on her wedding website (lol), I wondered if she would be mad that I didn’t tune in live, if she would even know and if I should prepare for backlash or not.
To put this in the words of a 2020 Carrie Bradshaw I would say: I couldn’t help but wonder, was no-showing a Zoom wedding a friendship deal-breaker?
I wish to find a definitive answer for you, as you might find yourself in a similar situation in this pandemic or the next. Wishy-washy answers help nobody and no one.
When I turned to others for advice, their responses were unanimous: "Well... how close are you?"
Jody is my childhood friend, we were best friends from kindy to year three before I moved two suburbs away (continents to kids) but we kept in contact. We don’t have any mutual friends.
We are now in our mid (to late) twenties and I see her about once or twice a year in a one-on-one coffee or wine catch up. She is a low-maintenance friend, which IMO is the best kind. So, yes we are close but we don’t live in each other’s pockets.
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