Hooksexup Personals

Dear Em and Lo,
Your last letter about not turning a blind eye to bachelor/bachelorette party activities really struck a note with me. The phrase "a promise of a promise is still a promise" meant a lot to me, and I have a huge problem related to that issue.
     A woman I used to work with is engaged to a fellow she has been living with for about three years. They bought a house together a year ago last August and they've been inseparable since they met. In fact, they are going to be married next month.
     My problem is I know that she has been doing his best friend behind her fiancée's back since about six months after they started going out.
     Her fiancée is a truly nice guy who was even a virgin until he met her and he seems to be clueless about what's happening when he leaves her alone to go visit his family or do the grocery shopping and his buddy is always there with her when he comes back. In fact, it is his trust in the two of them that makes the whole thing work.
     Not long before they both left the job they worked at together, where I knew them, someone else even dropped him a note revealing the affair. There was lots of crying and the two of them easily convinced him that it wasn't true. As it turns out, she wasn't sleeping with the best friend at the time because he had started a brief thing with one of her younger sisters who was away at college and she felt it would be too weird doing him while he was doing her sister, so they did have a little bit of truth to use there. A month or so later, when she and her fiancée left the company, she and the best friend started up again and they have really been going at it as the wedding has been approaching.
     There's always been a birthday boink for each of them and every time she can get her fiancée to leave them alone for an hour or so, like for a Mother's Day or Father's Day visit to his folks, she's squeezing his buddy's salami. She gets off on the naughtiness factor, and since her fiancée is a good boy who always calls to tell her when he is on his way home, they get plenty of warning to stop hiding the pickle and start hiding the evidence.
     Is it just me, or are these two terribly sick? I got first-hand information about it years ago and I'm still getting word of it from other people who have first-hand knowledge, but nobody seems to want to do anything about it. I don't know them all that well any more, and word is they are planning on stopping after the wedding, but I think we all know that will never happen.
     Am I just a stupid Midwestern hick, or is this just the worst thing ever to do to someone you say you love, let alone to your best friend since you were six? I know when he finds out, this is going to totally hurt him, but I also think this poor sweet guy deserves to know the truth before he adds a legal hitch to his situation.
     What should I do?
— Midwestern Hick

Dear Mick,
We have no idea. Next question.
     Just joshing ya. This is a doozie, though. The only thing worse than a hard question is a hard question that reminds us how jerky people can be. Do things like this really happen outside of Melrose Place? We're going to assume you've got your facts straight, though we'd prefer to think your letter is the result of some silly office gossip gone terribly, terribly wrong.
     First of all, it's none of your business. That said, anyone would want to know if the person they were about to be bound to for all eternity in holy matrimony was diddling their best friend. At least, we'd both want to know if one of us bitches was fucking the other's boyfriend (even though that would mean the end of the Em & Lo Down as we know it). As Plato once wrote (quoting Socrates), "The life which is unexamined is not worth living." Even if some people (i.e. not us) think that marriage is a transformative experience that can cure you of everything from infidelity to bad breath, they have a right to all the pre-wedding facts. So here's how we think you should proceed. We could be wrong (though that's highly unlikely).
     Before you stir anything up, you've got to be one hundred percent sure that they are indeed hiding the pickle behind her fiancée's back, and not just planning some elaborate surprise birthday party for him that's been three years in the making. Proof would be good. Especially since the groom has already exhibited an exceptional capacity for denial (bless his little almost-virgin heart).
     You're probably not the best person to drop the bomb. We certainly wouldn't want to hear this kind of thing from Judy in Accounting. We'd want to hear it from someone close to us, someone we trusted, our best friend . . . Oopsie, guess that won't work in your case. Does he have a next best friend, preferably one with a conscience and a spine? Assuming he does, confide in that person and ask them to do the dirty work, for the sake of this guy's future.
     But if he's surrounded by lily-livered losers, then you'll have to step up to the plate. An anonymous note won't cut it. He needs something he can't "accidentally" delete. He needs someone's face to spit in. Being the bearer of bad news won't win you any popularity contests, at least not at first, but remember, Plato and Socrates have got your back.
     Once you've rocked the foundations of this guy's universe (and maybe held him a little), just walk away. We know it sounds cold, but how he handles the truth is up to him. Maybe he'll confront his fiancée and they'll work things out, maybe he'll dump her sorry ass, or maybe he'll pretend your whole conversation never happened. After all, sometimes it's easier to live a lie than confront the truth — just ask Oedipus.

See ya, wouldn't want to be ya,
Em & Lo