Dear Prudence,
Over the past year I became friends with a colleague, “Brunhilda.” We occasionally go for drinks after work and more recently have begun doing things on weekends. She seemed fun, if a bit self-absorbed, and I sometimes found it frustrating that a one-hour project took two because she had to interject lots of discussion about her personal life while we worked. It annoyed me that she never respected my schedule (even when I was very clear about other commitments), but I mostly enjoyed her company and the work got done eventually. I took a week off this August, and when I found out Brunhilda was taking a road trip near my beach house that same week, I invited her to stay for a night. Somewhat unexpectedly, my boyfriend and I decided to get engaged the night before she arrived.
My parents live nearby and had invited the three of us over to a summer party the next day. My fiancé and I agreed we would tell them after the party because he had to leave later that evening. We pulled my parents aside in a private part of the house as things were winding down and had a really happy, emotional moment that was quickly interrupted when Brunhilda burst in and announced, verbatim, “I am going to be here now.” It should have been obvious that she was interrupting us, but she just stood staring at us. When I told her we had decided to get married, she just said, “Cool,” and seemed to expect to be included in our family embrace. She has never met my family before. Since we were not interested in group-hugging her, we disbanded and went back to party cleanup. She also stayed more than a day past our agreed upon departure without asking, and I had to force her to leave. I will definitely distance myself from her going forward, but my fiancé, parents, and I are all distressed by her intrusion into a special moment that really cannot be replicated. How can I focus on the happy minute we had together and not feel like the overriding memory we all have is of her boorishness?
—Building Up the Ramparts