Member-only story
How Weak Boundaries Nearly Ruined our Wedding Day
If you don’t stand up, everything will spin out of control
When I was in sixth grade, I had a friend named John.
John was a weird guy. But then again, so was I. As we grew older, John got weirder and weirder, and as he did so, he became very obsessive/compulsive about our friendship. I drifted away. He didn’t.
For example, back in the 90s he’d randomly show up to my house. I told him he needed to call me before he came over. Next time, he called me to tell me he was coming over, then knocked on the door a second later (this was in the days before it was common for people to buy cell phones — he purchased one specifically to follow my instructions).
He’d also insist on wishing me a happy birthday — in person — no matter where I was, or what I was doing, So imagine me having a quiet dinner with family somewhere, and John would find me, bust through the door, and wish me a happy birthday.
I’d later find out that he’d get his intel about me by simply asking my mother, who was way too loose with giving away information about me.
He was a pain in the ass but basically harmless, I reasoned.
And that was a fatal assumption that would come back to haunt me.
