Hey Pat,

I don’t know how seri­ous you thought I was about being the best man or MC if you ever get mar­ried. I know it may sound crazy, but you get­ting mar­ried is as impor­tant to me as it is to you. I love you, and I know I don’t tell you that enough. You are a true friend to me, and you know that I don’t have many.

I see this as a great oppor­tu­nity to do some­thing for you, because you’ve already done so much for me. Let me take on the respon­si­bil­ity and sup­port you, to be there for you on one of the most impor­tant days of your life. I eas­ily put aside the dif­fer­ences I’ve had with any poten­tial peo­ple you may invite (I think that we’re smart enough to be open and dis­cuss this), because it’s about you, not me.

These things are usu­ally planned pretty well in advance though, so I won’t be sur­prised if you have some­one else in mind. I under­stand that we’re talk­ing about YOUR big day, so you should have the peo­ple YOU want involved in YOUR wed­ding. To be hon­est, I’ll be happy with what­ever deci­sion you make, because I’m happy if you’re happy. Bottom line.

In any case, let me know when you pop the ques­tion, and WE WILL FEAST.

  —Jeff

I wrote this two years ago.

Pat pro­posed to Jen a cou­ple of months later. Several months after that, they bought a house, delay­ing the wed­ding until this year.

Last week, Pat asked me to be a grooms­man and co–MC.

When I found out that Jason would be best man (as well as the other MC) there was a tinge of jeal­ousy in my heart, fol­lowed by an over­whelm­ing sense of guilt about this jealousy.

To feel this way was a bit of a sur­prise. Jealously has never been one of my promi­nent emo­tions. It made me real­ize that I’m a lit­tle inse­cure in my rela­tion­ship with Pat. There’s so much good in him, com­pared to the hatred, dark­ness, and weak­ness in me. He’s not my oppo­site, but he’s the per­son I’m con­stantly striv­ing to become. Just being around him makes me feel elated and relaxed.

The frus­trat­ing thing is that I know it’s his wed­ding. He should be able to do what­ever he wants. There’s no rivalry between Jason and me. As studier of peo­ple, I have every bit of faith in Pat’s deci­sion. The logic has finally kicked in, and I feel a sense of warmth and secu­rity about being up there with Pat, a group exclu­sive to a hand­ful of peo­ple out of a seem­ingly end­less number.

It’s only now that I real­ize how self­ish and inap­pro­pri­ate it was of me to ask. Running around, mak­ing sure every­one is hav­ing a good time, giv­ing toasts, host­ing games, the duty of MC isn’t even some­thing I nor­mally want to do. I only asked because it was a way that I could show how much Pat has done for me, a respon­si­bil­ity I’d take on gladly.

I’m scared that I made him feel obliged, and I’m ashamed of being jeal­ous for that split-second.

A feel­ing that over­whelms logic.