The Luv Doc: Maid of Honor

Dear Luv Doc,

Me and my best friend are both turning 30 this year. We have known each other since seventh grade. We went to college together at TCU and we both ended up in Austin, though I got here a few years later than she did. When I was in Ft. Worth, we always talked regularly and kept up with each other’s lives. In the few years before I moved here, our phone conversations were often about how terribly her boyfriend was treating her. She would tell me he was disrespectful, sometimes mean, and that he would call her names – once when I could actually hear him cussing at her while we were on the phone. I tried to be supportive, but it was difficult knowing what she had told me and what I had heard myself. Then I came to visit and actually met him and he was even worse than I thought, but at that point she had been with him for three years and she was talking about leaving him, so I decided to let things play out naturally. Well, surprise! She’s still with him and last week she told me they are engaged and she wants me to be MOH. I feel like if I am going to say something it’s now or never and if I don’t, what kind of friend am I? I doubt it will have any effect though. What do I do?

– The Best Friend She’s Got

Took me a second with the MOH deal. You’d think after a couple of decades of deciphering acronyms I would be, like the moderately famous, charmingly neurodivergent attorney Ted Lorenz, “On Top of It,” but I always get sidetracked by their glaring inefficiency in everything but character economy. In other words, “Maid of Honor” rolls off the tongue relatively quickly as opposed to say, something like “Militarized Oppressive Hatemongering,” which seems to be the bait-and-switch surprise agenda of the cheap-eggs president. The latter seems worthy of abbreviation, while the former just seems like an overworking of a problem that doesn’t exist – you know, sort of like immigration in Minneapolis. 

I have been wondering lately how many MOH’s (in this case, I am of course referring to “Murders on Homan”) carried out by the President’s Proud Boys it will take for Republican voters to realize they got cucked by a puffy pedophile, but I’m almost certain all that will be covered exhaustively in Joe Rogan’s next exculpatory podcast wherein he shamefully renounces his platforming of MOH (in this case, Manipulators of Hatred). I mean, Joe’s basically a good guy with a curious mind, right?

Unlike Joe, I’m sure you occasionally wrestle with your conscience. You probably worry sometimes if you’re doing the right thing. That’s a beautiful instinct. Don’t lose it. That’s why you’re Maid of Honor, not Maid of Horribleness. We have seen recently how increasingly heinous acts by our government are not only tolerated but actually applauded. People see a mother clearly being murdered on TV and try to explain it in a way that fits their political narrative. It’s absolutely nauseating. We want to believe that people are basically good, but then … what the actual fuck? Please note how much more effective that was than an acronym.

So yes, I think you should speak your mind – not out of meanness and vindictiveness, but out of love and compassion, and honor. Your friend has told you on numerous occasions that her fiancé has treated her disrespectfully – enough for you to form a negative opinion of him, so you should ask her if she thinks it’s wise to dedicate the rest of her life to him. Who knows? Maybe he’s changed. Maybe he has recently sought therapy and blossomed into a real catch. How will you know unless you ask? And the sooner the better. You don’t want to procrastinate until you’re down to adding catty digs into your MOH speech. The time to try to right this ship is long before it actually sets sail. You can return a ring, but you can’t give back a lifetime.

This article appears in January 23 • 2026.