Millie Hall* had been living in Tokyo for almost two years when she decided to take a trip back home to London to see her closest friends. But when the 28-year-old touched down in Heathrow and headed to a cafe for a long-awaited reunion with one of her university girls, she saw a stranger sitting at the table – her mate’s boyfriend. “I’d heard of him. But I didn’t know him,” she says. “He only talked to her – directly to her – and not to me at all. Suddenly, this isn’t a year and a half’s worth of catching up because this random ass man is sitting with us while we’re trying to enjoy a croissant and a coffee.”
People constantly inflict their partners on their social circle against their will. What starts as introducing a new love interest to the group quickly becomes an attempt to shoehorn them into every occasion. Girlfriends are taken to uni group drinks, to secret groans from the room. Boyfriends are brought along to birthday dinners, despite not being invited. “We’re on our way!” they text, 20 minutes pre-arrival, thus dropping the favoured linguistic bombshell that their partner will, once again, be there too. Surprise!
