It was a fantastic event, with great Spanish food, a 12-piece live band, and a fun, colorful decor that my daughter had chosen. With one strange exception: my husband’s older sister, a 76-year-old woman who lives in an even more posh city nearby, but who arrived at our event looking like she had just been for a walk on the beach, in white jeans, very casual sandals, and the kind of shirt you wear when you go grocery shopping. Meanwhile, her husband followed our dress code, as did her daughter in a lace cocktail dress and stilettos.

This older sister was the subject of much speculation, as she stood out like a sore thumb. Several of our daughters’ friends, who of course had dressed up, asked if she had done it on purpose, as did a few of my friends.

I don’t know what to make of this, except that this incident harkened back to my own wedding over 35 years ago. In the spirit of building cordial relationships, I had asked my husband’s sister, whom I had only met a few times, to be one of my bridesmaids. After I took her on a group trip to pick out bridesmaids’ dresses, she called my husband to demand that he pay for her bridesmaid dress. I later overheard her disparaging the bridesmaid’s dress in front of a few friends. I had completely forgotten about this incident until she showed up at my daughter’s wedding dressed in inappropriate attire. What do you think?

Dressed: I think your sister-in-law dressed comfortably because “Festival Cocktail Attire” doesn’t really mean anything anymore. Technically it’s supposed to be a mix of cocktail and semi-formal with a little flair thrown in, but even that’s vague enough to be of little use. I think everyone got a little confused about it in the early 2000s and stopped caring.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been to events where the dress code is “Party Cocktail Attire” and people show up in whatever they want. It’s chaos. There are too many words in the description. We’ve lost the plot.

Your sister-in-law sounds like someone who doesn’t care about fashion trends the same way you do. I suspect she lives a very different kind of life. So for her, white jeans and a casual shirt might have been appropriate for a wedding in a beach town next to her home town.

Dressing inappropriately is a very unsatisfying form of revenge. So it’s much less likely that she did it to send you a message. Unless that message is, “I’m 76; this is who I am; congratulations on your special day.”

Dear Eric: A friend of mine who I have known for years recently asked me for about $30,000. He needed the money to pay off old debts that he claimed he had. I doubt that. He does not work and owns a few rental properties. I replied that I was sorry and that I could not give him that money and further suggested that he go to his bank and ask for a loan.

He wouldn’t hear of it, questioned our friendship, then gave me a lecture about how friends aren’t just for the good times, they’re also for the bad times, and then abruptly ended our friendship.

I was disappointed and sad. What should I have said to this person after he broke up with me? Should I have given him money to keep the friendship?

Friend: When relationships become exorbitantly expensive, I stop calling them friendships and start calling them leases. At $30,000, this landlord’s rent is too high. I’m afraid if your friend is willing to abruptly cut ties because of this, there’s not much left to salvage.

Perhaps the stress of his financial situation is clouding his judgment. You can reach out to him to express your sadness about the way things turned out and ask him to help you understand his point of view. He may think that you have a lot of money and that this amount is no problem.

But it’s a big deal to you. And besides, if you don’t feel comfortable giving him the money, then “no” is a complete, loving sentence.

(Send your questions to R. Eric Thomas at [email protected] or PO Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.)

2024 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.