Not What Was Planned

I said I would talk more about a friend BRINGING HER HUSBAND TO OUR COFFEE DATE. Linnea and I are former coworkers, and we have been getting together every couple of weeks for coffee or for a walk. We had plans to go for coffee. When we were confirming those plans the night before, she texted, as part of the confirmation, “Kent might come I’m not sure.” Kent is her husband. I was baffled. Why might Kent be coming to our coffee date? Why wasn’t she sure? Why was there no REASON given? I would never, ever, just bring Paul along to a meeting with a friend. I left the text unanswered for awhile, to process and consider. I couldn’t even totally tell from context if she might be…kidding? And if not, I wanted to take some time to decide if this was something I was going to set a boundary on. Like, if I don’t object ahead of time, and she does bring him, then I feel like it would be a LOT harder to object next time: it would seem personal, like I didn’t like him. Whereas if I object up front,…