Sometimes you have to help someone who can’t help themselves. 

Part of friendship is stepping in when your friends are doing something wrong. Friends let stuff go. Best friends tell you when something is up. It’s why we have each other. If you can’t call out your bestie when they’re doing something self-sabotaging, then you’re not really their bestie. But that doesn’t mean they’re always ready to hear it. It’s a fine line to walk between calling someone out in a way that leaves them feeling wounded and calling them in in a way that makes them feel supported. It’s not an easy thing to delineate between, and you might end up caught in the crossfire. That’s what happened in this roommate relationship, where everyone’s feelings ended up hurt. 

When someone has a dietary restriction, it’s up to them to enforce it. Food is an incredibly personal thing, and we all don’t have the same relationship to it. Nobody should tell anyone else what to eat, unless you’re someone’s parent or someone’s doctor. Food is more than what sustains us. It’s also a huge source of pleasure in the course of a day. It’s how we can connect with our cultures, and it’s a constant bridge we have to cross. There’s no avoiding it. Unfortunately, there is no pill that sustains us and gives us perfect nutrition. So we have to contend with food every day. And we have to be the arbiters of what we eat and what we don’t eat.