Best man?

If you've read my other entries, or you know me, you'll know I'm getting married this year.

Along with all the other issues a wedding brings, the fact we're getting married abroad has obviously created its own obstacles. It's been a push but most of the people we want to be there are going.

I do have a bit of a problem though. I've never been married before so I don't actually know if this is a common thing, but I have a "best man" problem.

I chose two best men; and before I even get into it, that they even intimated they would be willing to go abroad to do the job made me feel great. So I guess a little bit of this will seem like, I don't know.. I don't actually know the word for it, so apologies for the lack of structure.

The first best man is my brother; obvious choice really. We have been close all our lives even if the last 4 or 5 years he's really wanted to spend less and less time with me. I understand, no-one really wants to hang out with their older brother. I had hoped asking him to be best man would spark some life into that, but it hasn't, and that's fair enough, but at the end of the day he's my brother and he has to be best man. I'm not saying that begrudgingly; he's always going to be first choice.

The second is my mate; really, a mutual mate of my brother and I, we all grew up together and it's just one of those situations I suppose where one of the three acts like you're all still close, I mean, I call him my mate, this is someone I've been out with 4 times in the last year, since I asked him to be best man. We even invited his partner, who we've met a grand total of two times. She said she wasn't going and then changed her mind after they recently went abroad (we weren't invited, of course) and has now decided she wants to come.

He never answers his phone when I try to ring him; to the extent I stopped trying. He might call once every two months; he did last month and was annoyed with me when I told him we'd booked our flights (he didn't pick up his phone when tried to ring him and tell him we were doing it). I think it's probably fair to say that after the wedding he'd never ever contact me again anyway unless his relationship breaks up; he's basically very secretive about his life, doesn't really act like a mate, and when he is in a relationship, I'm essentially non-existent to him. I actually don't know anything about him now. Regardless of all this, I know that I can't "un ask" him. He hasn't booked yet. The flight prices are rising every week. I tried to call; he didn't answer. It's not my responsibility to make him book or make him aware.

If the truth be told, I'm devestated that the two people I chose as best men, the two people I considered closest to me, don't actually really want to know me at all, and that it took asking them to be best men to realise that.

I can't make people like me or want to spend time with me, and I learned a long time ago that you can only really rely on yourself. If someone doesn't bother with you, don't bother with them. I'm comfortable with that, because I know there are people who do want to spend time with me. The bind I find myself in is that I can't "un ask" so what do I do? Even if he does manage to book and go to the wedding, the fact he'll just go there for the reason he is in a position of importance and then never bother talking to me? Do I really want that as a memory of what's supposed to be the best day of my life?

I'm completely at a loss. What would you do?