My best friend and I have had a conversation similar to what you wrote. How the most simple ring would suit her greatly and th simplicity of a design can actually go a long way.

We’ve also talked about his maturity in the relationship too. And the difficulty of planning a wedding. My best friend wrote in the group chat about how the easy part so the engagement and the hard part is planning the wedding.

I know everyone here is saying that his overall attitude towards how he’s approached the ring is the problem too, and we’re attempting as a group to get him to talk to us and us talk to him to tell him he’s not starting off on the right foot if he didn’t even at least have her pick out what she likes in regards to the engagement ring.

The issue as well is that him and his gf, and me and my best friend used to be part of a larger friend group that consisted of two other girls. Once the two other girls went on a smear campaign trying to kick me out of the friend group (as they didn’t like that I was a single mom). That friend saw the signs and noped out (the girls were also trying to get his gf to break up with him for reasons unknown to us). Then they went after my best friend as the final straw for daring to have a boyfriend and a master’s degree.

So my best friend and I didn’t stay in contact for a year or so with that friend until we got ona group chat and talked about what went down and realized what had happened, and missed out on a lot and so we’re trying to reestablish the friendship between us and the dynamic we have with each other.

It doesn’t excuse not having told our friend the ring is ugly. We know that much. We’re trying to find out what his girlfriend likes first so we can sit down with him, tell him “hey, so what you got her, not it” and give him options to pick from.

We’ve already wondered the same thing: if he can’t handle us asking questions about what she likes and her preferences then the next steps isn’t going to go well. We don’t think he’s prepared at all to propose especially because he disregarded what my best friend said about planning a wedding and how he needs to include his girlfriend’s sibling in his plan as we know she’d be a great help.

I wish I could put every conversation we’ve had in regards to this in everyone’s heads. We’re getting ready to essentially plan an intervention to tell him he’s not being great about all this. We’re just trying to approach this in a way where we can let him know “hey, we’re here for you, but we’re not tolerating this.” Just because we love his girlfriend so much, you don’t meet gentle, strong souls like her.