Girls nights are sacred, whether they’re a montage of blurry dance floors, olive-brined martinis, and post-date dissections or a quieter night in, complete with DIY face masks, candlelight, and Sex and the City rewatches. Really, there’s only one thing that can interrupt these utopian get-togethers: someone asking if their boyfriend can come.
It was a Saturday morning when Margo arrived at her brunch reservation, only to experience a three-word horror story: “Tom* is here.” Tom, Shannon’s boyfriend of three years, was not part of the day’s plan. Weeks ago, she’d snagged the table, sent details via group text, and made sure everyone knew that it was a girls outing. The plan was mimosas, then thrifting — naturally, a complete oral history of hookups and heartbreaks unfolding in between.
But now Tom had crashed, and their table for five just became a table for six. Once everyone arrived — and communicated a silent “Who invited Tom?” — the group of longtime girlfriends exchanged their niceties, which included reassuring Shannon that of course it’s OK that Tom came. “Which wasn’t really a lie,” says Margo, a 23-year-old public relations professional in Boston. “At first.”
But as the afternoon continued, Tom’s less-than-enthusiastic vibe became a deterrent to the rest of the group. After he ignored one of Margo’s jokes, giving her a blank stare instead, she was just about ready to ban any future plus-ones. “He could’ve added a sympathy laugh,” Margo says. “Or anything. Ugh, it gives me a shiver down my spine.”
You see your girlfriend as this beautiful, glistening light, and he’s just there.
As if the surprise guest who’d “literally co-opted the plan” wasn’t awkward enough, she and her friends were stuck doing the emotional labor of catching him up on all of the lore of decades of friendship: exes from ninth grade, frenemies from senior year, et cetera. “Which is to say, we never made it to thrift,” Margo adds.
This specific kind of tagalong has a name: a gargoyle boyfriend. This is not some smutty book trope, a la Ice Planet Barbarians. It’s a lot less sexy than that. As one viral video outlines, this particular kind of social interloper favors observing over engaging, sulking in corners, and rejecting attempts at connection. They’re quiet and avoid eye contact. They’re also universally understood to be pretty f*cking annoying.
Gargoyle boyfriend (noun): a male significant other who attends girls-only plans and then sits silently, contributing as much to the conversation as a decorative statue.
On TikTok, there’s a viral sound from 2024 of a woman loudly questioning “Why would a man be there?! Why would a man be there?!” It has been used more than 1,000 times to describe this exact scenario. He’s been around forever, but Bravo fans might remember this particular breed of man from a 2007 Real Housewives of New York episode, when a clingy husband crashed a girls night, prompting Ramona Singer to interrogate his presence vocally. “I was looking forward to a girls night, and then I heard you’re coming and blowing the equation.”
It wasn’t the most welcoming way to deal with the situation, but Ramona’s point stands: A man has no business being at girls night, and women in their 20s are ready to say goodbye to these uninvited add-ons.
They just sit there in — hope this isn’t too on the nose — stony silence.
Maeve, a 28-year-old media professional in New York City, has also had to deal with her fair share of gargoyle boyfriends. Sometimes, they’re crashing book club. Other times, they’re stewing in the corner of an engagement party.
In any scenario, there’s a clear difference between their energy and that of boyfriends who actually want to be there. “If a rogue plus-one actually adds something to the vibe, I honestly don’t mind. Like, if he’s a fun hang? Whatever,” she says. “But usually, he’s so unenthused, making it obvious that he would literally rather be doing anything else. I agree — I also would rather him be doing anything else, so I don’t have to deal with him.”
Any attempts to include these men quickly turn stilted — like they’re incapable of making conversation with anyone except their girlfriend. “They just sit there in — hope this isn’t too on the nose — stony silence,” says Maeve. That or he’ll be looking at his phone the whole time.
That dynamic, of course, puts Maeve, and plenty of other women, in an impossible position: privately sh*t-talking the gargoyle boyfriend while fiercely loving the friend who brought him. “You see your girlfriend as this beautiful, glistening light,” says Maeve, “and he’s just there.”
Those debrief conversations usually revolve around questions like “What does she see in him?” and “Did you see how surly he was to the waiter?” Of course, it’s hard to feel too guilty about this specific genre of sh*t talking. “It’s coming from a place of loving her and knowing how much better she could do,” Maeve says. “Also, if she left him at home, we’d have no material.”
When she asked if he could come, it was an easy ‘hell no’ from the group.
In Caroline’s friend group, this kind of sidebar texting started three years ago. At the time, the Jonas Brothers were on tour, and her group of girl friends decided to go to the concert together. Then, her best friend’s boyfriend insisted on crashing.
“When she asked if he could come, it was an easy ‘hell no’ from the group,” says Caroline, a 26-year-old Chicago-based project manager. “It was a Jonas Brothers concert, for crying out loud. Our childhood and adulthood crushes.”
Logically, his attendance made no sense. “There was no valid reason for him to attend,” Caroline adds. “I remember asking if he could name two Jonas Brothers songs or if he just felt like we needed security.” But no, he wasn’t a secret fan or an overprotective (but well-meaning) suitor. “He was clearly bothered that she was going out with us and was weirdly eager to regain control of the plan,” she says before joking, “That’s a hostage situation! You gotta get your friend out!”
Soon after, the couple broke up, and Caroline was saved from having to deal with any future lurking. Of course, not every gargoyle boyfriend meets the same fate — some turn into long-term partners and even gargoyle husbands. And although you can’t mandate that your girlfriends leave their gargoyle boyfriends in 2025, you can gently encourage them to keep them at home. (Gargoyles are better as home decor anyway.)
For Margo, that translates to setting expectations earlier on. “Maybe I should’ve been clearer about it being a strictly girls event?” she says, recalling that ill-fated brunch. If clearer communication doesn’t work, Maeve has another strategy for dealing with these ghoulish guys. “If every time I invite you somewhere, I know your boyfriend will tag along, I’m going to stop extending that invite,” Maeve says.
It may sound harsh, but just because a gargoyle boyfriend is haunting your friend doesn’t mean he gets to haunt you (or your brunch plans), too.
