The Single Girl Treatment
Another one of my friends calls up, squealing about the latest date she went on and how she’s so in love. “He’s so nice and he’s good-looking and he has a great job and we just had the best time.” Blah Blah Blah.
Lately, I’ve become the single girl in my group. I don’t know that happened, but here I am, the single girl.
You know what happens to the single girl? She gets the single girl treatment. That means that all your friends surround you like you just got told you have leprosy and they’re determined not to let a few postulating lesions put them off. You have the promises of a night, “Just the girls—no boys,” like you couldn’t handle seeing your friends with somebody when you, yourself are alone. Like you’re going to slit your wrists right at the dinner table with the butter knife when you realize you’re alone. It hadn’t dawned on me before, but that’s when I knew I was the single girl.
“Oh, you have to meet Pat,” E said to me one night as we were walking out of a bar.
“I’d love to.” (Pat being the new boyfriend. They had been together for about a month. Already, I wasn’t too sure about him. He used an ironing board for a kitchen and a coffee table.)
“And don’t worry, we’ll all go out one night, you, me C, G. Just the girls, no boys.”
Thank god. Because everybody knows boys have cooties.
When people who were single aren’t single any more, they spend the first few months of their lives acting like single is a contagious disease they finally managed to get rid of. You don’t see as much of your friends now that they’re dating somebody else. You don’t get as many phone calls. Part of it is that they’re happy in love, sure, but the bigger part of it is they don’t seem to want to acknowledge their own single lives. “Oh, she’s got single. I had that once. It took me forever to get over it. I love her, she’s my girl, but I just have to much going on in my life right now. I can’t catch single again.”
Then, there’s that forced single-girl-meets-new-boyfriend dinner that is about as awkward as they come. They’re happy in love and gushing and it’s just human nature to instantly start looking for all of his flaws. Nobody can be that perfect. They just can’t. So, while they look adoringly at each other over the rims of their wine glasses, you’re looking at him with your eyebrows raised, trying to figure out the bullshit that lurks beneath.
And then come the setups. Every girl’s boyfriend’s got a single friend/brother/cousin/former cell mate and wouldn’t it be great if the two of you hit it off? Your girls are happy in love and now you have to be, too. So you wind up going to endless bars and dinners and parties attached to some mooch that wants to spend the night talking about the ex-girlfriend who really broke his heart. As the night goes on, and he gets progressively drunker, you hear details about his sex life you wouldn’t want to know about your own sex life until, finally, he gets drunk enough to call her, walking off to some quiet corner and leaving you to wonder how that winner managed to slip through your fingers.
And that whole night, you could have been meeting Mr. Right if your friends weren’t so determined that you should be happy.
Lately, I’ve become the single girl in my group. I don’t know that happened, but here I am, the single girl.
You know what happens to the single girl? She gets the single girl treatment. That means that all your friends surround you like you just got told you have leprosy and they’re determined not to let a few postulating lesions put them off. You have the promises of a night, “Just the girls—no boys,” like you couldn’t handle seeing your friends with somebody when you, yourself are alone. Like you’re going to slit your wrists right at the dinner table with the butter knife when you realize you’re alone. It hadn’t dawned on me before, but that’s when I knew I was the single girl.
“Oh, you have to meet Pat,” E said to me one night as we were walking out of a bar.
“I’d love to.” (Pat being the new boyfriend. They had been together for about a month. Already, I wasn’t too sure about him. He used an ironing board for a kitchen and a coffee table.)
“And don’t worry, we’ll all go out one night, you, me C, G. Just the girls, no boys.”
Thank god. Because everybody knows boys have cooties.
When people who were single aren’t single any more, they spend the first few months of their lives acting like single is a contagious disease they finally managed to get rid of. You don’t see as much of your friends now that they’re dating somebody else. You don’t get as many phone calls. Part of it is that they’re happy in love, sure, but the bigger part of it is they don’t seem to want to acknowledge their own single lives. “Oh, she’s got single. I had that once. It took me forever to get over it. I love her, she’s my girl, but I just have to much going on in my life right now. I can’t catch single again.”
Then, there’s that forced single-girl-meets-new-boyfriend dinner that is about as awkward as they come. They’re happy in love and gushing and it’s just human nature to instantly start looking for all of his flaws. Nobody can be that perfect. They just can’t. So, while they look adoringly at each other over the rims of their wine glasses, you’re looking at him with your eyebrows raised, trying to figure out the bullshit that lurks beneath.
And then come the setups. Every girl’s boyfriend’s got a single friend/brother/cousin/former cell mate and wouldn’t it be great if the two of you hit it off? Your girls are happy in love and now you have to be, too. So you wind up going to endless bars and dinners and parties attached to some mooch that wants to spend the night talking about the ex-girlfriend who really broke his heart. As the night goes on, and he gets progressively drunker, you hear details about his sex life you wouldn’t want to know about your own sex life until, finally, he gets drunk enough to call her, walking off to some quiet corner and leaving you to wonder how that winner managed to slip through your fingers.
And that whole night, you could have been meeting Mr. Right if your friends weren’t so determined that you should be happy.
posted by Still Hopeful @ 6:12 PM
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