10
November 2002
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Y'all, I never thought I'd say this, being the crazy single girl that I am, but damn, I'd really like to have a boyfriend. It would just be nice to have someone to call when I get home late from work or have someone to bitch to after a crappy night. I want someone to cuddle with, someone to watch favorite movies with, someone to walk Montego with. (Or just someone to walk Montego.) I feel pathetic when I admit all of this, like I'm some lonely loser girl who can't get a date, who sits at home with her dog and knits all night. And while that's not exactly true, it's true enough. I'm a little sick of being Bridget Jones, the single girl at the dinner table who has to smile nicely at all the Smug Marrieds. Who goes alone to birthday parties and weddings, who has to drive by herself to nights out with friends, because they all arrive Together. I know that having a perma-date for functions isn't enough of a reason to want a boyfriend, hell it's not even a really good reason at all, but I think it's legit in my case. I'm reading this really horribly trashy novel called Mr. Maybe by Jane Green, the same woman who wrote Jemima J. The main character, Libby, states her case (and mine) pretty well. She agrees that there are advantages to being single. That there are times when it's the highest high. But when all your single girlfriends suddenly seem to have boyfriends and you're the only one who's on your own, it's as miserable as sin. You phone your partners in crime and ask them if they'll go to a bar with you on a Saturday night, and they apologize profusely and say they're with Steve, or Pete, or Jake, but they can meet you for a coffee in the afternoon. If you're lucky they'll glide in on their own with huge smiles on their faces and sit and regale you with tales of how wonderful He is; and if you're unlucky they'll drag Him along so you're forced to make small talk with someone you don't know, as your friend gazes into His eyes, enraptured by every boring thing He comes out with, and you make a move as quickly as is decently possible. And you spend your Saturday nights on your own or, worse, at dinner parties they've organized when more often than not they've been let down by the creepy spare man they've invited for you, so it's three couples and you on your own and you spend the whole evening feeling like shit. I know there are a lot of people who can't relate to my position at all. Maybe you married your high school, or college, sweetheart, or maybe you had a string of boyfriends before you married the One, or whatever, so you'll just have to believe me when I say that being a single grown-up is tough sometimes. (And by the way, I can't even imagine what it would be like to never have been the Single Girl. How do you relate to 90% of popular fiction and primetime television?) Granted, a lot of the time, most of the time if I'm being honest, I'm pretty content. I look around my apartment with gratitude and pride when I realize that it's all mine. I put that couch there, and I paid for that t.v., and all of those photos are of my friends and my family, and I like it that way thank you very much. I stretch out on my couch wearing striped socks and paw print pjs and watch terrible programming like The Bachelor and have nothing in my fridge but bread and milk and I can dance around to Justin Timberlake and I can do whatever I want. I can watch two hours of dating shows from midnight till 2 a.m., and no one is hogging all my pillows or sticking cold feet on me. Most of the time I'm in no rush to pick out china patterns or baby names. I just get so frustrated sometimes because I wonder if I'll ever get to register for dishes or receiving blankets. I never meet anyone. Ever. And what if that continues and I'm 35 wearing striped socks and spinster pajamas and watching pathetic reality t.v.? It's a seesaw. A constant balance between happiness with my life and longing for another. You'll have to bear with me when it dips the lonely way.
The notify hates blind dates, but wouldn't say no to a set-up. And the forum is never lonely.
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