In January, I left a live-in relationship after three years. The experience was all the sad adjectives you can imagine. But after the sobbing spells and the heavy drinking, the fog lifted—I was finally single again for the first time since after I graduated college.
Naturally, I expected my single friends to react with equal doses of giddy glee. For the record, I’m not the kind of girl who ditches my ladies when I’m dating someone. But lots of time does free up when you become single.
As for my coupled-up chums, I expected sad stares. They probably thought I was doomed for spinsterhood after leaving my longest relationship at age twenty-seven. “But don’t you want to get married and have kids?” I imagined them asking. When I’d respond, “Not right now,” they’d ignore me and say, “I know someone who’d be perfect for you!”
But that didn’t happen. My taken gals were as supportive as my sturdiest Victoria’s Secret bra.
“I don’t worry about you,” my best friend, who is getting hitched next summer, affirmed. “You’ll be fine, alone or with someone.”
I wiped my brow—my attached amigas didn’t consider my newfound singleness a contagious disease! So obvious, I thought the single ones would feel the same.
That’s when I learned that there are two kinds of single girl. The first kind is independent, secure and just as content to sit at home with Netflix as she is to go out on a date. The other kind is always moaning about being alone and plotting which guy to go after a la an Army general preparing for battle. The “happies” versus the “crappies,” as Wendy Atterberry has written.
Unfortunately, some of my single friends fell into that second category.
At a bar one night, a guy gave me his digits. I wasn’t that interested, but took them anyway. My friend said, “You better call him, because in a few years, no one will be giving you their numbers anymore.”
Ouch. What did that mean?
Another single friend told me she’d feel “defeated” if she were me. Ouch again. Did I suck at life because I’d decided I’d rather be alone than with the wrong person?
A few weeks later, another pal, totally unprompted, said, “You should get on Match.com. Just to have more options.”
“Umm, thanks, but I haven’t been single that long,” I replied, taking a mighty swig of beer.
