I long for the days of joined-at-the-hip female friendships. The days when we swapped parachute pants and curling irons just as easily as we did boyfriends and Menudo posters. The days when a girl could call up another girl and get her to join her for a movie or a cosmopolitan without weeks of planning and triple checking her schedule. Doesn't anyone just spontaneously go out for a tapas platter anymore? More importantly, where have all the cowgirls gone?
Reading through the calendar of events in the alternative newsweekly occasionally fills me with the desire to slather on a bunch of lip gloss and go get my groove on at some 80's night at a club or a poetry slam. And I want to do this with a gal pal more often than not. One because dating sucks my will to live. And two because no one appreciates my funky sense of style more than one of my homies. And my faux leopard jacket really does deserve more kudos than the average stranger on the street is prepared to offer. But forget about it if you think you can count on getting one of them to drop the baby and the husband temporarily. Not without a release form and a ten day waiting period minimum.
Yeah, I get it. I really do. If I had a kid I wouldn't be out running around like Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan, looking fabulous and hip and getting into all kinds of bohemian mischief. I'd be monitoring sleep schedules and trying to get my boobs to stop leaking, vaguely wondering why I don't care about sex anymore. Or so I've been led to believe. And husbands? They seem to require more supervision than a busload of crack whores in Macy's. At least that's how it seems to me from my single girl's not-so-ivory tower.
I love getting together with my married friends. They feed me things like tender gourmet lettuces, crumbled cheeses and candied pecans, all presented with the casual precision of stable married people. The kind who can throw open their cupboard doors any day of the week and find the ingredients for pad thai and taquitos. They provide me with the squarest meals of the year, and I provide them with a reason to stay married. (Married people love to invite the single ones over to feel comparatively fortunate.) Frankly, I wish they would just adopt me. I can be surprisingly happy in a small spare room when I can count on a reliable source of coffee and the occasional triple cream cheese.
I am also surprisingly happy doing things alone. I can take myself out for chicken Caesar salad and a glass of sauvignon blanc any day of the week (when I find enough change underneath the front seat of my car.) But the open mic or a small concert? That's where all the other insane single people hang out, scanning the room for anyone they haven't already stalked, betrayed or cast a spell on. A solo appearance is too often interpreted as an invitation, especially if my vibes of special cuteness are unnaturally high due to reading a great book or sleeping past ten. Not that I wouldn't welcome witty banter from a smart-alecky jokester in poindexter glasses. But that's not what I get. I get Vietnam-vet-crazy and hippies who hate women. A vortex of girlfriend fabulousness says "No thank you" without anyone even having to ask. A bonus to hanging with the girls is the gentle bulldog protection they offer against men who didn't think I would notice a Robitussin moustache.
But no. My girlfriends all live in other states. Or they are married with or without children. At this point it is a luxury when one of them gets to finish a full sentence when we talk. They either have to hang up to wipe someone's butt or one of their kids needs them. And aside from the occasional middle-of-the-night anxiety that demands to know why I can't just get married, get pregnant and get a prescription for prozac already, I have little desire to do so. But I miss my girlfriends. And I can't help but wonder if I'll feel the same when I'm fifty. By then I hope to have seen the legalization of interspecies marriage. My cat and I will be registered at the feed store. I suspect we'll be quite happy.
Reading through the calendar of events in the alternative newsweekly occasionally fills me with the desire to slather on a bunch of lip gloss and go get my groove on at some 80's night at a club or a poetry slam. And I want to do this with a gal pal more often than not. One because dating sucks my will to live. And two because no one appreciates my funky sense of style more than one of my homies. And my faux leopard jacket really does deserve more kudos than the average stranger on the street is prepared to offer. But forget about it if you think you can count on getting one of them to drop the baby and the husband temporarily. Not without a release form and a ten day waiting period minimum.
Yeah, I get it. I really do. If I had a kid I wouldn't be out running around like Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan, looking fabulous and hip and getting into all kinds of bohemian mischief. I'd be monitoring sleep schedules and trying to get my boobs to stop leaking, vaguely wondering why I don't care about sex anymore. Or so I've been led to believe. And husbands? They seem to require more supervision than a busload of crack whores in Macy's. At least that's how it seems to me from my single girl's not-so-ivory tower.
I love getting together with my married friends. They feed me things like tender gourmet lettuces, crumbled cheeses and candied pecans, all presented with the casual precision of stable married people. The kind who can throw open their cupboard doors any day of the week and find the ingredients for pad thai and taquitos. They provide me with the squarest meals of the year, and I provide them with a reason to stay married. (Married people love to invite the single ones over to feel comparatively fortunate.) Frankly, I wish they would just adopt me. I can be surprisingly happy in a small spare room when I can count on a reliable source of coffee and the occasional triple cream cheese.
I am also surprisingly happy doing things alone. I can take myself out for chicken Caesar salad and a glass of sauvignon blanc any day of the week (when I find enough change underneath the front seat of my car.) But the open mic or a small concert? That's where all the other insane single people hang out, scanning the room for anyone they haven't already stalked, betrayed or cast a spell on. A solo appearance is too often interpreted as an invitation, especially if my vibes of special cuteness are unnaturally high due to reading a great book or sleeping past ten. Not that I wouldn't welcome witty banter from a smart-alecky jokester in poindexter glasses. But that's not what I get. I get Vietnam-vet-crazy and hippies who hate women. A vortex of girlfriend fabulousness says "No thank you" without anyone even having to ask. A bonus to hanging with the girls is the gentle bulldog protection they offer against men who didn't think I would notice a Robitussin moustache.
But no. My girlfriends all live in other states. Or they are married with or without children. At this point it is a luxury when one of them gets to finish a full sentence when we talk. They either have to hang up to wipe someone's butt or one of their kids needs them. And aside from the occasional middle-of-the-night anxiety that demands to know why I can't just get married, get pregnant and get a prescription for prozac already, I have little desire to do so. But I miss my girlfriends. And I can't help but wonder if I'll feel the same when I'm fifty. By then I hope to have seen the legalization of interspecies marriage. My cat and I will be registered at the feed store. I suspect we'll be quite happy.
2 comments:
This cracked me up! Glad I stumbled across you.
Friendships definitely change when you get married. I barely hang out with my single friends anymore. That's just what happens. I actually started a website at http://www.hangbase.com to help couples find other couples to hang out with, since couples can have more things in common with each other, like kids.
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