All around me, friends are coupling. Friends I've counted on for a long time to reassure me that there is nothing wrong with me because they're single too, are now finding their one true loves.
I'm happy for them, but no amount of happiness I feel can compete, let alone get a word in edgewise, with the special happiness they've always dreamed of in their happiest, most happy, happiness that they are now experiencing and currently killing me with.
Seriously, I don't want to hear it.
Just stop it.
Stop. It.
At first, I would call for updates. I wanted to know all the happy details. You stayed on the phone for an extra hour because neither of you wanted to hang up first...? Aww. He calls you and leaves cutesy messages telling you how he's thinking about you on your work phone...? Too cute! You've never felt this way about anybody before and know this is The One...? Wow! I'm so happy you found each other!
Inevitably though, this Code Red level of joy must be shared in new ways. My newly coupled friends have now become relationship gurus through their own lucky happenstance. They found their soul-mates, and therefore know secrets I don't know and have never considered before.
For one, instead of doing as they've done by procuring myself an amazing man who is nice and kind and the most amazing man ever born, I pursue assholes. If only I would follow their lead and find myself a guy who treats me like a princess I would be so much better off.
This is valuable advice to be sure. It had never occurred to me to interact with nice men only. Instead of pining away and waiting for Charles Manson to write me back and wondering why he hasn't called, I should have been doing what my friends were doing...which is actually the same thing I was doing but with happier endings.
It's the ending I've got wrong apparently. Instead of checking off the box marked, "Gong Show," when handed my relationship menu at the beginning of every date, I should put an X next to "Fairy Tale." Gotcha.
Perhaps I send mixed signals to the universe. One newly coupled friend is convinced she met the most amazing man ever in the history of men and amazingness because she decided she was "open," and the universe provided accordingly.
I tried being open for one afternoon, and a sea gull shat on my shoulder. Obviously I'm better off being a little less accessible to the universe, and a little lower on the radar.
My mixed signals must be the reason for some pretty mixed results. My longest relationship began as blissful, and remained blissful...on paper and in public. He was also amazing...until he wasn't.
Right up until he'd snap he'd be the nicest guy ever, which always made me question my sanity even when I was cramming my car full of the only belongings I could carry and fleeing the province to get away. The universe had that half right...I guess.
Then came Alex. Alex used to leave me cutesy messages at work, call me all the time and make me feel wonderful. Now I still enjoy his occasional Facebook update and the sound of his voice telling me to leave a message.
Things change, some times breaking your heart in the process. I'm not sure where the universe and I got our wires crossed, but I'm refusing to be either open or closed. I'm available by appointment only.
Another friend recently rewarded by the universe swears I should just stop looking. She stopped looking, and now she's frolicking in meadows or whatever it is these new couples get up to.
Granted, before finding her prince she was on E-Harmony and Plenty of Fish but I suppose that wasn't really looking - only browsing.
Out of any of the helpful advice I get that makes me want to drive my single girl vibrator straight through my eyeball, finding somebody by not looking will be the most likely to blind me.
All of my friends now in relationships were looking, right up until they found somebody.
Rewriting history to say that you had just managed to achieve self-actualization and were perfectly content to grow old alone mere minutes before a romance more magical than that between a human and a vampire who sparkles in the sun lands in your lap does not make it true.
(Also, I just watched Twilight for the first time just to see what all the fuss is about. While the story as a parable about waiting to have sex until marriage is eye-rolling, I would do Edward Cullen. Yes I would. Universe? I'm totally open to that idea. Get on it.)
It's hard being the forgotten fry in the container. The one that's all shrivelled and brown with a patch of green that nobody wants, even when still hungry. Telling the universe to make me into a potato or to ignore the fact I'm the last french fry won't help. Also, I need to have lunch if that wasn't readily apparent.
I'm happy for my friends. Honestly, I am. But if all this happiness continues, the weddings had better be open bar and whatever they do - invite some single guys to the receptions. Not that I'm looking.
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