The Backup Single

Dear Neighbors:

(seems I have new readers from Australia -- welcome! Hang out a while!)

My last post led me to this one...

How many of you have a backup single friend? This would be the friend on whom you can count to always, always, always be single. No matter what. If you're single, you know that you won't be the last because this person will never marry. If you're married, you know that you have this person to hang out with on "boys'/girls' night out". The reasons this person is single varies; for example, I had a friend who insisted that he wouldn't marry until he was at least 40. Yet, before he was 30, he had rescued a damsel in distress and married her. Other friends just habitually fell for the wrong people, over and over again. This gave me confidence, as cruel as it seems, that I wouldn't be the last.

Yet I am.

What happens when your backup plan fails and your Perpetually Single Friends are no longer single?

I guess you could say that I'm in that position now. I do have a few single friends, but they're not truly single they way I am. They're divorced, have kids, have been through the ringer and are ready to go through it again. Or they're telling me war stories and insisting that I should learn from their mistakes and not try it. Like the disclaimers on "Jackass", only without the toboggan and and the staircase.

As for me, I'm the last of the Truly Single People -- no ex-husbands, no kids. So it occurred to me -- am I someone's backup? Do I have friends that say, "I'll never have to worry about not having any single friends because there's always Doro. She'll never find anyone."

This leads me to my point -- maybe my coupled friends discourage me from finding someone because I'm their backup. Without my 24-hour availability, who can they call when the husband is being a jerk, or he's out of town and it's time to go out and have fun? As for my other single friends, they know that when the ex has the kids, Doro can be counted on to go out for some kidless fun.

I don't want to be your backup. And I don't want to know if I'm your backup. Just like I'll never tell you if you're mine. :)

If I am I your backup, be prepared to look after me when I'm old and feeble and can't do for myself. Hmm...suddenly makes you want to find me a husband, huh?

D