A quick public service announcement to all the happily paired up couples, on behalf of single people everywhere:
STOP HARRASSING US WITH YOUR STUPID, LAME MATCHMAKING ‘SKILLS’, OR I WILL CUT YOU.
“Oh, I really have to introduce you to my friend Vic!”
Really? Do Vic and I share a mutual appreciation for George R. R. Martin’s ‘A Song of Ice & Fire’ series? Does he like cats and Corvettes and Cougar Town? Does he go crazy over independent lasses with vague penis-envy issues? No? He’s just single and hasn’t been disfigured in a wharf accident? Well of COURSE I’ll meet him, he sounds like a dream boat!
Last Saturday arvo I received a text from a married girlfriend: Hey lovely, the bbq’s still going and we have cheesecake! Come.
I’d previously declined the barbecue invitation in favour of lying in the sun with a hangover, but her message made me think “naww, she wants to see me! How nice!”
Not so.
Enter “Vic”. I’d met Vic briefly on a couple of prior occasions, most memorably at aforementioned friend’s wedding when he was gyrating, sweaty and shirtless, across the dancefloor. Two years later, Vic had casually asked my friend whether I was coming to the barbecue, at which point both our names suddenly became flagged in her head as SINGLE AND DESPERATE, launching her into Aggressive Date Aid Mode.
My friend pounced on me and levered me into place next to Vic on the couch. Glibly unsuspecting, I squished in next to him, let him cut me some cheesecake and accepted a couple of his Budweisers. I was perfectly comfortable until my friend dragged me into the kitchen and squeaked excitedly “do you like him?”, then launched into a Vic marketing tirade that would’ve put the Sham-Wow guy to shame.
I pointed out that he was in fact married during the sweaty-gyratey incident, which was a mere two years ago – what happened to the wife? Oh, they’ve been separated for two whole months now. And they have three kids. Ah, but he can play Incubus songs on the guitar!
Be still my beating heart.
She’s not the only perpetrator either – all my coupled up friends seem to think they’re doing a community service by setting me up with some freak or another with no redeeming features other than availability and a functional set of genitals.
Don’t get me wrong; when I’m not experiencing one of my phases of seething bitterness, suspicion and jaded cynicism, I rather enjoy dating and crushes and all that other shit. The problem is, many of my friends and colleagues seem to think I can’t possibly be content when there’s a gaping man-shaped hole in my life.
Really, people? Is there something wrong with me if I’m so damn happy with my life the way it is? I know being in a stable, mutually supportive relationship is something to appreciate and respect. So is having a pony, or a Bugatti Veyron. And I sure ain’t fretting because I don’t have a pony or 745kW supercar. Neither of which, I might add, makes you wax your vagina, ignores your text messages, leaves your toilet seat up or calls you nineteen times to find out where you are at 1.00am*.
That’s not to say that if a Paul Walker came marching down my driveway bearing a box of Whitman’s Samplers and a Roxette CD, I’d slam the door in his face. I’m just saying my life is perfectly complete without him and his cute little tushie. And I’m getting pretty bloody fed up with every man and his wife trying to tell me otherwise.
Screw you, society. I’m 28, I’m single, and I fucking well love it.
*Calm down, I know not all men are over-protective, cloying, philandering dickheads. Some of them are dead.
Step Into The Light 
Damn! Just when I thought my chances were improving. Damn!
Oh Snowy. Knock 60 years off and I’d adopt you.
That would mean I’d have to call GOF “Dad”….. Nah, thanks for the offer, though…
Not neccessarily…you could call him the same things I do 😉
Hmm, that sounds like an offer too good to refuse. I’ll study up on relativity to see what I can do about that 60 years…
I always said, I don’t mind being “match-made” but put some THOUGHT into it. Exactly, not just single but it’s ALWAYS the freshly-single…like “they’re desperate enough to even accept YOU and you’re WEIRD!”
That’s it, just a little thought…it’s always “he’s single…you’re single…OMG MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN!!!”
*cheering* Well said!
And very enjoyable to read! 😀
Thanks Lauri!
Yeah, well … I’m the guy telling all the single guys to enjoy life while it still exists for them, so I agree with you.
Ponies do, however, appreciate waxed vaginas. They don’t tickle when being ridden bareback.
9 out of 10 ponies surveyed agree…
GOM. Don’t make me spit coffee all over my monitor first thing in the morning.
Jeez, you’re only 28 and your friends do this to you? Could be worse — wait until you’re 38 and single.
Well this is true, Kim. On the plus side, it appears to peter out once you reach 58 and above.
Cheesecake and beer, I could never get into the dairy/beer combination. Daz can happily eat a tub of yoghurt and drink a can of beer at the same time.
I think ponies would be a lot of hard work.
Well I’ll admit it’s not exactly a balanced meal. I can’t do beer and chocolate though.
Lol… please… the knife is not necessary.
I promise that I won’t introduce you to any lame-ass rednecks. I don’t believe in that sort of thing. There’s only one man who I think is worthy of spending any extended period of time with… and you’re not getting him! He’s ALL mine… 😉
Anyway… I figure that if a bloke’s not good enough for me to want to marry, then I wouldn’t try to palm him off onto any of my unsuspecting friends/loved ones. (Oh sure… there have been a couple of close calls… usually brought about by the consumption of copious amounts of beer/spirits/other compounds at the time. Luckily, none resulted in any permanant injury… so all was good in the end.)
So, rest assured that I will never do this to you… even though I am deleriously happy in my present relationship… not in a million years…
But if I DO happen to find any dry and sarcastically witty guys who can make me laugh out loud, has a fondness for cats, likes to get jiggy to Roxette and have at least some inkling of who George R. R. Martin is… I probably won’t be able to help but think of you.
If he owns a Vette and feels his life could be improved by an independant penis-envier… I’ll give you a call… 😉
Well I’m glad someone has some sense. And if you do come across that bloke, feel free to send him on! Although someone with that many similarities to me is most likely a nut job…oh well, we can breed little nut jobs I guess.
Insane-former-sister-in-law paired me up with Boyfriend. We’ve been together for…14 years?
PLEASE don’t gasp. Too many people have asked why we don’t move in or marry. We just don’t/haven’t. The time will come, as will yours. Until then enjoy – and hopefully after, enjoy as well!
High fives to you, Aubrey! Couples do get a lot of pressure to get engaged, married, buy houses together and breed. In the end it’s more important to do what makes the relationship work, rather than what people think you should be doing. Kudos!
Roxette cd! Chortle! I love this. And you. No really. If neither of us have met a decent man by 40…
In the end the ShamWOW is just a chamois. Much like a man, it promises so much and then doesn’t clean up anywhere near as much of the mess you were hoping it would. It stretches and goes pilly and becomes quite unattractive until it is just some thing that you have to keep clean and hide away in your linen press. Given it’s not doing anything good for you anymore… you really have to wonder, why bother?
Sorry to all the decent men out there, I’m going through a hating stage.
Yay, I have back up! I’ll bet if I announced I was gay then no one would try setting me up.
Maybe you shouldn’t be putting your men in the linen press though. I usually put mine in garbage bags and shove them in the crawl space.
People used to do this when I was single as well, and I got together with Mr V at 23. Why do they assume that you spend all your free time wandering about in a egg stained dressing gown dreaming of Mr Right turning up on the doorstep to fulfil your empty life? You know perfectly well that Mr Right will snore, steadfastly not replace the loo roll when uses the last of it, get drunk and throw up in your bathroom, row with you over the washing up and want to watch the football on your telly. What is so wrong with single? Mr v is fab but there are times, usually after a particularly shouty row or when he’s left grated cheese all over the bastard kitchen, when I’d gladly pay good money to be single…
This exactly. You may find find someone that fits you to a tee and makes you want to spend the rest of your life with them – but there’ll always be times when they annoy the living daylights out of you and make you want to kick them. There’s a certain peace in not caring about anyone enough to let them get under your skin. And I just realised that makes me sound like a stone cold biatch. :-s
Amen Sista!
Hey Rinny! Long time no hear. I can’t seem to subscribe to your blog. Is it private?
Hey Snowy
It’s an old one from aaaaages ago. Nothin’ to see. Hope you and Mrs Snowy are well!
Old one from ages ago. Yep, I can relate to that. Yes, we’re fine thanks. Hope you and yours are likewise.
Hi there stranger! “Nothin’ to see” is not going to cut it I’m afraid…blog blog blog. Peer pressure!
I think I love you Inga. Oh, hang on, no. I love my Tina
This happened to me in my early 20’s, not long after I’d recovered from a serious car accident (why that could be relevant I have no idea)…
Yep, even some guys hate this whole desperate and dateless label. Although I would have to agree that there are probably more blokes willing to chase a set-up for the chance of a root and some mother coddling.
At the risk of alienating myself from my fellow ‘blokes’, I can understand why my single and separated male friends are single and/or separated. They seriously have no clue as to why someone might be offended if it is assumed that because they are at home all day, they should be able to come home to find a spit-polished house, 2.6 clean and dressed cherubs, and a roast with four veg meal on the table alongside a tall bottle of stout. Then, after one has washed the dishes and listened to them describe their day at whatever workplace they are at, be given a roaring head-job at nights end.
Now, having said all that, I laughed my arse off Inga! I really can relate to your frustrations. I’ll tell you a story one day if we meet. It wouldn’t be kosher to discuss it in a comment :o)
mmmm…. I have a theory. The match-makers are often just trying to create their dream of a utopian relationship. Like, the one they wish they had, but didn’t get because they hooked up with that chick or bloke that their well-meaning rellies or friends thought was a great catch.
That’s an interesting theory Brad. I do think some people do it just out of kindness, because they decide I MUST be looking for someone if I’m single. That poor Inga, it must be better to be with ANYONE AT ALL than to come home to an empty house every day! *snort*
I agree that some men are single because they’re clueless dickheads…although the same goes for some women. Even this one, possibly.
I’ll have to hear that story! 🙂
Daughter2 is 29 and happily single also. And tired of people saying “you are so nice I don’t understand why you can’t get a boyfried”! Well, because hse doesn’t want to settle for any male thing. I so understand where you are coming from. Ignore or kneecap.
Thanks for the support FD, and pass on my high-fives to D2. I must say I lean towards ‘kneecap’.