Why can’t we just enjoy each other’s company without being preoccupied by the men in our lives?
As a married working mother of a two-year old, I look forward to girl's night all month long. Between meeting deadlines, packing lunches for daycare and trying to keep the house from looking like a toddler’s garage sale, friends have become this long lost luxury that I dream about, the way I used to think about a day at the spa, or a trip to Maui. Forget mani-pedis and vacations, just give me a big glass of wine and my best friends!
But for the last few months in a row, our girl’s night has been highjacked. This past Sunday the four of us gals went out to one of our favorite haunts, a wine bar downtown, and just as we’d decided on a medium-bodied Côtes du Rhones for the table, in walked a slim-bodied dude named Billy with a full-breasted blonde on his arm. As soon as she saw them, my friend Rachel fell apart. It turns out that Billy and Rachel went out on a couple of dates, he never called, and now we were finding out the reason why.
“Jerk!” We all chimed in and tried to comfort her, giving her the ‘plenty of fish in the sea’ speech and other tried and true clichés. The wine arrived and conversation flowed, but it kept coming back to bad-boy Billy because unfortunately he was seated within view. We moved Rachel so that her back was to him, but she was not getting past this.
Next was Lenée, one of the most beautiful, confident women I’ve ever known, whom I met in college in an architecture class. Half way through our second bottle of wine, she received a text from a guy she’s been seeing lately who doesn’t want commitment, but does want to text back and forth like a tenth grader all night considering booty call options. I was so surprised to see Lenée’s face fall tragically when she discovered he wasn’t going to meet her later that night. “Who cares about him?” I said playfully, “It’s not like you don’t have other options!” The other girls whole-heartedly agreed with me and we all clinked glasses, but Lenée seemed genuinely bummed. And Rachel wasn’t faring too well either.
Mary and I were at a loss as to how to comfort our friends, suddenly both feeling very married and out of the singles loop. Mary took the route of pumping up their sense of ‘it’s fun to be single’ by telling tales from the other side. She told them that she hadn’t had sex in like three weeks and Jim barely noticed her anymore. This had an adverse reaction though, eliciting pity from our single pals and making the whole scene even more pathetic than before.
I felt myself detaching from the whole scene, as if I were hovering above the table, and watching us like a science experiment. I couldn’t help but wonder, would men let this happen? Why can’t we just enjoy each other’s company without being preoccupied by the men in our lives?
Please comment if you’ve had a similar experience, or if you have any advice on how to get the fun back to our girl’s nights.
