Worlds apart

Single life and coupled life are both very interesting.

As a single girl, you have single friends and talk about sex and bad sex, guys and bad guys, date and bad dates. For the past few years, this has been the bulk of my existence.

Now that I'm in a relationship, I see this whole other world, the world of couples. It's a world where all of a sudden your couple-friends invite you over for dinner, and you begin attending parties with other couples. You go to shops that only couples seem to go to, shops that sell dog calendars and coasters and feng shui stools and minimalist keychain holders. And then you're invited to couples-outings. For example, a married couple invited us to go on a vacation with them. It's a whole new world.

And only now do I realize that there are two different worlds, because my former single life seems like a distinct segmant of my life. I recently noticed a growing distance between me and my single friends. Maybe we just have less in common now, given that we talked about boys 99.9% of the time. Or maybe it feels like the boyf takes up 99.9% of my time, if not my thoughts.

I also noticed that a few of my single friends have gone out without inviting me. When I was single, they'd shoot an email during the week asking if I wanted to see the new bar or club opening up and check out the 'market' there. We'd go and meet various socially retarded men and go on dates with them despite the red flags and complain about it the week thereafter. Rinse cycle and repeat.

Now I'm not invited so much. Granted, it could be because I'm not as fun as I used to be. But a part of me suspects that it's because I'm no longer on the market and wouldn't delight in the adventures of meeting suspiciously attractive sociopaths.

I do know that, the boyf notwithstanding, it's important to maintain one's girlfriendships. Because without the girls, where would we be? I think everyone goes through at least a couple emotionally traumatizing events in her/his life, and in the end, we each get through it with at least a little help and support from our friends.

I've seen too many times where a woman, once she snags a guy, will "disappear" on her gal pals. A year or two later, she breaks up with the guy and, only then, she realizes she has no friends. It's dangerous to bank one's entire social life on one guy. Even if she's happily married.

So my mandate to myself is this: I maintain and nurture my girlfriendships.

No matter which world I'm in.