Your role in her big day is to pretend being coupled is inherently superior to being single. Help her let the smug smother the panic.
Published by Kyso Kisaen May 24th, 2008 in Wedding-big mistake or bad idea?, What would we do without such great advice?How fortuitous! I’m sitting here, single and waiting for my roommate to return my car so I can go get my hair done for my sister’s wedding, when MSN posts this helpful screed on working a wedding while single. Since my sister and mother let it be known before the wedding that my bringing a date was probably the 147th most important thing of the day (more important than the bridesmaid’s manicures, less important than teaching me how to walk so I don’t lurch down the aisle like a zombie bridesmaid) obviously I’m very concerned about how it will look to the rest of the wedding guests if I turn up single.
This is because weddings are all about the guests. Specifically the crazy ones.
As awkward as it is to attend a wedding with someone you’ve only just started seeing — there’s nothing like accidentally catching a bouquet to accelerate the normal relationship timetable by, say, two or three years — going to a reception all by your lonesome self is even worse.
That is not a reasonable statement in any language or situation. What the hell is wrong with MSN lifestyle contributors?
This prospect is so daunting, in fact, that most singles fall back on one of three strategies: a) taking along a brother or sister (or a platonic friend of the opposite sex) and hoping no one asks any questions; b) sadly nursing a triple scotch in the lounge while all the happy couples are out on the floor slow-dancing; or c) invoking the “family emergency” rule and not showing up at all.
or d) take along a foreign friend who wants to see what American weddings are like. Continue with original plan of hanging out with cousins and friends you haven’t seen in forever, you know, like a sane person.
So how does a single person get through a wedding reception solo without invoking pity or amusement from guests fortunate enough to belong to Club Wed? By beginning the creepy weeks in advance, that’s how.
Perhaps because the occasion evokes so much dread, most single wedding-goers show up at the reception without doing any homework. That’s a mistake, says Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone: “You don’t have to wait for the wedding day to make contact with the other guests. In fact, it might lessen your nerves if you reach out a couple weeks in advance.
And once you get there, introduce yourself to all your new friends and remind them that you’re desperate and they’re only good to you if they know lots of eligible guys:
“A wedding provides a smorgasbord of people to meet. Even if The One isn’t there, every new person you meet has a network of 200 other people they know. Say hello to everyone, and subtly let them know you’re available.”
You could do some retail therapy, guys and girls alike. Nothing, apparently, lifts a guy out of the woe-is-single-me doldrums like a snappy new cummerbund.
Splurge a little and pamper yourself with a few spa treatments, or buy a new dress and a new pair of shoes. Guys can get new cummerbunds. The result will be an instant mood lift.
That’s right, they regendered the shopping therapy line. And it’s ridiculous, which means that retail therapy advice aimed at women is also ridiculous. I do in fact have a new dress and shoes for this event, and there is exactly 0.0% chance that it will end up on the floor of the guy I want to fuck-he won’t even be there, plus so far my crush in unrequited - and my frippery is wasted on the eyes of a bunch of married guys and my sister’s friends. This to me is more depressing than wearing an outfit I already know and love.
“I only go to weddings alone if I know there will be lots of kids there,” says Carol from New York. “Then I have my playmates, and the other adults appreciate the attention their children are getting.”
Um, Ok. Ever try talking to adults? Some of them have jobs and travel, just like you and me. They won’t all want to spend the whole reception berating you for being unlovable. Only your inner monologue cares about you that much.
And if all else fails, remember, those bastards only want you to find love so that you can end up fat, disillusioned, and unhappy, just like them.
Take it from me: When you’re absorbed in a single, dismal, self-pitying frame of mind, it’s easy to lose sight of the icy stares, forced laughter, and under-the-breath bickering that transpire for many ostensibly “happy” couples during a deluxe evening. My own dateless wedding strategy is to pal it up as much as I can with the folks at my table. Then, when I’m in danger of feeling blue, I replay all those overheard insidious comments as I lean back in my chair, nurse my triple scotch and watch the slow dance. It may not be very nice, but it sure does work!
When you think of it like that, who wouldn’t envy the happy couple? Oh, god, why won’t one of these selfish bastards introduce me to someone so I can join the fun?
Aight, I got to go put this satin dress in a bag and make sure all of my formal underwear is ready to go. Later, all.
Good luck. I’ve got a wedding to go to next weekend, and fortunately, my family made it clear that me bringing a date along was about the least important thing possible. I plan to enjoy my single self.
Also, WTF with the last bit of advice there?! Who would be such a shallow, petty loser as to silently indulge in the misery of others while slowly getting wasted at a wedding?
MSN: By (mental) children, for (mental) children.
That’s the most effing bizarre thing I’ve ever read. I’ve actually attended more weddings as a single than as part of a couple. I was far from being the only single person there, and if anybody noticed or cared that we didn’t bring a guest, they hid it superwell. Like, they spent all their time pretending they were thinking about the BRIDE and GROOM, imagine! And when we all got out on the dance floor it was a big confused mishmash of fun. Who writes this stuff, cause I wanna make sure I avoid their wedding..?
Judging from the number of blog posts that exists on this topic, American weddings seem formal, boring and stiff. I used to live in NW-Wales (UK) and during the summer there would be at least one wedding per week in a little hotel/pub next to my work. From my observations as a regular in the pub the weddings seem to proceed like this: Get married quickly somewhere, proceed to the hotel restaurant for a quick dinner, and THEN to the pub and get everybody wasted as quickly as possible. The music was always 80’s pop hits, which made it even better. A colleague of mine confirmed that his wedding had been like that; only the nearest and dearest friends and relatives (27 people in total), and everybody was totally wasted within a couple of hours. I liked that attitude.
there’s nothing like accidentally catching a bouquet to accelerate the normal relationship timetable by, say, two or three years
Wow, if you feel the pressure to fulfill the “prophecy” of that superstition, I can only imagine what a horrible event opening a fortune cookie is for you.
I love how the whole thing ends. It’s hard to strike that balance, I guess, between riding some jealousy and actually convincing your audience that it’s pointless to even strive. That sentence about “happy” couples was so brutal that I’m seriously wondering why anyone who reads this is supposed to want to couple up.
I never really thought much about this until I read the article. To me, I only worry about having date if it’s a wedding where I don’t know anybody. If it’s a friend or family memeber I would rather go single so I can circulate and not worry about someone.
As for the couple thing, I don’t know very many people that are happily married and aware of it.
Just a thought.
Matt
http://www.idealcrap.com
I’ve been to some truly fantastic weddings, and some utterly horrible ones. My best friend’s wedding was lovely. She met her husband at an SCA-type event, so they were both in beautiful, comfortable, practical garb. The ceremony was about 15 minutes long, and performed by a friend of the couple. The reception lasted a very long time and was a joyful union of lots of people from very different cultures getting very drunk. Imagine drunken Iranian Jews dancing with drunken Lutheran fundamentalists to Israeli pop music.
Oh my! I totally forgot to be traumatized by all the wedding’s I’ve gone to without a date (pretty much all the weddings I’ve gone to I went as a single). I didn’t realize being surrounded by friends and family was meaningless without a guy in tow. Silly me.
Hell, both weddings I’ve gone stag to, I’ve gotten dates from!
Well, that was fun. I took a Mexican dude from my class, partly because he wanted to go and partly because it was fun to ask my sister if I could bring someone after she had already given the caterer the final count. Since the poor guy had to spend a couple hours hanging around during pictures, my dad went up to talk to him to be nice. By the time I was notified of this and went out to get them, Dad was explaining that he’s not against illegal immigrants because they take our jobs, it’s because of all those free services they’re getting.
Anyway, he wanted to see a typical American wedding, and my sister’s was by-the-book. He was disappointed, though, because he expected they’d skip out of a church and into a car with cans tied to the back bumper, just like in the movies. He feels somewhat cheated. Also, there was no rice throwing or bubble blowing.
It’s just not a wedding without bubbles
“Guys can buy new cummerbunds”? Do they know that a) No guy likes cummerbunds, and b) nobody ever has looked good in one?
retail therapy IS silly, and trying it on guys for a wedding it hilarious, since wqe’re expected to wear tuxedos- a outfit designed to make us all look the same so that the women will be more noticeable in THEIR outfits.
Not to mention that the vast majority of guys rent their formal clothes. Seriously, what American guy outside of George Clooney actually owns his own cummerbund?
My (admittedly Canadian) dad has three or four? With matching bow ties.
I think that if you’re a man or dressing in modern-male-gendered-formal-attire, you should really forgo the cummerbund and wear a nice waistcoat. A proper one, not one of those false-front affairs. You can get them with penguins, or something more restrained.
Much, much more elegant than a crumb-catching cummerbund (sorry, Dad!)
Zingerella, you’ve just made me want to get married so I can force the groomsmen to wear those penguins.
I’m glad I don’t have anyone to take to my sister’s wedding. I’m doing the photography, and they want candids, not posed stuff. So I’m going to wandering around taking pictures the whole time. It would be guilt-inducing for me and boring as hell for him if I brought a date.
Kyso: Srsly. Who wouldn’t almost want to get married, just for that?
Alas, I can’t think of many other occasions in which one might have the authority to compel a group of people to wear penguin waistcoats. Maybe I need to start an orchestra. Or a restaurant.