Went out on the town once again. P and A’s engagement party was today, which I wasn’t invited to because I’m not in the wedding party, but Ben is, so that’s what they did this afternoon. P wore a sweatshirt that said BRIDE. Tonight the bars were popping and a 21 year old frat boy hit on me and I had incredibly stilted awkward sober conversation with him and everyone was like “Omgggg 👀 shoot your shot 👀 get his number 👀” and I stiffly said “I won’t be doing that. He is twenty-one. I am done with younger guys after last year.”

And then we went to a second bar at which I blacked out and removed my actual shirt last week. Which is why I am punishing myself with no alcohol this weekend, more out of latent Catholicism and concern about remaining welcome at said bar than any real concern about my relationship with alcohol. I miscalculated last weekend, but I also embarrassed myself, and I am too old to be making silly mistakes that a lot of people get out of their systems when they’re much younger. Moderation. This is Moderation

Anyway we played pool and P leaned over to me and said “That tall hot bearded man at the other pool table is checking you out” and nothing came of that and there was a DJ and the vibe was great and there were just enough people for it to feel lively without the bar being impossible to navigate. And I felt so dead and kept having to do the little dance around the table and avoid running into anyone, especially Ben, whose eye contact I realized I was staunchly avoiding, because he is Paired Up now, even though I have lived twelve thousand lifetimes and basically am a completely different person since I last saw him. Something incredibly puritan in the boring sense of the term took over me. I wanted to act normal, but did the having-a-crush dance of not really knowing how to get out of someone’s way when they are trying to play pool. Which I really, really wasn’t wanting to do! But the pool table seemed like the only safe activity. I couldn’t dance. I couldn’t sit at the bar. I talked to his girlfriend, and I looked for her earring on the floor of the ladies’ room. I spent a lot of time with my arms crossed staring at the pool table. When sleepier members of our party left, I made my exit. If I’d had a few drinks it would’ve been such a good vibe; I would’ve been dancing; I probably could’ve found someone to make out with. The crowd is so variable! Sometimes there’s nobody there, and sometimes there’s everybody.

I think enjoying oneself and dancing a little without the use of alcohol is probably a good skill to cultivate even if one does not have the goal of staunch abstinence from drinking. As much as I felt like a wet blanket, I do also think bars are spaces I’ve mostly navigated under some influence, so of course I was disoriented and emotionally tender. Pavlov. I was the only single person present in the friend group; this is a group of people a handful of years older than I, and they gave a valiant effort, through their twenties, to cling on to their friendships and social lives and Dionysian party habits, in some reduced manner, as a matter of principle. But—one of the twins is engaged and the other is married with a second child on the way—it’s no longer avoidable that they lead drastically different lifestyles from me. They have to be up early for work. Their families live locally and are involved in their lives. They see their in-laws more often than their old coworkers from their job five years ago (That’s me!).

Tldr could’ve used a drink!!!!

Was getting all self-pitying in the grocery store because they didn't have individual lemons, only big bags of lemons, and I was like "This isn't fair! I'm single! I don't have a whole family to feed! These lemons will go bad before I can finish them!" and then I remembered what a great thing it is to not have a whole family to feed and what an awesome privilege I have being born at a time where I can grow up and be independent and not be forced into reliance on someone else and I don't have a legion of angry annoying mouths to feed at home. Any inconvenience I face on account of being single is a sort of noble burden I am willing to shoulder in honor of all the women who came before me whose domestic labor was never ending and went unthanked