What We Tell Our Single Friends

We tell our single friends we can't go out tonight
Because one of us has work tomorrow
And, yes, we go in on Saturdays now
Adults work on Saturdays
Especially ambitious adults
Adults who do not want to be living in the worst part of town
After the age of thirty
Because at a certain point you have to grow-up
And part of that means getting a career, not just a job
And a career means a lot of those things
And one of those things is
You work on Saturdays
Yes, yes you do

We tell our single friends about things we're planning
Big things, huge improvements to our lives
Houses we're going to buy
And how we're going to furnish those houses
And kids--Oh my God, kids
So many kids
Smart kids, too
Gifted kids
Kids with reading levels in the stratosphere
Who will play violin
And play sports--but only if they want to play sports
And if they're gay, that's great
We'd love to have gay kids
Because we're progressive, liberal
We'd probably smoke pot with our kids
But we'll still parent very well
So that they turn out great
But don't hate us either
We'll have those kids
And we'll raise them in a big house
Sort of close to the city, but sort of not
And we'll have puppies and kittens
And one of our kids
Probably the littlest one, who might be a boy
And might be named Joshua
And might wear a backwards baseball cap on his head
He'll have a lizard, an iguana, named Sam, or something
And everything about our fucking life
Will be adorable and envious

What we tell our single friends
And is that we never miss being single
Not the late nights out
Not the one night stands
Not the thrill of the chase
Or the feeling you get
When you're looking across a room
At a total stranger who you really want to see naked
And they walk over to you
And start talking
And you think
Wow, I am a
Badass

We say we don't miss that
And that nothing about our life now bores us
Or upsets us, or seems...wanting
Less than what we expected

We know they know we're full of shit
But we leave them to guessing which part of our lives
We don't like, and we tell ourselves
It's a fun little game
They must enjoy playing

We tell our single friends
About all the restaurants we go to
The restaurants we still want to try
The places we travel to
The places we're going to travel to
And oh, we're going to take a class together
Learn something together
And then pick our new furniture for the living room
In the new house

The plans, the plans, the plans

And what are the real plans?

Projected resentment?
Potential mid-life crises?
Alcoholism and depression and baldness and menopause
All lingering on the horizon
Like an opposing army
Ready to fire upon us?

But at least we'll have all those new rooms
To furnish

Every time we start to fight
We fight, of course we fight
We fight more than we fuck
If there was a fighting/fucking see-saw
The poor kid on the fucking side
Wouldn't be having all that much fun
Let me tell you

But we're going to have the house
And the kids
And the pets
And the vacations

Oh, and we'll have pictures
So many picture
Do you want to see the pictures?
We'll have pictures
Of
Everything

We also, apparently, have amnesia
Because we've forgotten
Everything we thought about people in relationships
Back when we were single

Mainly that nobody gives a shit
About the fucking pictures

We tell our single friends we don't miss the things we gave up
The hobbies, the friends, the passions we once--

We say we don't miss them
And then we change the subject

And we hope they haven't realized
That the best way to tell
If somebody has just lied
Is to see how much time goes by
Between what they just said
And a change of subject

We don't our single friends that we fight
But we don't tell them we don't fight either
And in that way, we don't really feel like liars
Although it is, uh, sort of odd
That our friends are people we're supposed to confide in
And yet fighting with our spouses
A part of married life that everybody knows exists
Yet nobody really talks about
Until year thirty-seven, when it's acceptable
And expected
When you're allowed to become comedic old curmudgeons
Who hate each other
Like characters on a bad CBS sitcom
But until then
Everything's perfect
And we'd admit to cheating
Before we'd admit to fighting with each other
Even to our closest friends
People who are practically family

We...

The truth is...

We don't tell our single friends much

Niceties
Chatter
Banal details of our banal lives
Because the only interesting things that happen
Tend to be things that dent
The pristine image
We work so hard to impose

So, no
We don't tell them much

We don't tell them much
At all