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Act: A Fool, Take: Too Many…

October 1, 2008

5 (real) Reasons NOT To Go On a Date

October 1, 2008

Prom date theory revisited.

October 1, 2008

The other day my friend Chris said something that made me wonder slash freak out.

We were gchatting about our situations relative to those of our friends. Our dating situations aka the only situations people seem to want to talk to me about these days. (Pierson, I blame you for this).

Chris was saying how weird it was to him that all his close friends were involved in long-term relationships – relationships on their way to lock down.

I was saying – what?! Really?! All your friends? Wow. Not mine. Hhmm. Shit.

Chris and I are the same age. We both live in Manhattan but have friend groups here and in Boston – where we both went to school. So for all intents and purposes – we have the same friends: college educated, city-dwelling, fairly-motivated 25-year-olds.

Of his, 85% are in committed, long-term relationships. Of mine, eight. No, not 8% or even eight complete couples – just eight individual people. Some of them are dating each other so if you remove those it’s just six.

I wasn’t and am still not sure what to be more concerned about – that all Chris’s friends are taken or that not enough of mine are. Luckily I possess the ability to worry about multiple things at one time. (Mom, I blame you for this).

We’re at that age where it’s no longer way too young to be with the person you’re going to marry. While we haven’t hit, hurry up and find someone, anyone, it’s now legit for people to lock it down.

But why are some friend groups making the move and others staying mainly single?

I don’t know, but I have ideas in the form of bullet points (Katie, this one’s your fault).

  • Some entire groups of people are just more mature than others. It makes sense that people make friends with people who are most like them – so immature people would flock together and then collectively not be dating. While this is logical, my friends tend to land on the together side of life (most of them), so it doesn’t hold water here.
  • Chris is exaggerating and so am I. Chris doesn’t seem like he’s exaggerating because he didn’t use phrases like “a million and one of my friends are practically married” or “I have zero single friends”. That’s how you know. I am almost always exaggerating, but not in this case. I would never in a thousand years exaggerate about this, ever.
  • Prom date theory. One person nails down a date. Then another. Then a third. Suddenly everyone is a mad dash to get a date before all the good one’s run out and they’re ousted from the cool kids limo. Replace “the prom” with a lifetime of happiness and “the cool kids limo” with it’s really boring when all of your friends are dating and you’re not and voila.

I’m going with bullet #3. Then again, all my male friends recently participated in an organized competition called Man of the Year involving a series of physical, emotional, and drinking activities. So it could just be the maturity thing…

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