Black sheep

On Friday, my best male friend got engaged to his girlfriend of five years. My other close male friend became engaged a few months ago.

I'm happy for them... but I can't help feeling a little left behind too, like I'm losing a friend. My girlfriends got married in a wave that came a few years ago, and they're already in the baby-making stage, but it seemed I always had my guy friends to help me feel normal by comparison. Now the guys are getting married too. I realize that is a totally selfish feeling on my part.

Over lunch at Spring Street Natural on a slushy Saturday (snow, this early?), one of my girlfriends consoled me. "But you're totally satisfied. You have a fireman in L.A. who writes you every day, and a guy you sleep with here in New York, and probably a bunch of dates on top of that.Why do you need anything else?"

She was right of course, but I have so many decades of human culture baked into me that I can't shake the notion that Single Woman=Unwanted Woman. Look, I know that isn't the case with me, that it's a million times better to be single right now than to be married and divorced with kids and forever tied to any of the people I had feelings for in the past. I just haven't met the right person yet. That's what I tell myself.

Still, now that my best guy friend is getting married, some sort of alarm just went off inside. I can only hope our friendship doesn't change. That's probably what I'm most anxious about: I don't want to lose my friends just because I'm not following cultural norms at the moment. This isn't about me fearing not getting married and remaining alone. I like my life just fine, probably better than fine. It's a fear about all my friends getting married and leaving me alone.