Once upon a time in a city not nearly as good as New York, I sat on my couch on a lonely Tuesday night. I was mostly watching the lights from the Christmas tree bounce on the shiny surfaces of the ornaments when my mind began to wander. I started thinking about how long it had been since I celebrated a holiday with a boyfriend (or girlfriend). While there had been no “Mr. Big” for me, there had been “Mr. I am old enough to be your dad and I am married”; “Mr. Let me splatter your heart all over Hell and back, oh and I am married, now I am not, now I am married to someone new”; “Ms. Let’s try the lesbian thing, oh wait I am moving away and hey! marrying a guy!”; and most recently “Mr. I am adorable and sexy and I want you, and oh yeah, I’m married.”
Then I let my mind scroll through all of the single guys I know. I began to wonder why it was that I had to beat married men off with a stick, but the single ones stayed far out of my reach. Was there something about me that screamed “Married men, ahoy!” while simultaneously screaming “Single guys beware!” And then I figured out what the problem was. With each and every single guy I know, I had been charged, tried, convicted, and been given a life without parole sentence of “friend.”
Apparently, in the mind of single men, there is a psychological prison to which I am sentenced. Once having been given the “friend” sentence, there is no reprieve. No hope for a commutation. No chance of escape. But why? Why am I the girl they “always have so much fun with,” or “don’t want to go to the party” if I won’t be there. If I am so fun, so great, why not pardon me from the friendship prison and release me into the free society of the dating pool?
Why am I the one they call when their most recent girlfriend, the illegal immigrant with a fetish for stealing from stores, people, even the boyfriend? Why do I get to listen as they count the many ways this particular woman drives them crazy (no motivation, no job, didn’t graduate high school, hacked his email account to see if he is cheating, wants to lay in is apartment playing video games all day, takes all his money, steals from his roommate, and won’t put out to boot)?
Instead of wondering what was wrong with them, I began to wonder what was wrong with me. Surely I was a better choice than kleptomaniacs and illegal immigrants, right? I am highly educated, loads of fun, can make people laugh until they actually pee just a little, have no proclivaties towards stealing, have never hacked an email account or otherwise for signs of infidelity…why am I not at least in the running for the position of girlfriend instead of chained and shackled in the friend prison?
Unlike Carrie Bradshaw, an epiphany did not strike me within a half hour time frame. I was only left to wonder if I needed to become a theiving bitch to attract a man. Has any woman ever successfully escaped the confines of Friend Prison? And someone has, why aren’t they helping the rest of us?
