The Single Slice

There are times when a single person is forgotten and left by the curb.

There’s the dinners out with all the couples that they eventually forget to invite you to.  There’s the Sunday brunches around the kitchen table while you are scraping the remnants of last nights mascara out from under your eyes under the harsh flourescents of your bathroom mirror lights.  Then it’s the camping trip away for the weekend in their two-by-two pup tents while you shiver in a sleeping bag without someone’s warm body to suck heat out of snuggle with.

You know you are done when everyone in your group is sharing jokes and canoodling at concerts and being like the animals on the Ark and pairing up and setting off and leaving you on the dock.

Alone.

But possibly one of the worst abandonments of a single person is when a couple becomes a triple.  Yep, the moment that a third little person enters their lives, a single friends friendship is tested, and rarely does it make it through.

Photo Credit: Getty Images – Purestock

Now the important thing to realize is now that your friends have this huge adjustment to their lives and are completely pre-occupied in the world of the new baby, they have infinitely more important stuff on their minds.  You’ve gotta realize that they have far surpassed single shenanigans and even cute coupley crap.

But the most important thing is that you’ve got to remember that even though you might feel like you are six steps behind the learning curve on this whole “growing up thing” you are still worthy of their friendship and attention and inclusion.

I’ve gone down both paths with friends who had kids.  The path where all we do is hang out at their house watching bad TV dramas.  The path where you listen ad infinitum to their stories of poop diapers while you silently go to your happy place that somehow involves everything BUT bodily function.  The path where you relish in the time with your old friend, but not only is it not the same but it’s like you’ve become a dead branch on the tree that used to be their friendships.

Don’t get me wrong.  Being 30 and single I’ve gone through this transition more times than I can count on all my fingers and toes a few times over.  And I completely understand COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND that life has changed and you’ve gotta change with it.  But I’m still not sure how it came to be that the single population has to “give” 100% and the parenting world just wait for them to come.  They aren’t building a Field of Dreams, they’re just having kids, right?

Last I checked, somewhere deep inside, there still is that person that USED to be your friend.

But fortunately I’m also blessed to have friends who have lives that turned COMPLETELY UPSIDE DOWN when they had kids, and still managed to find time to fit me in somewhere amongst the rubble.  Like the couple that piled their baby into their Jeep stroller (PS – Best thing EVER to carry around all your junk!) and spent the day wandering around a town fair eating fried dough and french friends and watching firehose competitions.  It probably helps that their kid is so frickin’ cute I *might* just steal him away to Canada one of these days.

And then there’s my friend who is five years younger than me and still light years ahead.  She told me the night of her 24th birthday “I feel like this is going to be a big year for me.”  Sure enough, over the course of the next 12 months she met a boy, fell in love, moved in, got married, got pregnant, had a baby, moved to Washington D.C. and got a VISA to follow her military husband overseas with their new family.  When she came up for a week to visit earlier this month she adamently wanted to do something that would involve her son but still give us time to catch up, since we only see each other once (maybe twice) a year.

Insert Greenlight Studio, the coolest place for parents to meet up with other parents (or even their single kid-tolerant friends!)  An indoor playplace with approximately 1 bajillion things for kids to do (it’s true, I counted) and more importantly a full coffee/smoothie/gelato/organic yummies bar with tables and couches and adult space to chat and catch up while your kids play house or color or dress-up or drive a Pirate ship.

I figure karma will probably catch up to me, and eventually when I have kids I’ll be eighty times worse than my worst of parent friend offenders.  Also, please be prepared for the fact that my kids will probably kick strangers in stores.  I don’t think I have a corner market on parenting, I’m fully aware of the terrors and challenges and complete unknowns in store.

But I also implore you coupling and tripling up folks to just remember us little single people.  Once upon a time you liked hanging out with us.  And we thought you were pretty swell, too.

Let’s not forget that?  Ok?  And I promise, I’ll try to restrain myself from stealing your kid away to Canada.

Do you have friends who’ve made the leap and now are bringing up baby?  How do you cope?  Any good activities or compromises you’ve found?