All the single ladies

Regardless of what statuses my girlfriends end up having, I will be their biggest cheerleaders, supporting them in whichever phase of life they’re in and on whichever path they choose to travel.

By TAMAR CASPI SHNALL
dating rollercoaster 521 (photo credit: Courtesy)
dating rollercoaster 521
(photo credit: Courtesy)
As a homage to my single life, my girlfriends (both married and single) and I were planning to do a flash mob dance at my wedding. As soon as Beyonce’s hit song Single Ladies started playing, we were all going to stop what we were doing and start the choreographed dance routine from the music video. I think we only got about three steps in before we started doubling over with laughter and the DJ smoothly parlayed into the bouquet toss.
Besides being cute, I thought the flash mob would be a good way to bond all the ladies together before singling out the singles for the big throwdown.
After all, the chorus is all about telling a guy to “put a ring on it,” and I really loved being the one who could symbolically pass the baton to one of my friends to be next down the aisle.
There was one single lady in particular who I was hoping would catch the bouquet: my girlfriend Laurel.
Laurel, who’s turning 30 in just a few weeks, brought her boyfriend of a year with her to the wedding. Gil is perfect for her, they’re perfect together and the timing is perfect. In fact, I’m not sure why they’re not engaged yet. Part of me wanted to walk right up to her and hand her my bouquet so that he’d get the hint and get moving. I suppose that might have been a little forward of me. The thing is, I know he’s going to propose eventually. He knows he’s going to propose, too. But when? A girl could go crazy waiting, especially when she knows she’s with her beshert! But at least Laurel has met her beshert and is in a committed relationship with him. Julie came to the wedding solo, and I’m sad to say I had predicted ahead of time that she wasn’t going to meet anyone there, beshert or not. I was correct. My husband has a lot of single guy friends, but she’s not their type and all of my single guy friends are people Julie already knows.
Unfortunately I do not look back fondly on the weddings I attended when I was single, so I hoped I had planned a wedding that singles could leave feeling differently. I advised the DJ not to play too many slow songs and to keep the dance floor packed and upbeat. I mixed up the seating arrangements so that couples and singles sat together and no one felt singled out. Alas, no matter how much fun a wedding is, it’s still a reminder to singles that they’re just that: single.
I can’t let that get me down. I was single for long enough, traversed the rocky terrain of Internet dating, blind dates, singles events and so forth until I found my beshert, and now that I have, I am going to celebrate. But it’s tough for me to stop thinking about Julie, Laurel and the rest of my single friends. Odds are that at least one of my girlfriends whom I love dearly is never going to find her beshert, while more than a few will likely end up divorced.
During the wedding process, I actually employed one of the tactics I’d used as a singleton: to enjoy each day, each detail and not look too far ahead. Now I’m enjoying the honeymoon stage and trying to stretch it out to last far past the first year. This is the time I get to enjoy being in love and having everyone around me celebrate that love. But I’m not selfish; I want to spread that love, and I want my girlfriends to have what I have. I want to take Gil ring shopping and hijack Julie’s JDate account. What I don’t want to do is to adopt an elitist, holier-than-thou, I’m-married-now-and-know-everything attitude and make my girlfriends feel worse about still being single. Rather, I hope my new faith-in-love attitude is infectious and reinvigorates them on their journey.
What I won’t tell them is what I’ve recently realized through my honeymoon haze: Marriage is more difficult than dating. It’s true, but no one wants to hear that. When you’re single and wondering if you will ever find your beshert, the last thing you want to be told is that life will actually get more difficult instead of less.
That said, I don’t ever want to go back to being single, which is exactly why I’m not going to burst my single girlfriends’ bubbles. The grass is always greener on the other side? Perhaps. But most people – single, married, even divorced – will tell you they prefer to have a partner by their side through whatever life throws at them.
Regardless of what statuses my girlfriends end up having, I will be their biggest cheerleaders, supporting them in whichever phase of life they’re in and on whichever path they choose to travel. I will dance to Single Ladies at their weddings to celebrate their marriage, or with them at the club to celebrate their independence.