“There were so many questions in life. You couldn’t ever have all the answers.”–Sarah Dessen
Why are you STILL single?
As if there is something wrong with me. As if there is something wrong with being single. Don’t you think that if I knew the pinpointed reason why I’m not cruising on the path toward marriage with a precious gem of a guy who likes to rub my feet underneath a blanket in Central Park on Sunday afternoon, I’d acknowledge it? I’d do something grand to fix it?
Maybe it’s because I eat with my fingers or talk about Obamacare on the first date.
Maybe it’s because the messages I receive on JDate all say something mildly absurd like: If you can talk as good as you look, we are a done deal—babe.”
You’re almost begging me to act all obnoxiously unbecoming and in distasteful amusement answer you with some ditzy remark like: Oh my gosh, I don’t know! The world must be conspiring against me. Or, I’ll go for the gold with: I like to keep my options open (hehehehe).
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Are you trying to give me a full on anxiety attack topped off with a little bit of acid reflux? This question always comes with lousy follow up questions like: Kids? A single-family house in Boynton Beach, Florida? Going back to school to learn something useful? Oh, please.
Is it so terrible that I can’t even tell you where I see myself say…this weekend? Because my answer to that would shockingly be similar to how I’d answer your jumbo size original question: at the beach, with an oversized bag of Doritos, flipping through the pages of a very overdue library book.
I’ll probably just tell you that in 5 years I’ll be famous, just so that I can watch you disappear into the shrill of your judgmental and displeased laughter all while I sip on my kale juice and excuse myself into a world where plans change as quickly as we change our underwear.
Can you get me a job?
I have had four different jobs since I graduated college three years ago and each one of them I had to get the good ol’ fashion way: following up with sending my resume in with countless phone calls, emails, and even barging my way into an oversized office building and begging the receptionist to give me 5 minutes of the hiring manager’s time. Just because I live in New York City doesn’t mean I have a little black book of contacts. Most people I know are one paycheck, or yell, away from their boss deciding to trade them in for a younger, less expensive version.
Do you want to meet my boyfriend’s–dog sitter’s–cousin? He’s recently single and though he’s not really my type, I think you might like him.
No, thanks.
Can we just be friends?
You once told me you were madly—I can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t even put on dress socks—in love with me and now, today, you’re propositioning me with the desire to place me in a compartment in your life as casual as you consider finger foods? I just don’t think that we can be anything, anymore.
Can I kiss you?
Just do it, please. And then when it’s over and your lips are done tingling and our eyes are finished canoodling and your heart has reckoned a normal pace to beat, do it again.
Just please don’t ask.
