…act like you're ungrateful if you're not interested in someone they fixed you up with. I can't tell you how many times I've heard this phrase: "Maybe you're being too picky." Ahem, last I checked, your husband wasn't 40 and still living with a roommate—like that guy from your gym who you swear is my "soulmate."
…say "we" this and "we" that. (Hello: "We're" not pregnant—you are!)
…don't seem to remember how exhausting (and lonely!) it is to be single. I'm constantly having to explain to my married friends why I'm not necessarily "so lucky!" to be able to waste an entire day reading.
__…sometimes treat their husbands like little kids who've tied their shoelaces for the vewy first time: __ "Joe just got a raise. I know he'd really appreciate it if you e-mailed him to say, Congratulations!'"
…always leave early on girls' night out. "Well, I should probably get home to Matt," they say, the minute we finish dessert. But what about drinks? Dancing? Where's the love?
…have the things we (most of us) want: a built-in support system, a set of ridiculously expensive mixing bowls, on-demand sex with a guy who has no choice but to stay the night. I could go on, but maybe it's time for married women to have their say…
TEAM MARRIED
REPRESENTED BY JULIE KLAM
Having been with my husband for more than eight years, it would be easy for me to forget the plight of the single woman—that is, if I hadn't spent most of my life being the singlest single girl around. A typical Saturday night used to find me outside the hottest bars in Manhattan…in my sweats…walking my dog. Yet this does not stop my friend Dorothy, with whom I once spent New Year's Eve at an ice cream parlor, from reminding me that I "have no idea what it's like to be out there." But I do! And having been both single and married, I like to think I have a fair perspective on my unattached friends. I love them but do get the tiniest bit tired of their "singler than thou" attitude toward us married folk. For example:
Single women…
…act as if somehow the fact that we got married means our life is perfect. It's not. In fact, just this morning, when my honey brought me breakfast in bed, he used the Irish linen napkin, which he knows abrades my face. Kidding. I'm kidding.
…get mad if you do something simply because your husband prefers it. For instance, my husband is horribly allergic to perfume, so as a courtesy I don't wear it. When I told my single friend Veronica this, she rolled her eyes and said, "Hasn't he ever heard of Claritin?"
…constantly ask us to set them up with an eligible bachelor. Then, when we do, we have to hear how ineligible he was. They say that anyone's fine, even a George Costanza type, but what they really mean is that they'd go out with Jason Alexander himself, with his Seinfeld millions and bicoastal abodes.
