Thoughts about staying single

I wrote this over a year ago, before me and the ex met and all the other shit I've been writing about the past 3 months (in an Owen Wilson voice from Wedding Crashers, "Whatever")

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Over the past six or seven years, most of my high school chums have been engaged, married, divorced, re-married, had children or come out of the closet that everybody knew they were hiding in.

Last week, one of the three guys from our group that hasn’t yet married, I being one of the three, asked his lady to be his wife and she said yes. Later that evening, he asked myself and the other "Not-yet-married-guy" when we were going to settle down and find the happiness that the rest of our "crew" had found.

The other guy told us that he has been thinking about asking his girl to marry him. Newly engaged guy and soon to be engaged guy slapped hands in mid-air and smiled to one another. They then turned to me, waiting for my answer.

I sipped my beer, shrugged my shoulders and told ‘em both that I would be perfectly comfortable being the only non-married guy in our group.

Newly engaged guy asked why?

I stood momentarily still, pondering the query that had just been delivered to me. Again, I sipped my beer and after I had removed my pint from the lip, I began to speak.

"You see friends, I consider myself single as an un-married man. Sure, I date some women from time to time, but nothing that can be labeled with that "serious relationship" tag. And I try to keep it that way for a many different reason. First off, when I put on "that" shirt, I will have nobody standing before me asking if I’m ‘truly going to wear ‘that’ shirt with ‘those’ pants?’. It’s much easier to dress myself as a single man. When you married blokes call me next summer to see if I can stop by some Saturday morning to help you paint your house, I can say that I might be there, and if I do show up, it will be late because I was out the night before painting the town. When you guys worry about the weeds that are growing in your wives gardens out back of your homes, I’ll be worried about the weeds I’m rolling. Still having the ability to see my paycheck will be a pretty nice thing too. There is something about waking up to the same face every morning for the rest of my life that scares the shit out of me. When I decide to go to a strip club with my single friends, it wont have to be a ‘secret mission’. I like to drive, and as a single man I will never have a driving instructor riding with me wherever I go. Instead of getting married, buying a house in the Suburbs and having 2.7 children, I’ll have a half million more dollars to buy grocery’s with. But most importantly.....I wont have a mother-in-law."

They both just stood there. Without movement. Without words. Staring at me like they had just watched the Devil dance through the room. They both stayed this way until recently engaged guys fiancee yelled down into the basement to notify him that it was time to go look at hotels for his future in-laws to stay at the night of their wedding.

I sipped my beer and smiled.