Is Everyone Coupled Up?

Last spring, one of my best friends joined The Apps. I told her they were weird, hard, and required a surplus of patience; but they were rewarding sometimes. (Extreme emphasis on the sometimes.) Plus, I thought it would be fun to exchange stories about the strange compliments we received and the characters we’d end up on dates with. A month later, she met her current boyfriend on Hinge. I, someone who’s been titled a serial dater by friends, was left exactly where I started. Alone with no prospects.

A small, uncharitable part of me wanted him to be terrible. I wanted the vindication of meeting him and thinking, sure, she has a boyfriend, but he isn’t good. We could all have a boyfriend. I met him and he proved me so incredibly wrong. He was kind and so clearly right for her in a way I’ll probably end up describing at their wedding. Even their names are perfect. Both one syllable, same first letter. Hallmark movie perfect.

It was the weekend of Valentine’s Day when she asked me to get drinks with the two of them. I hesitated. I didn’t want a pity invite because now we fell into two distinct categories: the happily coupled and the bitter single. A year ago, we shared a place in the latter category, talking about how much Valentine’s Day sucked and joking that someone should smash our phones so we don’t have to see love paraded in front of us all day.

I asked her if I would be intruding, saying that I wouldn’t take it personally if she wanted to spend the night with her boyfriend. Nevertheless, she insisted. “I want to spend the night with my two favorite people,” she said so earnestly that I had no other choice but to believe her.

When you spend an evening with a couple that’s artificially perfect, too perfect, you feel smug afterwards. You have a hunch that the second you part ways, they’ll begin arguing after playing the Too Sweet Perfect Couple in a way that’s convincing to most — just never me. As you climb into bed, you imagine they bicker the moment they close their front door, all of their bubbling tension from the night overflowing. My friend and her boyfriend were the genuine perfect couple. There was no inkling of resentment or buried frustration. They asked questions and listened to me as I spoke. I knew, as I crawled into bed that night, there would be no fight awaiting them. And the fact that it was a good evening made me feel worse than if it had been a bad one.

What frustrates me is I know I could have a boyfriend if I wanted one. A perfectly nice, totally mundane, dull, forgettable boyfriend who makes me feel absolutely nothing at all; in fact, I’ve ended things for this exact reason. I could join the coupled and bring along some tall, boring accessory; and yet I’d prefer to be alone than feel nothing and conform to a standard I feel like I should be meeting.

We all think of ourselves as someone people would be lucky to have. Yet the men who make me laugh always have one foot out the door, and the ones who want me feel like placeholders that I can’t bring myself to choose. The ones I’m genuinely interested in seem to see me in the way I view the others: a dull accessory they’d rather do without. It makes me wonder what that says about me.

We always tell ourselves it’s timing — a remedy we repeat like Advil for a headache. Timing aligns earlier for others, but that doesn’t mean it’s late for us. Carrie Bradshaw didn’t even begin her decade-long situationship with Mr. Big until she entered her thirties. Sometimes I worry I’ve been single for so long that I’ve forgotten how to be in a relationship altogether. Would it feel like how it did years ago? Even though, the first time, I had nothing to compare it to. Would I do better? Would I do worse?

I stopped believing in God before I’ll stop believing in soulmates. I think it’s because I’ve had a taste of moments with people I’ve mistaken for my soulmate and it’s so sickly sweet — like biting into a cupcake piled high with buttercream. In those moments, you forget the sadness of heartbreak’s past. You silently thank the boy who broke your heart for the first time, the one you romanticized until you convinced yourself it could become something more. It is so sweet until it ends in a stomach ache. It makes me wonder what it’ll actually be like when I do find my soulmate. Will I feel different? Will I know it immediately? Will it feel different from everything that came before?

Even if everyone is coupled up now — Trader Joe’s on Valentine’s Day surely made it seem that way — I’d rather be by myself. Because there’s nothing lonelier than being in unwanted company.

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