The Relationship Black Hole

You will all be familiar with the situation. I've written about it before. It's frustrating but unavoidable. And here is the bottom line; your once single (and freely available) gal pal meets a boy.

All of sudden, sometimes over night, she's not so readily available. It is essential to book her up for a drink ('Three weeks on Wednesday?' She has his Uncle Richards 50th BBQ to attend this weekend, the following he's whisking her away to Bath). Sometimes her old favorite hang outs are no longer as desirable with her as they once were. Even when you do manage to drag her away from her boy (and his bed) her favorite topic of conversation is, in fact, him. 

I've experienced this first hand just this week. Twice this past week, with two separate gal pals, I have been squeezed in before boyfriend time. It's not like I even had to do the maths, I was told out right; 'Boyfriends at the gym until 8, he told me to poodle around the area and wait for him but I thought I'd meet you for a drink'. Obviously I was only told this once we had met up and ordered our first round of cocktails. This conversation was not a part of the arrangement texts. If it had been would I have been so readily available? I'm not sure.

There are two things that irritate me most about this. 

Firstly, it appears as if your once best bud who was there for you (and let's not forget, you for her), at the end of the phone, night or day to hear the latest will-he-or-wont-he-text debacle, is actually no longer bothered. She no longer wants to be involved in the exchange of boy-bipolar stories (but of course she doesn't, she doesn't actually have any of her own) .

The second thing that concerns me is this; who's going to be there for your single pal to pick up the (fallout/argument/breakup) pieces? The single pal, that's who! Mr Boyfriend will be out pissed with his mates somewhere whilst the single chicks re-group with wine, chocolate and more wine (oh, and tissues. Lots of them). 

This natural evolution of the single gal friendship is a fairly controversial topic. Every single girl (including me) runs the risk of behaving this way when she meets a boy and she will naturally expect her still single pals to be as understanding as she was with the rest of them. It obviously goes without saying that first and foremost we are pleased and happy for our newly monogamist friend, but just like mother hen we don't want to let them go either. We want to hold on to the memory's, the fun times, the ridiculous drunken stories. Not lose our pal altogether into the new relationship black hole.

I will keep you posted.


P.S.
Read my previous rant The Disappearing Singleton