Green-Eyed Monster

I don't bitch about being single a lot. And mostly, it's because I don't think about it all that much. There's a hierarchy to the things that occupy my mind, and lately it goes something like:
1. My own coursework (With a further hiearchy that goes something like "What do I absolutely have to do before tomorrow?" followed by "What do I have to do before the end of the week?" On a regular basis, I can't think any further ahead than that without getting overwhelmed)
2. My teaching
3. The basics of keeping my little household running ("What am I going to eat for dinner?" "What do I need to add to the grocery list?" "When do I need to order new
ear wash for the dog?" "Crap, rent is already due again!")
4. Long-term projects (Thoughts on potential dissertation topics, keeping track of calls for papers, beginning the oh-so-fun process of networking)
Scattered in amongst all these other things are the other basics: trying to keep up as much as possible with what my friends and family in other parts of the country are up to, trying to find time to socialize with my friends here, trying to just do things for myself, etc.

There's really not a lot of time to analyze my life because I'm too busy just getting through it. And most of the time this is a good thing. I'm happy with the choice that put me here and most days, even though I'm really busy, I wake up excited (or at least content) and I go to bed satisfied (or at least not feeling like a failure or a clod or something).

But the past week has been a bit much. I found out a few days ago that one of my good friends from college got engaged. I haven't talked to her much in the past year or so, but she sent out an e-mail telling everyone the big news, and I was excited for her. She's the sort of person that I figured would get engaged pretty quickly once she found a good guy (um, partially because she's one of those no-sex-until-marriage people). So when I got her news I was like, "Oh, good for her," and I went on with my life.
Until today, when I found out via Facebook that one of my best grad school friends just got engaged. Again, I'm really happy for her. She has been dating her boyfriend for a long time, and when I met her at this time last year she was already talking about how she knew they would be getting married. She actually spent quite a bit of time wondering aloud when she would get the ring, so I'm glad she's finally engaged.
But as happy as I am for her--for both of them--there's a part of me that can't help but think, "Seriously? Two of my friends can manage to get engaged in the same week and I can't even MEET a remotely interesting guy, much less go on a date with one?!" Like I said, it's just a bit much.
I don't have many single friends anymore. In fact, of the people I am closest to in my life, the only ones that are not currently in relationships are my brother (to my knowledge, anyway), Kiki, and my friend Jen. Every single one of my new friends here is either married or in a serious, long-term relationship. The only reason I don't constantly feel like a third wheel at social events is that a couple of the girls are in long-distance relationships so they're effectively alone, too, although not in the same way. My sister is in a long-term relationship. I apparently now have three friends that are engaged. I can think of at least three other friends off the top of my head that will likely make engagement announcements before the end of the school year (every time Maddi calls me, I expect her to tell me that she is engaged; she and her boyfriend have looked at rings and everything).
I know it's terrible, but there's a tiny part of me that is selfishly grateful that Kiki's brief foray into the dating pool last weekend didn't work out. I want her to have a good, long-lasting relationship. I really, really do. God knows she deserves that, and I shouldn't be selfish. Even though it didn't work out for me, I have at least experienced a healthy, long-lasting relationship (not to mention a long-lasting but perhaps not as healthy relationship) and she really hasn't. It's her turn and I know it. But there's a little part of me that hopes that maybe when it's her turn, it will be my turn again, too.* Because on the very rare occasions that I get truly down about being single, the best way to pull myself out of the funk is to remind myself that Kiki and Jen are amazing and they haven't gotten lucky yet, either.

I have to be pragmatic here. I realize that the average American woman gets married at 25. I realize that this means that it's perfectly reasonable that I'm reaching a stage in my life where I have more friends that are married/almost-married than friends that are single.
I realize that I have made many choices in life that have led me to this point where I'm in my mid-twenties and absolutely nowhere near marriage. I realize that I was scarily close to being one of those girls that gets married at 20, and even when I bitch about being single right now, I fundamentally know that I made the right choice when I opted out of the relationship that would have had me married with children by the age of 22. Even if that was the only chance at marriage that this lifetime is going to give me.
I'm even practical enough to realize that I could very well be moping about nothing. After all, I just said the average woman gets married at 25 (and that number gets higher all the time), which means that while half of women my age are married, the other half are not. So perhaps I'm just hanging out with the wrong people. Ha. Considering that 90% of people in this country eventually get married, and considering that I'm a friendly person without any weird socialization issues or emotional problems, and considering that even at my most critical I still consider myself a fairly attractive person, I think the odds are pretty good that I will eventually meet someone I like who likes me back. Most people would probably tell me that my moping and moaning is extremely premature, and most of the time I'm sensible enough to agree.

Also, when Kiki and I were talking on the phone after her dating debacle the other night and she was kind of depressed, I said, "Well, really, what's the worst case scenario?" and she pulled a Miranda and said, "I'll be sad and lonely for the rest of my life and when I die my face will be eaten by my cat before anyone knows I'm dead." But what I was trying to point out is that the worst possible scenario is that we'll spend the rest of our lives "alone". And what's so terribly bad about that?
I'm really not kidding when I say that I would be okay spending the rest of my life on my own. I'm self-sufficient, I'm great at entertaining myself, I have a lot of things in my life that fulfill me. Really, if the worst thing that ever happens in my life is that I never get married, I'm going to consider myself pretty damn lucky.

But seriously, I think two engagement announcements in one week is enough for a while. In fact, I'm going to say that that officially fills my Engaged Friends Quota for 2007, so if you're one of my girlfriends who has been ring shopping, you'd better tell your guy to save the actual proposal until January.

*On the flip side, as much as I would like to find my way into a relationship, I don't really want it to happen for me and not for Kiki. That would kind of suck.