Random Thoughts

I am Ted

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• Posted on January 9, 2006

That’s me, Ted, right there. Okay, I am not literally Ted. But in the context of this post, I am. Here’s the rundown. I love the show "How I Met Your Mother". I think it is funny and a lot of fun, plus it has some good characters that are great. At least I thought that was why I liked it. Then tonight’s episode came on. It started out and I knew from that moment that it was me on the screen. The episode is called "The Wedding". Ted, the main character, is a single guy who is constantly looking for love. Even though he has two sides of friends that he hangs out with. There are the friends who are about to get married and have been in this relationship for a long time and simply seem to be together. Then there is the other side that really isn’t looking for anything special, but are having a good time just dating and playing the field. Then there is Ted in between that is determined that there is his one person out there somewhere that is made for him. So, okay, fine, nothing special. But tonight’s episode kind of brought it home for me. You see, the wedding episode started with Ted sitting down with an invitation to a wedding and having to decide whether to check the "guest" section of the invitation or not. Here is the quote from the beginning of the show.

"When you’re single, and your friends start to get married, every wedding invitation presents a strange moment of self-evaluation. Will you be bringing a guest or will you be attending alone. What it’s really asking is, ‘Where do you see yourself in 3 months?’ Sitting next to your girlfriend or hitting on a bridesmaid?"

I have been there many times in the past couple of years. And not once
have I checked yes. It has always been the single guy card I have
played. And not for any certain reason really. It is just that, let’s say I don’t have the best track record really with the ladies. I tend to pick either unavailable women, or find faults in the ones that open up to me. And I feel that things like weddings and holidays and events like that are big deals. That event will be immortalized for as long as we live, and possibly even outlive us.  And because of that, I don’t want to bring someone to a wedding that my friends will all be asking me about a month later and I will have to explain why we aren’t dating anymore. That is not something that I enjoy in the slightest. I really don’t know why that strikes such a chord with me, but it does.
So back to the show. He brings up a valid point. For a single person at the point where all of the people your age that you have been around for so long are getting married, it is a big deal to go to weddings. I mean, in high school, it wasn’t a big deal to go to a wedding alone or whatever because people knew that you were too young for anything really serious to come from the relationship that you were in at the time. And so it was no big deal for you to go to the wedding single or with someone. But as you get a little older and the people that are getting married are no longer friends of the family, or older cousins or anything in that range. But instead, the ones getting married are the people that you have known for so long and enjoyed hanging out with. They are now married for the rest of their lives to this one person. Whenever you talk about one, the other is attached to them. Sometimes it works out great and the person is a lot of fun and you end up becoming good friends with them as well. But there are also those times where people get married and you no longer see them anymore or when you do, they are in a submissive mode because the husband or wife has reigned them in so that they don’t even seem like the same person anymore. I have seen both and the latter is not at all what I want to be a part of.
Sorry, I keep getting off track of the post’s original intention. Here is the deal. Another one of my friends is getting married in a few months, and I expect the dreaded question of whether I am bringing a guest or going it alone once again to be brought up very soon. I have never been a huge fan of weddings really. I mean, I sing at them fairly often and am honored at the chance to help my friends make this day special, and they are pretty events and whatnot. But they are also somewhat awkward. When you don’t have another person to share it with, it is kind of unfulfilling. There is no, "Oh, that looks nice", or "We should have done that", or "We should do that". Instead, there is the "So which friend was she talking about that she wanted to set me up with?", or "I wonder what we are eating afterwards", or "Boy, I hope that a few other people stay that I know so that I don’t have to sit and eat by myself." This is the difference between going alone, and having a plus one.
This is the way that Ted feels in the show, and the way that I feel with the end of the single life of each of my friends. I look at my life 2 or 3 months down the road and think, "Do I think I will find someone by then?", "Will I be sitting with the married couples while they talk about their plans for kids, or for the kids they already have?" I don’t know. It is a lot of pressure that I don’t enjoy. And again, with each of my friends who gets married, I see the singles table get smaller and smaller, and populated with kids who are younger and younger. So my only question is this. Where is my plus one?