The Prowl: The Singleton's Wedding Dilemma
Yet another friend of mine this week became engaged. This will be my second engagement party so far this summer, on top of two weddings. I can only imagine what next summer will be like given that the wedding scheduling has been on a steady upward tick since college graduation. While I am enormously happy for all of them, they are bankrupting me and making me incredibly socially anxious. Allow me to elaborate.
The money issue is not entirely my primary concern, although at the rate things are going I might have to seriously rethink how much I value some of my friends. After engagement presents, shower presents, wedding presents, plane tickets, hotel rooms, and then wedding-related activities (because the wedding is never enough, no, it must be a destination weekend), my bank account is clearly suffering. In a few years they will all start having babies and I will then need to get them baby presents too. This culture of gift-giving as an obligation (because it is a wedding and you don't want to ruin that) on a stingy-DC salary is becoming too much. Seriously.
My primary concern though is the age-old question of whether or not to bring a date. This is where I am struggling and I do so in a specific context. Ordinarily, I would say that unless there is a very significant other in the picture, bringing a date could be a little weird and send the wrong signal to all of your friends and family. There is already nothing worse than the bride aiming her bouquet at you out of a sense of pity, but then to add in some random friend who came for moral support would simply confuse the issue. Plus, again, if attending a wedding makes you consider selling your kidney, throwing a wedding might force this even more so. Adding an extra body who is not really the bride or groom's closest friend seems somewhat selfish.
The next wedding I must attend however is very small. The bride is one of my oldest friends from when we both were in ballet class together as little girls. While we have remained friends, I never really associated with any of her other friends and thus at the engagement party knew only the bride-to-be's parents and brother. I suppose as a lobbyist I should have some sort of social grace when it comes to meeting new people as I network for a living, although apparently not. I am thinking that reinforcements might be required to make this whole affair a little less awkward.
The problem then is having decided that I think I need a date, who? There is not exactly an obvious candidate waiting in the wings who would want to travel to my hometown and go to a very small and intimate wedding with me. The investment banker and I remain on good terms and still see each other on occasion but if he was rattled by a weekend visit, a wedding seems far outside his comfort zone. Then of course there is a cadre of other ex-boyfriends, some of them from the area who may be more amenable, but just asking one of them is something that does not overwhelmingly thrill me as I am fairly certain all would be thoroughly weirded out by the concept. I am also not about to pull a Hollywood-style stunt and audition potential escorts to this thing and do not want to RSVP for a plus-one with the hopes that one will miraculously appear. Maybe it really will be better just to go alone?
I suppose in conclusion I am open to suggestions as I suspect I am either being a huge baby or over-thinking this, or both. Alternatively, if you are free Labor Day Weekend ...