Happy Woman MagazineFRIENDSWHENUFINDMAN

Est. 2000 (A.D.)

What To Do With All Those "Friends" Once You've Caught A Man

By Sarah W. Szucs

They call you in the middle of the night. They look at you with hungry eyes and slumping posture. They are pathetic. They are your friends. You, however, have been kissed by the arrow of cupid - and walk hand in hand with the handsomely strong man whom you love. Can't your friends be friends enough to see that you are too much in love to be bothered with their pettiness? What in this great green earth could be the motivation for these hangers on? A true friend would not keep interrupting your romantic bliss to remind you of the horrors of being single with phone calls to go places and do things. What for? You aren't shopping anymore. After a while it becomes obvious - they are after your man. You think perhaps you should throw them a bone and fix them up with one of your man's friends. But what if that romantic relationship soured? Then they would only blame you and it could put an awkward strain on your friendship. Worse yet, what if their relationship lasted longer than your present one? Then you'd be the dreary old maid haunting them all the time! Better put that idea to rest, now.

Sadly, friendship is work. And it is your unfortunate duty to have to socialize with your friends on occasion. But keep these singletons at arms length (see previous discussion "…it becomes obvious - they are after your man"). And, heaven forbid, should you ever be single again you will need comfortable shoulders to fall back on! Invest your time with them prudently - perhaps the time that your sweetheart has to work late or cannot canoodle with you for whatever reason..

Consider this precious time of yours as more "charity work" than social outing. Pretend that you are being called by a higher power to bestow the very strength and wisdom that helped you hog-tie cupid onto these waif-ish castoffs. Nod knowingly, and appropriately, as they tearfully confess another romantic failure to you. You are their pillar of strength and their beacon of hope. Holding you in such high regard, you can do no wrong in their eyes. Be blunt, and critical, as needed. That's what friends do.

And they certainly won't mind if throughout the evening you check in with your love of a lifetime with intimate cell phone calls and cutesy text messages. The poor single dear may need this time to dab those tears that have been clinging to her eyelashes for the previous forty minutes and perhaps even re-read an old tattered love note. While you're on the phone make sure you keep your own love life sizzling by speaking in baby talk and using affectionate pet names. Be sure to finish every conversation with something along the lines of how lucky you are to have found your soul mate because if you had to be single in today's market you'd want to kill yourself.

After a few hours of this hand holding you are free to flee back to your mate. Run like the wind before she finds more tissue. Once you are back in the arms of your man-passion, you feel in his trembling grip he has also visited the ghost of single hood past. Somehow this horror has rekindled your love with a determination to make this relationship work, no matter what. And best of all, you feel good that you have paid your "friendship dues" and won't need to see those single souls again for at least a few weeks. You'll see them much sooner, of course, if your relationship with "Mr. Poohbear" sours.