As supportive a friend we can convince ourselves to be, the bottom line is, it gets exhausting to keep the facade up. Sooner or later it comes out, whether through a drunk text or an embarassing wedding speech.
Recently, my roommate got back together with her boyfriend off and on of five years. What’s hilarious is that she didn’t have to tell me…I had already figured it out by the powers of deduction. I felt conflicted about it. One, because I knew she wanted to talk about it, and as the ‘supportive friend’ I would have to pretend like I cared. Two, because I didn’t really give a shit, and I was tired of being the ‘supportive friend.’
What do I mean by ‘supportive friend?’ Well, as a single person, whenever your friends decide to settle down and become monogamous, regardless of how you feel about how it will change the relationship you have with them, despite how you may feel about their new love interest, it is your duty to laugh and smile, and squeal in delight that they have found love and are happy. Which sometimes, is easy to do, when you mean it. When you don’t, it’s exhausting, having to pretend that this is such an amazing thing to happen.
When it came to my roommate, I wouldn’t say I wasn’t happy for her. I mean, it is an incredible feeling to meet the one you want to be with forever at 19. People go through their whole lives waiting to feel that. However, I’ve heard this story before. As I said, they have broken up three times already, so I’ve already been through this rollercoaster, and I wasn’t ready to get back on anytime soon.
You know what’s really hard about being the supportive friend? I will admit this to you readers, because I try to keep it real with you guys. I try to keep it real with myself, but I’d never admit this out loud. Sometime, it’s really hard to be supportive, because you wish it was you. You get tired of celebrating everyone else’s happiness, while still waiting for your own. I think at times… I envied the fact that no matter what happened, no matter how many times they broke up, they always came back together. They can’t help it; they love each other. No matter how dysfunctional their relationship is, one has to admit, to be loved like that….it is indescribable.
How does one even deal with the supportive friend conundrum? Personally, I rely on my other ‘supportive friend singles’ to deal. Only other single people really understand the struggles that comes with being single. I’ve been noticing that more and more lately. Like, my homegirl and I used to make fun of the fact that on Valentine’s Day, girls who were coupled off would always have some shit to say about how all singles are lonely on this day. To highlight this, they would post 97 pictures of all of the super cool awesome presents their boo’s had gotten them. Pathetic right? Except that now that she is taken, here she is talking shit about single people and posting 98 pictures of all her super cool awesome gifts. The taken always forget that they once were single.
Although V-day was a few weeks ago, and I neglected to write about it earlier, I would have to say that it was my best V-day as a single. YES it is possible people! Not only was I not ‘lonely’ or ‘bitter’, I had a fantastic night with two of my college girlfriends. we went to this really amazing bar, had free champagne, went to this nauseatingly bad singles mixer, where everyone was chubby and smelly, and ended the evening singing ‘Love was Made for Me and You’ on the train with a few gay guys. It was awesome. So take that, happy couples!
Being a supportive friend all the time is hard. Sometimes, being single is hard. But honestly, having really dope friends to listen is what makes it all okay in the end.
