My longest relationship has been with commitment phobia. But I seriously do think I could get married if I could do it with a month-to-month lease. And if all gay people were also allowed to do it. While being single is generally a wonderful cornucopia of exciting joys and odors, intermittently waking up to find a crime scene of googled exes on my laptop from the night before is not an indication of spiritual alignment.
For better or for worse, I did recently get engaged. By changing my Facebook status to "engaged." Did you know that all you have to do to be validated by the entire world is just get engaged? Suddenly people think you're worthwhile because you're marriage material. People have been writing the nicest comments -- "He's a lucky guy, you're so smart and cool!" One guy private messaged me to say he's always wanted to hook up with me and now wonders if it's too late. It's more attention than I've gotten in all of my miserable life. It's exhilarating and fantastic! There's only one problem: I'm not engaged. Don't even have a boyfriend.
Here's how it happened: I just innocently changed my status to "engaged" one night on a wine whim, thinking it was no big deal, thinking it was the equivalent to "in an open relationship" or "swinger." The reason I thought it was no big deal is because the night before I had changed my status to "single" which elicited no response whatsoever, nary a like.
So I change it to engaged, forget all about it and fall asleep. In the morning, I have 500 comments and 5000 likes and now everyone thinks I'm engaged. Now I don't know what to do. If I tell them I lied on my status that makes me a jerk. My friend suggested I create a fake profile for my fake fiancé linking him back to me via Facebook's handy "engaged to Melinda Hill" feature. Maintaining something like that might qualify a person as insane.
Maybe I could marry one of my exes, they weren't so bad. Millions of people marry all kinds of hot messes every day. Maybe I could just suck it up like they did in the 50s before we got all these wacky ideas about deserving happiness. Or unexpected death is completely plausible. "The reason you haven't met my fiancé is because he recently passed away." My friend Zach has offered to actually marry me and get photographed in wedding & honeymoon gear for the cause -- he thinks it'll be fun and he doesn't even need a green card. He IS sweet and photogenic, two wonderful qualities for a fake fiancé to have.
Suddenly becoming engaged has become an urgent priority. Everywhere I go people are congratulating me. The news has spread like a plague of wild bouquets. My close friends know the truth about the situation but with acquaintances, I find it's just easier to tell them what they want to hear than to deal with their disappointment.
"I heard you're engaged! Who's the guy? How did he propose?"
"Well... he rented out a silent movie theater and then came on screen as the actor and proposed to me! Then the lights came up and there he was kneeling with a beautiful ring -- (it's being cleaned right now -- you know how antiques are) and I was like 'What? Yes!' Then he goes, 'I have another surprise for you outside!' and I'm like 'What?' So, we walk outside and he has this hot air balloon waiting and we jump in it and drift over the city sipping champagne..." (This little tidbit has the exact sort of over the top wow factor I've come to expect from my fake fiancé.)
What I've noticed is that when a gal announces her engagement on Facebook, it's celebrated like the beginning of an era while a guy's engagement is treated like the end of an era. These are the kinds of comments guys wrote on my guy friend's engagement status:
"I give it a year."
"I wash my hands of this."
"Who's the ball and chain?"
"Strip club bus tour!"
The way guys and gals approach the actual wedding is so different it's like they're planning two different events as well. Girls will say things like "this year's all about the wedding" while for guys it seems to be about cramming their penises into as many last minute holes as they can before they have to settle on one person's hole(s) for the rest of their lives.
All of this has helped me to decide that I do want to go ahead and go through with the actual wedding. I'll let you know who the guy is as soon as I meet him but for now I'm just going to take that first baby step and change my status back to single. I don't know how people will react but I do know that statistically speaking, five out ten fake engagements end up in divorce.
***Quiz
1) Do you ever accidentally get engaged on Facebook?
2) If you do accidentally get engaged on Facebook do you tell people it was a simple mistake while you were in a blackout or do you instead frantically scramble to get a fiancé in order to save face on Facebook?
3) Has your longest relationship been with commitment phobia?
4) Do you occasionally make night visits to your exes in the Google graveyard and wake up feeling haunted?
***If you answered yes to any of these you may be a dysfunctional dater.
Dysfunctional Dates of the week:
Creator, writer, producer of ABC's hit comedy "How to Live with Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life)" Claudia Lonow (@ClaudiaLonow): "I dated a ventriloquist who'd throw his voice from my unmentionables. #DD"
Writer Duncan Birmingham (@Duncanbirm): "I wanted my date to think I was a good cook who entertained a lot. Dinner went well until I realized I only own 1 fork so we had to share. #DD"
Stephanie Gutierrez (@stephaniesits) "I was trying to be cute & fell down a flight of stairs. We ended up in the ER to fix the hole in my mouth where my teeth had gone through. #DD"
Jill Bartlett co-writer of DOGHOUSE from VUGURU Studios starring Mary Lynn Rajskub (@bartlett_jilly) "Went home w/ a guy to meet his folks-dad left the room quickly. I had to use the bathroom, door was half open- there was dad- tossing off. #DD"
Profesh model & actor Kurt Collins (@Kurtcollins on twitter & instagram): "Had sex w/ a girl @ a sushi place (Miyagi) after hours & passed out. Woke up @ 7am & set the alarm off, kicked the door open & left the girl. #DD"
Comedian Erikka Innes (@Nerdgirlcomedy) "A guy apologized for trying to grope me on our first meeting, it happened cuz he has diabetes, could he have a 2nd chance. #DD"
***To have your worst/ oddest/ most dysfunctional dates featured in this column just email or tweet them @melindahill with hashtag #DD, under 140 characters (twitter length) please.
Photo credit: JamesAllen.com