Another one bites the dust

This might come as a surprise, but there was a time when my social life didn't revolve around characters on Bravo's reality shows. I used to have friends. Real, 3D ones. Quite a few, actually.

I lost all my girlfriends to the Bermuda triangle of marriage, children and mortgages. But I still had my tripod: an unholy trinity of my two closest guy friends. We'd get together and put the world to right. There wasn't anything we couldn't talk about. There wasn't anything we agreed on. Our verbal Wimbledon was impossible for anyone else to follow. I loved us.

Then one of them slept with the other one's ex-girlfriend. Even I'm familiar enough with the BroDe (Geddit? Bro+code!) of Honour to know you just don't do that. So that was the end of that one.

Now I've had to share the custody of them. One on Friday and the other one on Saturday. Every other Wednesday and major holidays. We've yet to reach a settlement on the Premiership games. 

I met the other one a couple of days ago. Completely out of the blue he told me he and his girlfriend are adding to the family. They've been living together for a while now but I was still surprised to see the nesting had gone that far. "Dog or a cat?" I asked. An awkward silence ensued. And it sunk in. They're having a baby. I've just lost another one. 

I didn't even know they were trying. According to him guys don't really talk about that kind of things. And apparently that's not the only thing guys don't talk about... I knew he was serious about the girlfriend, so for a while now I've been pestering him into proposing to her. He on the other hand "doesn't see the point of marriage". Oh, where have we heard those words before!

But now he revealed that he already has. 4 months into the relationship. Like, almost 2 years ago. I was baffled. "But you've never been bothered about marriage!" I said. "I knew you wanted kids one day but you never wanted to marry!" And before he could see the ambush he was walking into he just smiled. "She just ticked all the boxes. Crossed all the T's. Dotted all the I's."

A man who, even in his 40s, doesn't believe in marriage can be convinced into the exact opposite in just 4 months. Simply because "she's the one." 

All this time I've been waiting for something. Something to help me move on; to make me stop hoping that one day The Man will stand at  my door, having finally changed his mind. I think I've finally got that something. 

That's not going to happen. He's not going to come. I just didn't tick his boxes. I just really wasn't the one.