A day before New Year's Eve, I attended a close friend's wedding. This is a friend who, at this time last year, had proclaimed that she didn't think she ever wanted to be married.

We had a powwow over dinner at a jazz café in Houston and declared that we would be perpetual bachelorettes.

She got engaged the following May.

Of course, she'd been dating her husband since they were in high school, if not before then.
I, on the other hand, can't seem to maintain attention for someone for more than a year. My longest relationship to date has been for three years — off and on and mostly off. And though I've dated some really great guys, only two have ever broken up with me. Go ahead, point the finger.

Anyway, as I watched my most ideologically linked marriage dissident sashay down the aisle, I scanned the room and noticed how thin the single ranks had become among our quarter-life friends.

I admit that I felt a little bout of desperation set in; I started thinking about exes who I'd let go. The fated countdown until I turn 30 began in my head (I don't know why that's such a benchmark, especially among most women. But now with 40 being the new 20, I keep telling myself I'm only like 7 years old. Which, come to think of it, presents some very disturbing scenarios).
 
But the desperation was brief; during the reception, I bonded with several friends who I hadn't seen in years and found that we were all in the same boat. Not only were we not married, we didn't have any prospects. Nor were we terribly excited about the idea of getting hitched.

We made a game of it, trying to guess who was “next to bite the dust,” as one friend, who had taken one too many trips to the open bar, coined it. We came to the conclusion that all of our friends who had actually been dating anyone seriously, or at all, had already tied the knot.

And amid the laughter, the humorous bitterness, the recollections and the resolutions, I realized just how fun being single is. Sometimes we get so caught up in what others expect of us, and the stamp of achievement, if you will, that marriage can sometimes imply, that we forget that we can plan trips to exotic places and flirt with exotic men or women and juggle as many dates as we damned well please.

Capitalizing on this newfound empowerment, a group of us started a club loosely named “Single and Ready to Mingle.” We plan on traveling together, holding each other to our resolutions and just being supportive; as many perks as there are to being single, feeling lonely often does us in and can make us feel worthless.

Oh, and by the way, I sat out the bouquet toss. Again.