When All Your Friends Are Dating, And You're So Not

[BeeNee]

I remember this one particular moment in college where all my friends and I went out to the movies and dinner afterwards. The movie was great, we were all laughing and talking during and after it. When we got to the restaurant, however, we were such a big group that we had to slide a few tables and chairs together. As I was helping move and shuffle chairs, I realized after a few seconds that everyone had sat down. As couples. Together. And there were no more chairs left and literally no one was concerned that the odd woman out, me, had no seat at the apparent couples table. I had to walk off and go find a waiter to see if he could retrieve another chair.

Being the odd one out or the third wheel among your friends can make you feel lonely, angry, left out, like a bother, annoyed, jealous, or any other number of emotions because although you may very well be happy that all your friends are coupled up, it's hard to not notice that you aren't especially when everything they do is as a couple. The bright side is that your friends are your friends and I doubt you want them to just ditch you just because they are a couple or you ditch them. If you're in that situation, embrace it and work around it. It happens. In a perfect world, we'd all be coupled up at our choosing whenever we wanted to be, but life sometimes has other plans. Rather than sulk in it, it's best to accept it with a bit of humility and grace.

1. Accept your singledom with pride

Unlike your friends, you can go flirt with other people, you can dance with whomever you want, you don't have to call anyone and check in with them or up with them or in on them. You don't have to pay for anyone but yourself, you don't have to ask a date what they want to do, you can just do it. Embrace that. Yeah, things can get awkward from time to time, but be able to laugh at yourself in these situations. If all else fails, pick up your phone and become super involved in a text or game; that way you don't have to stare at the lovebirds making googly eyes all night.

2. Do avoid his/hers dates/events

Yes, your well meaning friends don't want you to be left out of things, and kudos to them, but there are just sometimes where the reality is, this is their date, and you really probably don't want to be there. Try to hang when the invite is a really public thing like a concert or big event where you can socialize with others rather then trying to get a word in edgewise in a love booth as they make-out or talk excitedly to only each other. If that fails, you can try bringing another friend along just so you will have someone to socialize with other than the couple(s).

3. Try to snag some alone time, with your friend(s)

Instead of ending up as the third wheel again, why don't you plan something and invite your friend or friends sans their dates. Make it clear it's a guys night or a girl's night so they don't bring their significant other or just invite your friend personally. If they ask to bring their SO, it may be time for you to...

4. Be honest about the situation

Your well meaning friends may not even be aware of how you're feeling when you're in full blown third wheel status. They keep inviting you because they want to hang out, but if it really is bothering you, talk to your friends and just let them know you love their company and their SO is cool and what not, but maybe you can do more #3 when they have a bit of free time.

5. Don't try to break it up, you'll fail

Do not become so bitter as to try to break up the couple or couples in question in some ill gotten plan to ensure you're all single again. This will blow up in your face. And how. You're not a friend at all if you think that's a great plan. Let the couples be couples and enjoy their relationships as you would hope when you are in one too, they will let you enjoy yours.

[Anonymous]

"If you aren't happy being single, you won't be happy in a relationship. Get your own life and love it first, then share it"

Honestly, in my experience, this is not true. Sometimes people have their life together and have everything else they want but they aren't happy because they can't get someone to share it all with. Once they are in a relationship they do become truly happy.

People like to say if you're unhappy being single you're unhappy about something else in your life too but that's not always true or even true most of the time. Sometimes people genuinely are only unhappy specifically only because they can't find a relationship.

[Anonymous]

This is a great myTake, well done! I've been single for years but it's never really bothered me that much and I don't mind when my friends are dating people. I just don't like when people change just because they get into a relationship and slack on the friendship. That gets annoying.

[vonasaurus]

yep, been there.

at one point, i was the only single person in my group of friends. as a result, i was excluded from most social events (which were all 'couple' things) and asked to babysit for my friends' kids while they went out. i felt really left out, and it sucked for a while.

thankfully, it was short-lived.

[Hopefuldreamer8]

This is basically the story of my life, especially when it comes to one of my friends. She is always in a relationship, and she always feels the need to display the PDA everywhere we go, and I get ignored. I was hoping she'd outgrow this because I always thought it was a teen/college kid thing but we're 30 and she is still like that. When I bring it up, she just says I am jealous which isn't it. I have no desire to do PDA all the time when my friends are around. When I invite friends to hang out, it's because I want to spend time with them. With her, she'll invite a bunch of people out but spend the entire time making out with her boyfriend. Once we ditched them because we got fed up with it, and she didn't talk to us for months over it. The two of them live together. They have plenty of time to be all over each other, but they don't really see us that often. Maybe once a month at the most because we have our own lives.

[BeeNee]

I don't know her, so this is me judging from the outside, but she seems a little self-absorbed. I don't want to sit down to eat and watch someone stick their tongue down someone's throat. This isn't that kind of movie, lol. I think you did the right thing, as long as you and your friends said it nicely, to let her know that it's making you uncomfortable and could we focus on us for a bit, but I guess she got in her feelings about it, but like you said, you guys have lives, and sound like you're mature enough not to let her actions absorb you.

[Browneye57]

Ya, pretty good. You do have to be your own person first. THEN you might have something worthwhile to bring to a relationship. A lot of people really enjoy their singleness - no one to hassle with. Until the right one comes along. And way too many people settle - and then are way more unhappy than if they had just not done that. People waste a lot of time on frivolous relationships. If it's not a match, then move on!

[Lynx122]

I have a girlfriend atm so I don't haveto worry about this stuff ^^. But for me I like to hang out with people and I make friends quickly but I'm also kind of introverted and am fine by myself. So when life splits me and my friends up I don't really make much of an effort to keep in touch I just make new friends wherever I am or just chill by myself , which is something I should work on I guess. There are a few people I still keepin touch with but only very few. But I'm ok ^^ I think I should work on my social skills lol, on my friendship kills ^^ But I'm fine atm :P

[Bluemax]

Anyone who even contemplates no. 5 is... selfish at best.

About, "If you aren't happy being single, you won't be happy in a relationship," I can't agree. I wasn't happy being single when I met my wife... and yet somehow she loved me and married me. Did I have a life? Yes. Was I happy about being single? No.

Is there any point at which a certain amount of sadness about being single is inevitable? Any point at all?

[BeeNee]

I think you may have misinterpreted that quote. It means exactly what it said in the rest of the quote which is if you have a life on your own and you're essentially not depending on a relationship to make you happy, then you open the door for a healthy relationship when it comes. We all know those persons who are single and super desperate, clingy, depressed, and needy because they don't have anything going on in their lives outside of their obsession with being coupled up. Having your own thing while single IS attractive to people. I think very few people want to date someone who is in it just for a Facebook status change.

[Bluemax]

No I am not misinterpreting it. If that meme means what it says in the second sentence, and only what it says in the second sentence, then why write the first sentence? Yes I get the part about not acting desperate and trying to have a good and happy life, but why write the first sentence in the first place?

The first sentence means exactly what it says, and I profoundly disagree with it. The second sentence means exactly what it says and I profoundly agree with it.

Furthermore, on Gag and in real life, I have encountered my share of people who believe that a person should be perfectly happy being single (and "perfectly" is an adverb that they added).

There was an idiot on Gag who was happily married and yet he went on to state explicitly that it didn't matter if it person never met someone to love. He stated that if people never met someone to share their life with they should still be perfectly happy.

[Bluemax]

Humans are hard-wired for contact and physical love we suffer when we don't get these things. To tell people who have never felt loved not to be sad is just kind of silly, and that is precisely what that first sentence is telling them.

Furthermore I have encountered plenty of people who have lots going on in their lives. They are not obsessed with a relationship and they do lots of fun activities. And yet they have never met anyone to love and they are very sad about that. I don't mean just a little dry spell they have been single longer than you have been alive. Again they do a lot of fun things with their lives. They are very interesting people. Yet they are still sad that they are single. In your opinion do you think that a certain amount of sadness is inevitable in their cases?

[Bluemax]

I've known plenty of people myself among them who were not happy being single and who still had happy relationships. How is this even possible if as the first sentence says you can't be in a happy relationship if you're not happy being single?

[BeeNee]

You are seriously laser focused on this quote. Reality is, married or single, there are no guarantees of happiness. Love doesn't happen for everyone, and even those that find love can ruin or have their marriages ruined by any number of factors. I doubt even while married you are happy all the time about everything related to marriage. No on in life, no matter their situation, is happy all the time. The same goes for any and all other emotions. Human beings fall on the range and we can be both happy and sad about something at the same time. I'm happy my cousin is going away to college, but I'm sad I'm going to miss him when he leaves. Doesn't change the fact that I'm still happy for him. A person may be happy being single for any number of reasons but sad that they have yet to find love. Doesn't mean they still aren't happy with other aspects of their lives.

[beaves11]

@BeeNee I am a skydiver, doing well in college and am one of the most social people out there. Everyone tells me how they like my company and my outspoken and outgoing nature. However I still will not be happy until I find my beauty queen, yes I have high standards on a girls mind and body, even if I did lose my hair to shock I still hold those standards high but I only need one.

The point is even otherwise successful people can not be happy alone. I don't care if I was meant to cure cancer and stop WW3 if I was without a girl I was attracted too for body and mind I wouldn't be content with that life. So to act as though everyone who values an attractive partner above everything never has any other good attributes is false.

[Bluemax]

Sorry, I forgot about this thread.

To be clear, I am not focused on that meme at the expense of the rest of the take. I read the whole thing. I understand it. I agree with it. I do not agree with the idea that one must be happy being single.
Of course you can be happy with other aspects in life while you're single. Indeed you should strive to be happy in other aspects. But to say that you need to be happy about being single is just silly.

I'm not sure how you construed anything I said to imply that relationships guarantee happiness, or that being single guarantees unhappiness. I never implied any such thing.

However, I will be very explicit and state that being single for prolonged periods (by that I mean decades) is a serious impediment to happiness. Does it guarantee unhappiness? Certainly not. Does a relationship guarantee happiness? Certainly not.

[Bluemax]

However, I have profound disagreements with people who believe that the cure for loneliness is to be happy being single. While I believe in the importance of trying your best to be happy in other aspects of your life, the cure for loneliness is to be with another person.

Because I was raised around people with disfigurements, I know people who have been single longer than you have been alive. And by single I mean never kissed. Never held hands. They have rewarding careers. They have lots of fascinating hobbies that they're passionate about. Some of them are OK that they're single. All of them started out OK with being single. Some of them still are. Most aren't OK with it, even if they have a lot going on otherwise.

I dislike running the risk of trivializing their unhappiness by telling them they need to be happy being single, especially when I'm a glaring example that you don't have to be happy being single to find a wife and be happy with being in love.

[Hidden_P]

I would have never let that happen. I would have been helping push together and if not enough chairs, sat on my boyfriends lap and offer mine. I would have gone and got one not left the single person to fend for themselves.

Horrible behaviour. Sorry I couldn't read more, that story annoyed me so much!! I'd never let anyone feel alone like that. Hell I would have offered my boyfriends lap as a perch if need be!!

[beaves11]

That quote, 'you can't be happy single then you won't be with someone' is a complete lie, if someone can't live with themselves and their ideals as a person yes they won't be happy in any aspect of life but plenty can live with who they are but simply don't find meaning alone or without a partner they are attracted too for body and mind. they will never be happy truly until they find that person and that's fine. Often times it's only those with someone who make that idiotic claim.

[TacosRAwesome]

There was a point of 3 years in my life where a particular group of girlfriends were all dating someone and I was the only single girl. We only used to meet for birthdays but it got a bit annoying at times, especially when they broke up with their then boyfriends and got a new one a couple months after and I was still single. :/
However for the worst is getting third wheeled by my own boyfriend.

[BeeNee]

How does that last bit happen?

[TacosRAwesome]

Well his then best friend (a guy thank God) was single and he used to come out with us very often. They used to get chatty about guy stuff and I would be pretty much ignored.

[BeeNee]

Eesh, that does suck.

[kambo_trick3y]

The fuck kinda friends is that to let you stay the odd person out and not even care? I woulda left right then and there. I'm way too prideful to put up with that shit.

[LoloWaye]

That's what I'm saying!!

[BeHappyCloud]

Lol I wonder if it looks extra bad for a girl to be too prideful and leave?

[Anonymous]

I was single for years and I usually avoided going on such "group" dates. I either went out with my single friends or I went out with my coupled friends without their partners. It worked well for me as I didn't like the feeling of being the third wheel.

[rafflesia]

omg this is what im always going though infact im going through this currently.
im in a never ending hell of this :/ everyone i know are dating and the guy i liked had a 2 girl crush and didn't pick he picks the other girl whos younger... what
an epic fail

[martyfellow]

Good advice. Especially about accepting yourself. Look at the freedom you have, for example. Think of how you are free to meet all kinds of other people, while they are generally pretty restricted from that.

[LoloWaye]

Good Take! I'm always the single friend and it definitely sucks from time to time.

[kitty71]

Me too im always the single one that is the one main reason that I hardly go out at all andn I stay most of the time at home, cause most of people I know are either married with kids, single with partners and it su Ck S

[Tiger023]

He baby what are you looking here for baby

[AnnieZheng]

i often suffered this ^_^" , but I don't care... because we all friends and could dance with the girls and boys

[Silver158]

The thing I find amusing is watching how their habits change when they go from single to taken. They go from going out all the time to "Just come over". and if they do go out they tend to sit in a dark corner of the bar/club whereas before they would be up and moving around.

[PunkinPie]

I know this feeling well. It used to not bother me but now it really does. I hate to admit it but I avoid couples-type outings now. Especially at my age.

[Leos123]

Try when all your friends are now getting married. One by one. And you're still not there :P

[BeeNee]

Been there, been all the bridesmaids, done that, most are divorcing now. Sometimes the grass isn't always greener on the other side.

[Leos123]

LMAO. But nah... I don't think they will. I'm not bothered though. I'm confident with my singleness and freedom. It's a choice that not everyone can do. Yeah I still crave for intimacy but at the end of the day, I know I can't maintain one.

What bother me is when people left and right keep on asking me same questions over and over again. Much to my annoyance, If I can only tell them to leave me alone.

What bothers me is when people keep on bothering me. Much to my annoyance. If only I can say "Leave me alone". I hate weddings.

[mostwomenshouldstfu]

If they're all slutting it up swapping partners, don't worry about it. Life is going to make them miserable. If they are in genuine committed lifelong relationships, don't worry, your time will come as long as you are not a slut yourself

[sundressgal]

Lol wait are you saying if these "friends" aren't in "lifelong relationships" that that makes them sluts? Sorry dude this is 2017 people can just date without being miserable and slutty. Most people don't find their soul mate in the first guy they date lol.

[mostwomenshouldstfu]

@sundressgal Who said you can't date and not be a slut? And I'm not your dude. You aren't my "bro", that's reserved for men. Do you have a cock between your legs?

[mostwomenshouldstfu]

@sundressgal And by the way, no, they can't sleep around and not be miserable. Biology and statistics say otherwise. Wake the f*** up.

[sundressgal]

Lol okkaaayy then ✌️

[mostwomenshouldstfu]

@sundressgal I hate girls who flash piece signs. You're not a dude, quit acting like it. It's gross.

[mostwomenshouldstfu]

*peace

[sundressgal]

🖕 This any better? 😘

[mostwomenshouldstfu]

@sundressgal You're not tough, little girl. IF you were a dude, you would have been laid out multiple times with a mouth like that. You want a rellationship, act like a respectable lady and close your f***ing legs. No one sheds tears for sluts, they just don't.

[sundressgal]

You must be really fun at parties

[YourFutureEx]

This take is going to help me on 14th Feb.
Mobile phones ruined point #3

[Teenagekid16]

In all honesty the only thing that sucks about your friends dating is involuntarily being the third wheel. Like when you're hanging out with your friend and all of a sudden his girlfriend shows up outta nowhere.