Single all the way

This is a follow-up to my October 2 post, entitled "Single Bells."

When I was a kid, all of my classmates had the popular British Knights shoes. It was all about the British Knights back then. Mama was raising five kids at the time, and we couldn't afford to make me popular by buying the latest fad. All of the kids who had BKs went on and on about how happy they were with them and they'd all get together and whisper things about people who didn't have them. They'd interact with people who didn't have BKs with such haughty and condescending attitudes. I always felt like I was a piece of shit because I didn't have those damned shoes. I even remember a day during PE when one of the kickball team captains only picked people who had BKs. Kids can be so cruel!

I was so desperate to fit in that I sent a ton of postcards to Nickelodeon's hit game show, Double Dare, in hopes of getting on the show. All contestants on Double Dare were given complimentary pairs of British Knights. My friend Tamara would be my partner and we'd use a combination of my smarts and her physical abilities to win it big. We were never chosen.

Now I'm 27 and I find the same thing happening to me, but this time it's not hideous shoes that people are flaunting. It's the boyfriend. Now all my friends have boyfriends and I'm the single guy that they feel sorry for. Have you ever been the only single by choice person in a group of couples? To them, everything you say is a sad cry for help resulting from months of solitude. There's no way for a single guy to explain it to anyone.

I also find that couples only like to spend time with other couples, and that's probably because it's hard to find a table that seats an odd number of people. It's just like in elementary school where all the BK kids hung out together, making everyone else feel stupid. They all mass together at parties they planned for couples to attend and they hold hands and think to themselves how fortunate they are to have reached a higher level of spiritual growth by finding their soul mate while others like me are fated to walk the earth alone and miserable.

Then I noticed a sudden rise in the number of couples appearing (seemingly out of nowhere) and realized that a lot of these pairings could be due to the Winter Boyfriend Scramble. It's when the media uses holiday advertisements to make people want to find boyfriends. Jewelry commercials, Gap ads, and even antiperspirant commercials target the single consumer to make him or her feel like being single means being pathetic.

Forget the Playstation 3 and the new elmo doll, because the boyfriend is the new must-have this year. Commercials that target singles show the magical moment when two lovers meet for the first time. They don't show every other morning in the couples' relationship where the dude is so tired of waking up next to the same man or woman for ten years, wishing he or she was ten pounds thinner and blond with a tighter ass.

And one final thought: Flirting with other people's boyfriends doesn't make you a whore. Having sex with your friend's father does. Being single and having casual sex with multiple hot dudes in rapid succession doesn't make someone a whore. Waking up at a gas station the next morning with one shoe and a mouth full of semen does. Any questions?!?!?