All My Friends are Engaged by Glantz Jen

Author:Glantz, Jen [Glantz, Jen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HUMOR/Form/Essays
Publisher: Thought Catalog
Published: 2013-10-14T00:00:00+00:00

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I distinctly remember when I was a little girl, consumed with playing with pretty little Barbie dolls in neon pleather outfits and had a thirst for digging for worms in moist soil, my elders surrounding me, fingering the tips of my chlorine infested hair and telling me these exact instructions:

When you grow up, Jennifer, they said as they pinched my cheeks ever so tightly that it looked like I put on a little too much Estee Lauder blush, the boys will be knocking down your door.

Well here I am. I’m 25, soon to be 26, living in NYC, in an apartment with four sturdy walls and what do you know—a door! A door with a doorbell, for crying out loud, so if a nice charmer wanted to come over and had too many gifts to shower me with in his hands, he wouldn’t have to fumble around trying to knock, he could just ring the freaking doorbell.

It’s silent around here.

The only people who come knocking are delivery men, who know me, intimately, by the side dishes I order with my dumplings, and my non-gregarious neighbors who knock frantically to tell me to stop pretending I’m Jimmy Page by rocking out on the guitar at the measly hour of 2 AM.

If ever there was a time for a line to form, now would be it! What a grand location to even have a line. It could wrap around the peeling edges of mustard wallpaper and curve alongside the building, coming to a starving end right outside of the 2nd Avenue deli that I live above. What a deal–win my heart over and then we can go halves on a pastrami and rye sandwich.

The truth is, I’m sick of YOU complaining to ME that you’re single and I’m even more sick of ME complaining to ME that I’m single. I’m equally sick of convincing myself that if I spend all my free time watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians that somehow, someway, I’ll be putting myself out there in the universe and be attracting the attention of the male species.

The reason most of us are STILL single: Evaluate where you spend most of your time. Who you spend it with. What you do while you’re there. If your answers include: alone, with my girl-friends, at crowded bars talking in a closed circle, or watching Netflix in between your couch cushions, then there’s your answer.

There will come a day when you’ll find yourself buried underneath empty ice cream cartons and self pity that you’ll kick the wallowing bucket and allow yourself to realize if you want to change, if you want the boys to start knocking on your door, you have to find them, dazzle them, grab them by their sweaty thumbs and teach them how to knock. You have to, as my ballroom dancing teacher once tried to teach me how to do: grab a hold of a partner and mirror their lead.

A little over 8 months ago, I was twirling around the city thinking I had a grip on being single.

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