by Liz Tuccillo
And now…I don’t have the heart to tell her that I’m not really happy being single, and if you want to be someone’s girlfriend or wife, and you happen to be straight, you kind of do need a man, sorry, Mom, because then I know she’d worry. Mothers do not like to see their children sad. So I steer the conversation away from my love life and she doesn’t ask, both of us not wanting to reveal or know about any pesky unhappiness.
“Oh please,” Serena—who, among my friends has known me the longest—said. “It’s no mystery. You dated bad boys till your mid-thirties, and now that you’ve finally come to your senses, the good ones are all taken.”
Bingo.
My last boyfriend six years ago was the worst one of all. There are some guys you date who are so bad that when you tell the story about them, it reflects just as badly on you as it does on them. His name was Jeremy and we had been dating for two tumultuous years. He decided to break up with me by not showing up to my father’s funeral. I never heard from him after that.
Since then, no bad boys. But no great love, either.
Georgia weighed in on this subject of why I’m single on one particularly dark, lonely, regretful night.
“Oh for God’s sake, there’s no reason. It’s just totally fucked. You’re kind, you’re beautiful, you have the best hair in New York City.” (It’s really long and curly but never ever frizzy, and when I want to straighten it, it looks just as great. I have to admit, it’s my best feature.)
“You’re hot, you’re smart, you’re funny, and you are one of the finest people I know. You are perfect. Stop asking yourself that awful question because there is not one goddamn reason why the sexiest, nicest, most charming man in New York City isn’t madly in love with you right now.”
And that was why I loved Georgia. And that’s how this weekend I ended up spearheading an outing with my mismatched set of friends to make her feel like life was worth living. Because at the end of the day, it’s night. And in New York, if it’s night there’s nightlife, and when there’s life, as most optimists will be happy to tell you, there’s always hope. And I guess that’s a big part of how to be single. Hope. Friends. And making sure you get out of your damn apartment.
RULE 2
Don’t Be Crazy, No Matter How You Feel, Because It Just Makes Us All Look Bad
When you’re going out for a night on the town with the main goal being to make a friend stop threatening, however unconvincingly, to commit suicide, you must pick your locations carefully. Alice and I discussed this with the deliberation of generals planning a midnight air assault. The truth is, any night you go out, you must do your research thoroughly. Because a bad night out can be demoralizing even for the fit-test of us single women. So you must ask a lot of questions. How many men will there be to how many women? How expensive are the drinks? Is the music good? Is this the right night to be there? You have to take all these factors into consideration, and if need be, use graphs, diagrams, and a couple of well-placed phone calls to come up with the right plan of attack. In this case, the strategy was quite simple: places with tons of men. Because the one idea you don’t want anywhere near your newly single friend is the one concept that is so all-pervasive, so oppressive, that it will be the first thought any sensible woman will have when she realizes she is now officially single, and that is of course, There are no good men left. And then the next thought would be I’m going to be alone for the rest of my life.
Now, the big question of whether there really are no good guys left in New York City is something we could probably debate forever, but for now we will leave the reality of that up to the Census Bureau and the matchmaking services. What I’m concerned about, for this particular night, is the perception that there are tons and tons of handsome single men out there, literally falling out of the skies, out of trees, bumping into you on the street, wanting to have sex with you. So therefore, in Alice’s mind, where to have dinner was an easy choice. It had to be a steakhouse, and the biggest one there is. And that would be Peter Luger in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Now you may wonder what we are doing taking our newly single friend out to Brooklyn. Well, wake up, sleepy—where have you been? Brooklyn is the new Manhattan and Williamsburg is the new Lower East Side and Peter Luger serves so much red meat that you are guaranteed to find heaps of straight men there (or women beefing up for their next weight-lifting competition). Either way, that makes the odds pretty good for us, and that’s all I’m asking for. At a time like this, the perception of abundance is everything, not just with the thirty-eight-ounce steaks, but with the tons of straight men all sitting around large wooden tables in groups of eight and ten, devouring their meat like cavemen.
I don’t know if you have ever been responsible for getting people together and deciding where they go for an evening. But if you haven’t, let me tell you that it is a surprisingly nerve-racking experience. I say “surprisingly,” because if you’ve never been the one in charge, you’ll just be wondering why your normally relaxed friend asked you three times if you liked your tortellini. But if you’ve ever done it, you understand that even the most confident person turns into a jittery, insecure hostess, obsessed with every joke, eye roll, and aside made by her companions. And if it doesn’t go well, it will be seared into people’s minds as the night you took them out and they didn’t have fun.
Now, the key to having fun is, of course, a great mix of people. So let me remind you of what we’re dealing with here: Georgia, a newly single woman toying with the idea of a nervous breakdown; Ruby, who is still mourning the death of her cat; Serena, the girl in the nondairy wheat-free bubble; and Alice, who God bless her, though she may be working on a gastric ulcer from her dating schedule, is my only hope of getting through this in one piece.
You see, none of them know one another very well. They know each other from my various birthday parties throughout the years, but we are definitely not a gang. I met Alice at a spin class five years ago. I worked with Georgia until she left to raise her kids. Serena’s my best friend from college and Ruby and I bonded fifteen years ago at a horrific temp job, then we shared an apartment for three years after that. They are basically strangers to one another. In fact, I could safely say that Alice, Georgia, Serena, and Ruby don’t really care for each other that much, for no real reason except that none of them is really any of the others’ “types.” I always wanted a gaggle of girlfriends, always longed for a posse, my little family of friends, but it just didn’t work out that way. It would have been nice if at one job I was able to grab a whole bunch of them, like lobsters in a trap. But meeting a group of women who end up living in the same city, remaining friends, and sharing the most intimate moments of their lives is rare and wonderful and definitely something to pine for, or at least watch on television.
“Oh my God, it’s so cold, I should have worn a heavier coat. I hate October. October is the most annoying month because you never know how to dress,” said “no-body-fat” Serena.
We had decided to meet on Twenty-third and Eighth, and take a cab to Williamsburg together. Everyone seemed to be fairly upbeat, but I could already tell that Serena, who was so out of her element, was going to be the problem. Not that I wasn’t worried about Georgia, too, who was wearing a low-cut shirt and a miniskirt. Georgia is a gorgeous woman who can certainly pull this off. She’s a slim five seven, with long, light brown hair and bangs that are just a little too long in that way they’re supposed to be so they fall perfectly in front of her eyes. She has naturally bee-stung lips that many women would happily inject themselves for, and before the separation, used to always look effortlessly, carelessly hip. Now, however, it was October. And cold. And I could actually see her ass. We all piled into a cab and were on our way.
As Serena wondered aloud if there was going to be anything vegetarian to eat at this place, and Alice was barking orders at the cabdriver, I had an epiphany as to how this entire night might actually turn out okay. I realized there is a divine spirit looking out for us in this world. Because there’s
this thing called alcohol. And at that moment, alcohol seemed like such a good idea that I knew there must be a God who loved us enough to invent it.
When we entered Peter Luger Steak House it was just as my alcohol-creating God would have intended it: handsome, clearly employed men as far as the eye could see. The knot in my stomach relaxed. I knew that the first leg of the treasure hunt that is called “Running Around New York City Looking for Fun” was going to be a win for our team.
“Oh my God, I’m a genius,” Alice said proudly.
“Yay!” said Georgia.
“I love it here,” said Ruby.
“I know there’s not going to be one thing here that I can eat,” said Serena, as we walked past the multitudes of tables heaped with cooked animal flesh.
It’s a funny thing about peer pressure: it works at any age. While we were looking at the menus, Serena ordered a vodka tonic. Now that might not seem like much to you, but it was a momentous occasion in my book. And it came to be simply because my three friends, who didn’t know Serena at all, told her she should lighten up. And she got embarrassed. After the past three years of my begging her to try a mojito, it was as simple as that. She still ordered a plate of broccoli rabe for dinner, but you couldn’t deny that there was magic in the girl posse and it had already begun.
It’s always better when you have a purpose, whether in life or simply for a night out, and for this evening the goal was clear: Georgia needed to flirt with someone recklessly. And here we were, in the land of big steaks and bold moves. So as the red meat and alcohol began to flow, it was time to get into wacky-scheme mode.
Alice decided to approach the table adjacent to us, which, coincidentally, had five men at it.
“Hey guys, we’re trying to show our newly single friend a good time and thought it’d be fun to crash your table.”
Alice is fearless. Once you’ve had a few murderers lunge at you from across a table and try to choke you to death, walking up to a group of guys is a piece of cake. And because of Alice, there we were, moving our plates and silverware over to the table next to us and squeezing ourselves in very closely with a bunch of cute men. And Georgia, happily, was getting the lion’s share of the attention, like a bride-to-be at her bachelorette party. Nothing like putting your romantic stakes right out on the table to get people hopping, and this time she didn’t need to wear the plastic condom veil with matching penis earrings. I looked around the table and this is what I saw:
Georgia giggling like a schoolgirl.
Ruby giggling like a schoolgirl.
Serena giggling like a schoolgirl.
Alice giggling like a schoolgirl.
And, when I gave myself a moment to stop worrying if everyone was having a good time, I was giggling like a schoolgirl, too. And I thought, My God, we are pathetic creatures. We are lawyers and publicists and businesswomen and mothers with blow-dried hair and lipstick, all just waiting for the sun of male attention to shine down upon us and make us feel alive again.
They taught us drinking games, we made jokes about their ties. Ruby was talking to a man who seemed particularly enraptured with her and every one of the guys told Georgia that she was hot and she doesn’t have a thing to worry about. There was gold in that thar steakhouse.
“Oh my God, that was so much fun!” Georgia said, laughing, as we left the restaurant.
“I can’t believe I drank vodka!” Serena said, beaming.
“That guy I was talking to wants to come with us wherever we go next!” Ruby said, giggling. “Where are we going next?!”
Now, the thing about being responsible for people’s good time is that the stakes just keep getting higher and higher throughout the night, no matter what has happened the moment before. If dinner was a dud, then boy, you have to make up for it with a kick-ass bar or club to go to next. If dinner was really fun, which in this case it was, then you better not blow it by picking a place that brings the mood down. So I conferred again with my own personal Zagat, Alice. We were sticking with the theme “It’s raining men” so Alice made her decision quickly. We headed to “Sports,” a fancy sports bar with a clearly unimaginative name on the Upper West Side. Ruby and her new guy, Gary, took one cab and we piled into another. Not the cheapest taxi ride but what’s money when there’s five drunky girls trying to keep their buzz alive?
When we arrived, I knew immediately that this was a misstep. The problem with sports bars hits you immediately when you walk in: men really are there to watch sports. Because if they really had their sights set on going out to meet women—they wouldn’t go to a sports bar. Alice was thinking the same thing.
“We should go to the Flatiron instead.”
But Serena had already ordered another vodka and Georgia had walked up to the cutest guy in the place and was trying to talk to him. Unfortunately, there was a big Knicks basketball game on—which I don’t understand since it was preseason and the Knicks aren’t involved in “big” basketball games anymore. Anyway, Georgia was able to grab his attention during a commercial break and she was using those four minutes to get in as much flirting as possible.
Ruby was talking to Gary, who had clearly fallen in love with her and wanted to be with her forever. But unfortunately for Serena, Alice, and me, we were soon sitting at the bar with our drinks, looking at about twenty screens of various sports that we couldn’t give a crap about.
But Alice knew something we didn’t.
“Oh my God, there’s a foosball table over there!” Alice said, way too excitedly.
“I don’t play foosball,” Serena said, already grumpy.
“Do you think we should go somewhere else?” I said, ignoring the whole foosball idea.
“No, you don’t understand. It is an absolute fact that a group of women cannot play foosball for more than ten minutes without guys coming over to play with them.”
“You’ve spent a lot of time proving this fact?” I said, a little reproachfully. Did I happen to tell you that Alice used to be a lawyer who defended the rights of the poor and disenfranchised, making them feel respected and heard, often at the darkest times of their lives?
“Yes. And I’ll prove it to you now.”
So we took our drinks and moved over to the foosball table. Alice and I played foosball, while Serena watched the clock. It was exactly three and a half minutes before two guys walked up to us. At four and a half minutes, they challenged us to a game.
Alice scares me, sometimes.
She is, of course, brilliant at foosball, so we kept winning and getting challenged, the foosball suitors lining up to get a piece of our foosball magic. We kept drinking and the giggles started again and the next thing I knew, Serena was eating chicken wings off one of our challengers’ plates. A game later, she was licking her hot-sauce-covered fingers and ordering a plate of wings for herself. She was a vegan gone wild. I quickly scanned the room and saw Ruby still chatting with Gary, and Georgia still trying to talk to the cute guy between sports highlights. I had never seen Georgia flirt before; she was already married when I met her. But I could tell from just one look that she was trying too hard. She was talking a little too animatedly, listening a little too earnestly, laughing a little too excitedly. She was trying to compete with the Knicks and, even though they suck, she didn’t stand a chance. But instead of cutting her losses, she continued to touch his arm, laugh loudly, and order another drink.
As Alice and I continued to beat these two guys (Bruce and Todd) at foosball, I heard Alice, when asked what she does for a living, say in complete earnestness that she’s a “facialist.” I looked at her with surprise and she shot me a look of “I’ll explain later.” I had had my foosball and flirting fill and excused myself, getting Serena to stop shoving poultry in her face long enough to take my place, and I walked over to the bar. On one side I heard Georgia squealing, “Oh my God, I love Audioslave!” (like she knows from Audioslave), and on the other, Ruby was saying to Gary, “I loved Ralph, but I mean, he was just a cat, you know?”
“Didn’t you hear about that study that came out of England? The smarter you are, the less likely you are of getting married. The dumb girls are getting the guys.”
“So you say that you give facials for a living, instead of that you’re a lawyer who graduated with top honors from Harvard Law School?”
“Yes, and it works.”
“What happens if you start dating one of these guys?”
“I’m just getting them interested by appealing to their basest level. Once I have their interest, I slowly sneak the smart in, but by then they’re hooked.”
Appalled, I turned around just in time to see Georgia grabbing the cute guy’s face and kissing him straight on the lips. Kind of like a crazy person. Cute guy’s response: not so excited. He did that sort of laughing, sort of muttering “oh ho ho, you’re one wild girl” while trying to politely peel her off him. It was a painful moment for all of us.
Serena ran up to us, her face aglow with hot sauce.
“Bruce and Todd think we should go to Hogs and Heifers.”
Serena, who before tonight hadn’t been anywhere there wasn’t Enya or waterfall sounds playing, thought Hogs & Heifers was a keen idea. I realized she was slightly drunk.
“Cool, I know all the bartenders there,” Alice replied.