It’s the noise every singleton dreads in the summer – that gentle thud on the doormat. Yes, it’s a wedding invitation with your name on it.
Even if you’re given the opportunity to take a +1 with you, flying solo at a wedding can be a harrowing experience. And at least one of these things – at least – is totally guaranteed to happen to any single person at a wedding.
1. You are seated next to another single person.
This person is boring.
2. You may even be lucky enough to be at an entire table of single people.
The bride and groom had a little chuckle about this as they did the seating plan, but they’ll be laughing on the other side of their faces once you’re all drunk and heckling the speeches.
3. You are warned not to catch the bouquet.
“It’d be a waste,” they say. “You haven’t even met anyone yet.”
4. One half of every couple thinks you’re out to steal their man.
5. The other half of that couple wishes you would steal their man.
6. A married man confesses he’s always fancied you.
You’re the third person he’s said it to, so don’t get excited.
7. You get too drunk.
8. You don’t get drunk enough.
9. The bride or groom’s parents ask if you’re “courting”.
They then make a well-meaning but asphyxia-enducing comment about how you were always “the loner” as a child or you are “too flighty to be tied down”.
10. If you’re a bridesmaid, the best man makes lots of awful jokes about how it is tradition that you hook up.
11. You hook up with the best man.
12. If you are the best man, there are loads of jokes about how you and the groom used to bum and that he’s the true love of your life.
Probably best not to confirm this is actually true.
13. You spend half the reception avoiding all the people you snogged at previous wedding receptions.
14. You are better dressed than all the couples.
Your outfit is commented on incessantly throughout the day. You get ‘looks’ from the bridal party. An old person calls you “trendy”.
15. If you’re spotted talking to anyone, a friend will swoop over and whisper “Well? Do you fancy him?”
Even if it’s the vicar.
16. As the vows conclude, someone will joke “You next”.
You roll your eyes so hard, the force of it drains the font.
17. Every other single person at the wedding assumes you are “up for it”.
18. No other single person at the wedding will be “up for it”.
Not with you, anyway.
19. Your dancing will be better than everyone else’s.
Everyone is envious of your moves, especially the couples shackled together by commitment and a shared natural lack of rhythm.
20. Couples at your table beg you to tell them all your salacious singleton tales if one-night stands and dating an hook-ups.
They quickly go off this idea once things get X-rated and they realize they’re probably not going to have that kind of sex again until they divorce. You are, of course, making most of it up.
21. You are charged with looking after your friends’ children while they go off and have a dance.
Any bad behavior exhibited by these children once your babysitting stint is over is blamed on you, because you are single and don’t know anything about children.
22. You blanch at the photographer saying “Let’s have one of just the couples”.
Even worse, as you slink away, your friends shout after you “No! Stay! Come back, it’s fine.” Break the camera.
23. You swear too much and this is attributed to your relationship status.
24. You inappropriately say that you quite fancy the bride’s father.
25. You end up consoling one half of whichever couple starts arguing because one of them is too drunk.
26. As the last song is played, and you quite happily drain your eighteenth glass of wine that hour, someone sidles up to you and tell you that they “just want you to find someone”.
27. They then suggest they are that someone.
It’s the best man again. Christ.
More like this:
17 things single people do that make couples want to kill them
Why supermarkets make the singleton sad
Say no to couple envy
The post-breakup bachelor pad survival kit
