Feeding Frenzy

Today I got the chance to flex my social muscles--the grown-up ones. Those are different than the kind you use at your kids’ birthday parties or at play dates. I got to carry on conversations about things like jobs and paychecks and ex-husbands and the weather. I even managed to garner a few laughs with my sarcastic grown-up remarks, the kind that usually draw blank stares from my kids followed by, “Mommy, my science project was due yesterday.”

I had lunch with a whole bunch of other single people, a group that was formed for the sole purpose of having lunch together every Thursday. I like the concept, though I’m not sure it can work like they say it’s supposed to. No pressure. No romantic expectations (yeah, right). No scrambling for a sitter on a Friday night; just plain old platonic, loveless lunch.

I’ve resisted joining up with one of these groups for some time now. I can’t quite put my finger on the reason for it. It might be that I expect a feeding frenzy to break out at any minute when a bunch of supposedly celibate single people are thrown into a room together. We all ultimately want the same thing: companionship. It’s a little awkward thinking about who’s got their eye on whom, and how many are scoping out the group for their next romantic conquest. It’s labeled as a “just lunch with no love connection pressure” kinda thing, but everyone there knows why everyone there is there. Yes, I really did just write that.

So today I gave in. I wanted to see what this singles lunch thing was all about. I’ll be the first to admit I’m glad I went. I can honestly say I met people that I’d like to know better. Take the cute little single mom who sat next to me. We’ll call her Natalie (because that’s her name). When my BLT salad arrived with no B, and I was too gutless to go track down somebody and make them correct this horrific situation, who do ya think had huevos (huevos, eggs, bacon…get it?) enough to go to bat for me and my pathetic little meatless bed of greens? It was none other than my new BFF, little miss Natalie, who stormed the kitchen and demanded I get my B…and pronto. Shortly thereafter, I was informed that they were sorta out of B and my meal would be F. That’s “free.”   Pretty much takes the steam out of miss Natalie's heroic gesture, but I was grateful for her efforts nonetheless.

To sum up, singles lunches are good. I might even do it again. Next time, though, to save Natalie from having to open her can of you-know-what all over the poor kitchen staff, I may just BMOB.