No baby talk, please (Not while I'm single)
SINGLES by Karenina Yaptinchay
Manila Standard, P. 24B, 24 August 2000

A couple of weeks back, we gave a friend a surprise birthday dinner. Because they changed the date the last minute to ensure the celebrant will show up, I failed to get there on time since my schedule is not so flexible. Besides, it also took time for me to buy a cake at the first open cake shop I passed where, out of sheer panic, I bought the first decent cake I saw, which cost twice as much as my budget. It also took time to change clothes inside my car before walking into my friend's house.

I was not surprised that I was the last one to arrive. Everyone was already eating. As soon they saw me, the celebrant yelled, "Surprise!" Like hell I was. I gasped in horror. I was in a room full of married women, a single person's nightmare.

When I arrived, they were in the middle of a heated discussion about pregnancy - how it discolors the skin, how it changes your eating habits, or how difficult/easy it is for some. As I strutted toward the buffet table, I heard the conversation shifting to obstetricians, the best of them all and how to get in touch with them.

As I tried to enjoy the scrumptious meal, the topic moved on to childbirth. Each had her own story to tell about how painful but rewarding it is, all trying to one up each other. They also talked about finding the right hospital and choosing the best anesthesiologist. This was the time when I realized I gulped half the bottle of red wine, probably thinking it would help me go blind and deaf, deaf to a world full of wives and mothers, husbands and children, obstetricians and pediatricians, too.

Soon enough, they started talking about the pediatricians they have tried or have heard of. I still continued quietly with my dinner, counting the number of peppercorns left on my plate as I devoured my sauerkraut. I believe I overfed myself that night.

Don’t get me wrong. I do love my friends and I do look forward to any occasion to see them. Given our tight schedules, such occasions are rare.

Hanging out with married friends can be so educational that you get to know a lot about being married and having children, from marriage to pregnancy to child rearing. Heck, I even got to know that hysterectomy is. Way before I get married and/or pregnant, I have had the chance to hear all the pros and cons of each decision made in married life plus I had the chance to sharpen my listening and nodding skills.

I didn’t want to spoil the fun and remind all of them that I could not, for the life of me, be as interested in motherhood stories for obvious reasons. They seemed to be too engrossed, especially when it came to their kids. They were having too much fun and I didn’t have the heart to break it. They're still my friends, but they are now living in another world, a world too different from mine. Besides, they were the majority that night and in a democracy, majority rules. Since I was the odd person, I had nothing to do but to shut up and ask for more wine. After the first bottle, I was quite all right, really.

I remember having dinner out with two of my married girlfriends. From the time we started heading toward our destination, both of them spent 80 percent of their time talking on the cellphone with their husbands. They were constantly negotiating time and venue of pick-up while I drove my car. Both had to be picked-up since neither one of them drove. Apparently, there was no need to learn how to drive because their husbands were always more than willing to pick them up or bring them to wherever they wanted to go.

While we were having dinner, one of them said we should go out more often and maybe bring their kids along. At this point, I just had to object. Because they were too excited talking about their play date, I had to butt in explain to them why a single person cannot join in a play date. So they just totally excluded me from their plans. After all, I made it pretty clear that I don’t want to go.

A single friend of mine said she would rather hang out with her single friends because it felt lighter. She said sometimes, it makes her feel guilty when she nags her married friends to go out, knowing well that they first have to attend their kids, or when she begs for them to stay, knowing that it's like stealing time from their families.

When you realize that most of your friends are already married, it can be very depressing, not because you wish you were married but because you miss having the conversations you had, or the things you did together, when all of you were still single. But life goes on as you try to learn how to exert more effort into understanding and accepting the fact that things can never be the way they used to be.

Someone asked me if I, as a single person, choose to hang out with single people. I haven't really thought about that. But I really don’t hang out with people because of their civil status.

But since most of my friends are already married, I know that I will have to live with the fact that life is different now from everyone. They cannot appreciate the stories I tell about my job or my independence just as I cannot relate to the stories they tell about pregnancy and childbirth. But even if there we cannot relate to each other's stories, we still want to hear about what’s going on because that's what friends, married or single, are for.