Couples Need Not Apply

Relationships. It's normal to want to be in one and it's normal to feel a small pang of jealousy when someone close to you has found a good one. That said, it's also pretty great to be single, and it's next to impossible to have that recognized as a valid choice. If you think Valentine's Day is a well-fabricated gougefest, you're seen as as bitter. If you are of a certain age and not married or seriously attached, than the pressure to chain yourself to someone else becomes overwhelming. People who aren't ready or just plain not suited for relationships give in to the pressure, and then people are shocked that over half of marriages end in divorce and that infidelity has become so mundanely everyday.

Couplehood does not automatically equate to happiness. My sister was an abuse counselor and trust me when I say many, many people would be far happier on their own. I go absolutely apeshit when people I know dwell on their single status like it is some kind of deficit on their personal being. Solid relationships are great, sex is awesome, a companion that cares and listens to you is something everyone wants, but why the pressure to find all this in one person!? You have friends, you have family--embrace them, since they will most likely stay with you well after your current partner is another brick in your emotional baggage.

That being said I would like to propose an idea. When one of your single friends starts a new relationship, they get SIX'd (Self-Imposed eXile). Let's face it, when one of your friends starts seriously seeing someone the complaint is always the same: "When he/she started seeing him/her they just disappeared". Why not make this a reality? The new couple want to spend obscene amounts of time together and making time for friends becomes harder and harder. And from a buddy perspective, the pressure is on to create some kind of friendship with the new guy/girl, all while withholding judgment and vomit at their consistent and completely unnecessary PDA; not to mention the constant reminder that you are still single, and until we as a society accept that as okay, it bites.

The process of getting someone SIX'd would actually be rather pleasant. There would be some kind of Going-Away party where your single friends would gather and wish you the best, followed by the ceremonial "Deletion Event" (phone number, MSN contact, e-mail address etc...). After the party the newly-coupled friend would cease to exist to his or her old chums. Any contact while still coupled would result in a brutal admonishment and a punishment of equal severity.

Now before you go writing this off as overly-harsh, think about it for a second. The relationship can bloom now since the two have entered in a sort of conjugal banishment--needing to rely on eachother alone for companionship with no outside influence budding in with their two cents; what could forge a more powerful relationship than that? As for the PHUN (Pals Hapilly Unattached Network) friends they are made stronger since their dedication and time is more centrally allocated. The friendships will grow deeper and the lack of surrounding couples will relieve them of any unwanted pressure to pair-off.

If and when the exiled friend returns, it can be assumed that the relationship went sour and he/she will be re-integrated into the group as though nothing had occurred. The PHUN friends will not have to feign interest in the rise and fall of the couple since they were never involved to begin with. No more awkward "How is so-and-so doing" followed by the pained expression and explanation that "we're actually not seeing eachother anymore". This is not just beneficial to the members of PHUN but to the returnee as well. Not having to talk about the breakup and being surrounded by single friends who are more often available to go out, will help make whats-his/her-name a distant memory in no time.

On occasion a friend will not return to PHUN. In this case they have most definitely met "The One"; be happy for them and consider the wedding the re-evaluation period. Upon meeting the new spouse one of two decisions can be made. The friend and his/her significant other are introduced as FANs (Former Friends, Acquaintances Now), which is to say they can be present at very large functions or accessed as friends by new exiles from PHUN, but FANs are never ever to be used as a stand in for PHUN. Doing so will automatically result in being labeled a BITCH (Betraying Ingrate who Treated Chums Horribly). And you don't want to be labeled a BITCH, that kind of label will follow you to all PHUN groups and it's pretty much a one-way ticket to eating Swanson's alone at home for life.

The other decision is to graciously cut the ties that still bind you to the formerly PHUN friend. There would be some sort of understood sign: perhaps a small 'X' across the seal of the wedding card which requests that the newly hitched couple make no further contact with the giver of the gift; simple and sweet.

Since this whole re-structuring would obviously take place after certain couples have already formed they would be seen as exempt from the rules, since the times of awkward integration have already passed, but any future courtship would be seen as fair game.

I think it is win-win for all concerned.

Thoughts?