single..

The sister voted least likely to divorce [it wouldn't 'look nice' in her blemish free world] has divorced. He wasn’t a bad man. He was an apathetic yet car obsessed bore. It wasn’t the car obsession that was the nail in the coffin – it was a whole helluva lotta other things.. but.. anyways.. they now live apart and my sister is shining.

Phone call two nights ago.. She asks me.

Do you get the pity?
Pity?
Do married people pity you?
I think they envy my single-ness more often than not. No I don’t think I have had pity.. not in a while..

She relayed to me a conversation she had with her best friend, a happily married woman, the couple that made up the ‘foursome’ when my sister was married.
My sister asked if she’d like to go out for lunch – something they have done a lot as best friends in the past dozen or so years..
Her friend apparently said.. awwww that’s right.. you have no-one to go with now.. Insinuating that now my sister is divorced she has found herself at a loose end..

It was a throwaway line.. don’t dwell on it. Your friends are adjusting to your new lifestyle as well.. Don’t think about it too much [my sister is inclined to dwell and long periods of depression]

Last night I went to dinner with the flirty funder. We had lunch last week and he was in town again yesterday, so I suggested an early dinner as I had work to do at home in the evening.
Immediately [within the first five minutes] he mentioned his children and wife.
I smiled.
He hadn’t mentioned them in any of the conversations we had had [ok - so they were business conversations - and the dinner was a sidestep from that relationship] or at the lunch last week.
I remembered from a magazine study that men apparently set up their marital status/availability within three minutes of meeting a woman for the first time. So far I have found it more or less a truth.

He had invited another couple and a single bloke to dinner. All fantastic company. Lovely interesting people, we laughed a lot and got on well.
I shared my chips with the man who was sitting at my left as he hadn’t received his meal, while the rest of the table started eating..
As I did that, the woman to my right asked him.. So, Mark, how is Michelle?
And I wondered if she was saying that for my benefit. I was sharing chips with him and therefore he was in grave danger of being seduced?
Maybe I am being hyper-sensitive.
It just struck me as interesting psychology around what it is like being single in a world of couples..