My friends and I are rarely in the same city. One December, we all made it happen. So we got together for a gift exchange. The ritual started as we began leaving our hometown; a small promise that even when we met new people and our lives expanded, we wouldn’t leave each other in the past. The group chat set a date for a winter picnic. I tucked my carefully wrapped gift into my bag.

There are eight of us. Ten people showed up.

Two of my friends came with their partners. Newcomers who weren’t intertwined with our history, even our gifting — they were empty-handed. Just…there. Sat with us, closely observing a shared language they had no part in building and a resonance they could not meet. Suddenly, my friends had folded these people into something that, until then, belonged to us. 

Our conversations flowed, still friends after all this time, we maintained a core. At the picnic, there was a break in that smoothness. The partners, unfamiliar, were lost in the banter, waiting for someone to fill them in. I felt, almost instinctively, that the very need for explanation proved that they should not be there. It didn’t seem like anyone else saw it that way. The other six immediately comprehended: this is how it is now. 

We opened gifts, potlucked, took photos, and talked until late. It was, by all accounts, a good day, in spite of the permanent shift. 

It doesn’t stop. Your coupled friend is suddenly always coupled. Their dating life becomes an expectation you manage. If they brought their partner to the last group outing, you can assume they always will. Fixed. It’s funny how you stop asking who’s coming, because you already know the answer includes someone you didn’t originally plan to see. 

“I liked my friends more when they were single,” how terrible. 

Jealous. Petty. Slightly unhinged. 

I’ve never confessed this to a friend. I hint. I say something softer, “I don’t think we spend enough time together anymore.” When they’re in deep, I submit.

I suspect this sentiment can be appreciated by all grown ups, partnered or not. The audacity to tell a friend that their lover kills the vibe for the rest of us feels like detonating something. It’s crueler than my vocabulary, being the peacemaker of the group. 

Everyone extends and contorts — adding a seat to the reservation, and withholding the secrets we used to confide at dinner. It’s no longer safe to disclose, a stranger is there. Nobody mentions how much we’re filtering ourselves, or that we’d rather not. Including me. 

The chattiest people at the table are the lovebirds. There’s an unspoken confidence that takes over, and the singles quietly surrender to the subtle dismissiveness. Parts of yourself that only existed in that specific configuration of people start to disappear. The room has changed its orientation, and the two centers are oblivious to their directorial control. 

I hate that my friends’ lives have less space for me, even though latching onto their partners is their solution to being pulled between chapters, merging worlds and relinquishing a single identity for an interdependent one. I’m overjoyed for them. In the dating shitstorm, they’ve found people they feel authentic with and seen by. You appreciate their happiness and still feel out of place. I do. 

A strange mix of irritation, almost disdain, creeps in now that I’m mandated to socialize with their partners and sync their emails to my birthday invitations.

I’m not asking for the unified front to cease. That’s unrealistic, especially when marriage is (eventually) involved. Love is consuming. Its smothering rubs off, making it costly for friendships to survive its grip. Come one, come all is the first stage of grief. “I liked my friends more when they were single” falls somewhere after. I don’t know which stage follows. I’m still in it.