BUCKING THE SYSTEM: LIVING THE SINGLE LIFE A NON-ISSUE WHEN YOU'RE MARRIED

Clean sheets, a home-cooked meal and a guaranteed date are powerful incentives to endorse married life.

The approach of Valentine's Day weekend got me thinking about how nice it is to have a sweetheart to celebrate the holiday with. For the second year, Patrick and I are going on a weekend getaway with some close friends for what I hope will become an annual trip.

The thing is, the final guest list hasn't been announced yet. There are three married couples, one as-yet-unnamed couple and two single people taking this trip, and we don't know who the single guys are bringing with them, so we don't know whether we're going to be able to talk freely or have to limit ourselves to "stranger-friendly" conversation.

I am so glad I'm not floating that boat anymore. Before Patrick and I finally admitted to each other we were in love, we tried to continue our single ways. Sure, we'd smile a lot and make goo-goo eyes at each other when no one was watching, but we'd arrange to "meet" at the night club we frequented weekly and act as if we weren't important to each other at all other times.

We also did things like cancel dates so we could take pleasure trips with our other single friends, and it was nothing for me to cut a step with a handsome, well-dancing buddy of mine regardless of whether Patrick was present or not.

Then came The Admission, and with it a lifestyle change. It was no longer acceptable to meet at the club; the mere suggestion received questions like "Why don't you want to ride with me?" Also unacceptable was dancing -- especially slow dancing -- with someone outside our friendship circle.

And those weekend devil-may-care trips with the "girls" or "boys" -- finito.

In fact, we started doing a lot of couple-like things. You know, it's hard to be a couple around single friends. Couples like to do things like go bowling, catch a movie, or stay in and play spades. Single people generally don't like those activities because other single people don't do them.

It's hard to meet someone when you're walking around lopsided at a bowling alley, and movie theaters are -- in a word -- dark. And what are the odds of meeting a single, unattached person in Cape Girardeau you don't already know while running spades with your best friends?

So we lost contact for the moment with our single friends and made new relationships with other couples so we could do couple-like things. After we decided we liked life as a couple and legalized it before God and government, we renewed those old friendships and started doing everything possible to get our single friends into similar circumstances.

Unfortunately, single people don't really understand that you can't do your old weekend-with-the-boys activities anymore. Take our upcoming trip for instance. The single guys are actually so naive as to believe they can drop us women off at the nearest mall while the men go and pursue steamier entertainment in an undisclosed location.

What they haven't realized that the married men HAVE learned is:

1) what is acceptable for a boys' weekend away is not acceptable when the wife is in shooting distance;

2) a romantic getaway had better be exactly that if they want to continue having a healthy relationship; and

3) it's a long drive back to Cape Girardeau when the wife is mad at you.

Needless to say, the single guys have already been informed by their married counterparts that their suggestion has been reviewed and summarily rejected by the female judging committee. Also rejected is any notion of riding with another couple or bringing along people who haven't been deemed as part of the group.

Living the single life is a non-issue when you're married. It's more important to understand marital politics and know how to play a trump than it is to have a good opening line or a brand new mini-dress.

That's why you get married -- comfort. Besides, if you ask nicely, a wife (or husband, for that matter,) won't charge you for a striptease.

~Tamara Zellars Buck is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.