Wedding Wincing: Flyin' Solo

For the first time in six years, I went dateless to a wedding and was a little nervous at being so obviously single. One of the groomsmen at the wedding was an older, popular guy I had a mega crush on in high school. We had made out once before but I hadn't seen him in years. I caught his eye as he was walking down the aisle and his face lit up. He was obviously stoked to see me, as he didn't know I was going to be there. This will be a great night! Or, so I thought.

After about two dozen moments of bashful eye contact during the ceremony, he finally swaggered over to chat me up. Or should I say, he stumbled over: My dream dude of the evening was WASTED. This normally would have been okay with me, 'cause that's the whole point of weddings, right? But this was about 30 seconds after the ceremony ended, before the reception even started. I'd say he had about five solid hours of drinking under his belt by the time the "I do's" were said.

He slumped his sweaty arm around my shoulder, nearly knocking me over (he'd also gained a solid 60 lbs since I last saw him.) After slurring his speech in a 5-minute attempt at whiskey-breathed conversation, he loudly announced to the couple next to me that he had hooked up with me before and that he would do so again tonight, then burst out laughing and attempted to kiss me, but instead just licked my cheek. So much for a fun flirtatious evening with this dude!

I quickly excused myself to the safety of my other single girlfriends. I couldn't help but muse to myself how funny it was that I ever found this dude attractive. I watched him slosh around the dance floor, spilling wine as he electric-slided from girl to girl, all equally repulsed by him as he vigorously pumped his fist to Journey. I decided then that I would rather go dateless to any wedding then ever chance bringing a date as "classy" as he was. Cheers to flying solo!