To what extent do our friends influence our more intimate relationships?

This is a question I’ve been considering since exactly 24 hours ago, after I met Will’s friends for the first time. Will is someone I’ve recently started dating, and things so far have been going as well as I can hope--he’s cute, exceedingly hilarious, and we get along well enough. Yesterday, though, he dropped a bomb. He asked if I wanted to go to dinner with a group of his closest friends. Of course I wasn’t in a position to decline the offer, but as I prepared for the meeting I couldn’t shake off a deep feeling of anxiety. I spent an excessive amount of time getting ready--ransacking my closet for the right outfit and losing patience with my hair, which refused to settle down. But when the time finally arrived and I at last shook hands with his friends, all my earlier apprehensions were immediately lifted. They were all positively charming-- handsome, intelligent, and most importantly, they appeared to like me. We’ve all heard that the people you surround yourself with are an accurate reflection of who you are, and by the end of the night I was looking at Will in a new light. But after arriving home at the end of the night, the anxiety began creeping in once again. What if it’s now my turn to introduce him to my friends? And if Will’s friends so greatly heightened my affection toward him, can my friends carry the same influence?

At some point in our lives, we lose the security of our flock of single girl friends and are suddenly forced to make the leap into adulthood, whereby we are divided: those with significant others, and the few who remain, still single, but now in crippling awareness of it.

It’s like an involuntary game of musical chairs-- once the music stops it’s a serious scramble to grab hold of something as quickly as possible. This leaves a few remaining fools continuing to wander aimlessly in circles. Perhaps it is a delayed realization that the music stopped, or, simply a lacking desire to cease walking and settle down.

When did we start playing this game? Has it been going on since early adolescence and somehow I’ve neglected to participate? Or maybe it’s to do with age, because immediately upon turning twenty two I was smacked in the face with reality: all my closest girl friends--and mind you, I have quite a few-- became suddenly entangled in serious relationships. Instead of movie outings with my security flock I began hearing variations of “sorry, but we’re doing a couples bowling night. You can come, if you like..” No, I do not like. I do not like that I missed the phone call from mother nature telling me I need a man(Cincinnati gets generally bad reception).

So then what’s left for us aimless fools? A dilemma, I think. Either we pretend to learn the rules of the game and settle down, or we continue to walk alone, content perhaps, or just plain lost.