#60 Girls' Night In

So it's Friday night.  Our girlfriends are rallying.  If it's a "who, what, wear" kinda night, maybe it'll be sushi and sake followed by drinks at the new hotel bar.  Or tapas and sangria, and then drinks at the other new hotel bar.

However, it's also the end of an arduous work week spent in high-waisted pencil skirts or slacks and pointy-toed office pumps.  The last thing we want to do is apply glue and false lashes to our eyelids, put on special underwear, squeeze into a cocktail dress and tiptoe around town in 5" YSL platform sandals.

Certainly by now, most single girls understand both the merits and disadvantages of a girls' night out (or GNO). On the positive side, many of our epic drinking tales are a result of the shenanigans, mischief and mayhem derived from a girls' night out. And what single girl doesn't enjoy a good chortle retelling such stories?

If the intent and mission of a GNO is to "meet guys," some single girls neglect to realize the size of their party is indirectly proportional to the level of success in meeting said guys.  With these expectations, failure to meet a definite caliber of male on a night out could lead to some, if not total, disappointment.

For example, when a large group of girls heading out to a bar together collide with a comparable group of dudes, one would hope this to be an opportune turn of events - until it resembles a junior high school dance in the cafeteria with boys on one side of the room sneaking fidgety glances at girls on the other side of the room.

Ladies, it's a simple formula of proportion and mathematics: we all know it's easier for two guys to approach two girls, not two guys to eight girls (much to everyone's chagrin).  Unfortunately, a girls' night out can become a complete clam jam session when too many women are involved.

Albeit, there are those nights where we abandon "Operation: Man Hunt" because we're not in the right mood to potentially meet the man of our dreams at a bar.  Maybe we're feeling bloated, maybe our favorite dress is at the dry cleaner's, or maybe we're just totally over "girls' night out."  (Gasp!  How could this be?)

These are the nights we step out of the house in leggings and tastefully oversized t-shirts with our favorite accessory (a bottle of wine) and head over to a girlfriend's house.  If she's the Martha Stewart of the group, she will have a lasagna, casserole or something equally starchy baking in the oven.  Otherwise, it's most likely she fake cooked or ordered take-out from somewhere calorically fantastic.

It's no wonder why single girls like "girls' night in."  Benefits include opening that fifth bottle of wine (when there are only four of us) AND indulging on a third piece of lasagna with nobody (really) judging us.  (And the fact that we showed up in elastic waistbands is no coincidence.)

The ability to converse on certain topics in the privacy and safety of someone's home is quite liberating (especially after that fifth glass of wine).  We can talk about birth control (because abstinence is not an option), Brazilians (not the people), penises (yes, we compare notes), blow jobs (yes, we share techniques) and battery-operated "boyfriends." 

We can exchange bad date stories, deliberate about the guys we're seeing or gossip about former sorority sisters without worrying about a bartender, waiter, busboy or stranger overhearing our blunt, and often bawdy, exchange.  Unfortunately, when a specific person is being discussed in public, there is always a chance that someone within earshot is acquainted with the subject, specifically in a small town such as Los Angeles.

Another advantage of girls' night in?  We can have our cake, and eat two.  Carpe noctem!

#43 Frenemies

According to our friends over at Mirriam-Webster, a "frenemy" is one who pretends to be a friend but is actually an enemy.  As likely as it is for a single girl to have a crazy girlfriend in her entourage, it is not uncommon to have a frenemy (or two) waiting in the wings as well.

Our frenemy is the Betty to our Veronica, the Serena to our Blair, the Paris to our Nicole.  We can't live with her, but we can't live without her.  She is the one we wake up loving in the morning but go to bed hating at night.

Backhanded compliments and sabotage are her specialties.  She convinces us to wear the less flattering outfit so she could look better.  She asks the older guy we're interested in why he isn't married yet.  She tells embarassing stories about us in public. 

It's quite possible she only befriended us because she had a thing for our ex-boyfriend.  Or she could be that co-worker in the next office who secretly resents us. 

So why do we tolerate having this friend/enemy hybrid? 

Maybe we both enjoy the same television shows.  Maybe she's a trust fund baby.  Maybe we wear the same shoe size - and what single girl doesn't like borrowing Louboutins from a friend's closet? 

This on-going, but unacknowledged, competition and rivalry with our frenemy keeps us on par and on top of our game.  Who looks better in a bikini?  Who's dating the hotter guy?  Who has a more successful career?  Without our frenemies, we would be overweight losers eating over the sink on Friday nights.  In a sick way, she motivates us to be the best we can be.

And frankly, it's easier to be friends with a frenemy than not.  We begrudgingly endure her undermining tactics because we're nervous what could happen if we declared war on her as an actual nemesis.

After all, single girls know it's best to keep our friends close and frenemies closer.

#18 Our Crazy Girlfriend

Much like how we feel about Spanx, single girls have a love/hate relationship with our crazy girlfriends.  And much like Spanx, crazy girlfriends are oftentimes difficult to remove.

You know who she is.  She's the one we call when we're looking for more than just the usual humdrum Friday night sitting at a lounge bar sipping on martinis and trolling for dudes.  Sure, everyone knows where all the after parties are, but our crazy girlfriend knows where the AFTER after parties are.  Maybe we've spent all our cash at the strip club and ran out of money for a taxi.  Our erratic girlfriend has a way of finagling a ride home from some random guys.  So what if they're operating a truck from the Department of Water and Power? 

Clearly, our mentally unbalanced girlfriends keep our lives interesting and entertaining.  Most of our favorite stories come from nights spent with said girlfriends.  When we go out with a crazy girlfriend, we're following Alice down the rabbit hole.  Inarguably, a night of excitement and adventure awaits.

As awesome as our crazy girlfriend is, there are jawdropping moments when we realize how much of a double-edged sword she is.  For she is also the one who makes out with all of our male friends, the one who starts a fight with girls in the bathroom, the one who throws a temper tantrum while you're dragging her out of a bar, the one who calls you at 4am sobbing about her ex-boyfriend, and the one who has no recollection that any of this ever happened due to blackouts brought on by excessive drinking.

In short, this crazy girlfriend is a BIG MESS.  Our other girlfriends may be confused as to why we maintain a friendship with someone so sanity-challenged.  And really, isn't there enough drama in our own sad single lives?  Do we really need to inherit more craziness by association?

One word single girls like to use: standards.

You know those girls who keep less attractive. dumpy friends around them so they look infinitely more pretty, polished, and skinny?  When you're at the grocery store standing in front of the bread aisle (mmm, single girls like carbs), do you reach for the hot dog buns in pristine condition or do you think, "Hmm...look at these other poor hot dog buns that look like they've been stomped on and damaged.  I think I will take these home"?

Single girls like standards because our crazy girlfriend becomes a basis of comparison for our own sanity.

I was once friends with a girl who blew off an entire trust fund to pursue her dream of becoming an actress.  Ten years later, she is now one of those "accountants" you find on Craigslist.  Even more ironically, she once declared bankruptcy several years ago and had to buy a fake social security number and driver's license to lease an apartment. She says she wasted a decade of her life trying to become something she is not.  So she is now an aspiring singer.  She likes to drive her car smoking a cigarette with one hand and drinking a beer with the other.  She has no car insurance and doesn't like to wear seatbelts.  She is turning 31 soon and goes through several mid-life crises per week.

And here I thought I had issues?  Next to my psychotic girlfriend, I am the antithesis of crazy!

I understand that after all the crap that single girls have been through, we all need some form of professional therapy, especially since I've heard that love makes some people crazy.  Why are broken hearts not covered by health insurance?  Is Obama working on this? 

Those of us who can't afford therapy or do not have friends with psychology degrees may try a support group.  And then there are those of us who keep a deranged friend around to remind ourselves of our own mental stability. 

Keep in mind though: just because you are the sane one next to your crazy girlfriend doesn't mean you're not someone else's damaged hot dog buns.

#13 A Good Wing Girl

Hark!  The weekend is upon us single girls and this means another attempt at Operation: Manhunt is well underway.  The success of said operation is usually aided by the ultimate wing girl.  But just like the perfect pair of jeans, a good wing girl is hard to find.

A good wing girl is essentially there to assist us in finding our target: a one-night stand or the man of our dreams.  She is familiar with our flight patterns and won't let us leave the house without a killer outfit.  She is well-qualified to handle any form of turbulence or areas of low visibility.  She comprehends our flight signals and knows when to swoop in and abort a mission, when to take off, or when to send out a search and rescue team.

Single girls like being in good company.  Our favorite wing girl is attractive and charming but not glaringly MORE attractive or MORE charming than we are.  She can own the spotlight, but won't steal it from us.  She knows when and how to fade into the background.  She gives us that pep talk and a confidence boost when our last mission failed.  She has eagle vision and can identify a target from across the room, then strategize various access points in her mind, all the while ordering us cocktails at the bar.   She will attempt to extract incriminating information about a guy from his wingman (reconnaisance at its finest!) leaving the guy and I to chat about the World Series.  Essentially, our wing girl is the most awesome person in the room, aside from ourselves of course.

All single girls know that we would rather fly solo than travel with a bad wing girl.  I was talking to a dude at a club in Vegas a month ago, and my "wing girl" decided to clutch onto me like a backpack.  I literally had to get her off my back.  A good wing girl does not engage in embarassing conduct such as this - a blatant attempt at sabotaging a mission. 

Good wing girls know that being engaging and selfless on one mission means that karma will reward her when our roles are reversed on the next mission.  Good wing girls do not complain (out loud), regardless of how unattractive or creepy a guy's wingman is.  Nor does her Jewish faith cause her to resent us for meeting all the Jewish guys while she "gets stuck" with the Mormon ones when we are neither Jewish nor Mormon.  A true wing girl is always "takin' one for the team so her buddy can live the dream."

As the great chanteuse Jordin Sparks would say: Why does love always feel like a battlefield?  When we're looking for a partner in the trenches, we want to be side by side with a good wing girl.