Weddings Are Literally Way More Fun Without a Plus One
The summer I was 21, I reached an important adulthood milestone. No, not my first life-altering three-month situationship (but also, yes, that too). One of my friends became the first in our circle to get married.
Having never before been an of-drinking-age wedding guest, I couldn’t wait to abuse the open bar, reconnect with people I hadn’t seen since high school, and look way hotter doing it than any of them could have expected thanks to my college glow-up. What I was less thrilled about was the prospect of doing those things without a date on my arm.
My college boyfriend and I had recently broken up, reverting me back to my default setting of Lone Single Girl in both a family and friend group of devoted monogamists who seemed to effortlessly mate for life while I couldn’t manage to hold a guy down for more than a year. Spoiler alert, I have since come to embrace the joys of single life and/or develop serious commitment issues that make the relationships I once envied seem lifeless and suffocating. But at the time, my unshakable single status was a source of such pronounced stress and humiliation that I asked my friend, the bride, for an extension on my RSVP, positive that I could Tinder up the perfect plus-one if I just had a little more time. (Hi Rachel. Sorry Rachel.)
Well friends, in a plot twist absolutely no one could have predicted, I did not manage to pull a last-minute wedding date out of thin air and did, in fact, show up alone. And guess what? I had the time of my damn life—a much better time, I imagine, than I could have ever had if I’d been responsible for some dude all night. I hung out with my friends! I drank! I danced! I took an ever-crucial introvert break in the bathroom and sent my crush drunken mirror selfies! In retrospect, I now remember that night as one of the first (of many subsequent!) times in my life that I didn’t just accept being The Single One, but actually enjoyed it.
While I’ve filled a number of blank spaces on my long list of ex-lovers and attended a handful of weddings in the half-decade or so since, I have never brought a plus one. And if you’ll allow me to be so fucking serious for a moment, I genuinely hope I never do. Do you have any idea how fun a wedding is when you don’t have to worry about whether your date is having a good time or hates dancing or thinks you shouldn’t have that third dirty martini? How effortlessly you can reconnect with your friends when you don’t have to stop to explain every inside joke to an outsider? How much easier it is to tolerate your relatives when they’re not judging your date’s every move? How great it is to party with your friends instead of sitting in tense silence with your partner because you got in a fight in the car on the way there and everyone can totally tell?
I know, I know—having never experienced the plus-one life, I suppose I can’t say, but I’m pretty sure it’s so much freaking better! As far as I can tell, the only real benefit to bringing a date to a wedding is having someone to go to the bar to get you another drink. Which, I’ll admit, is quite the perk. But as long as you have a partnered friend there, you can just make their date get your drinks too, because what is your best friend’s boyfriend if not your surrogate dad?
Also, not bringing a plus-one is really a wedding gift in and of itself. Because you know what a stressed-out couple planning something as unconscionably expensive as a wedding loves more than surrounding themselves with other couples who affirm their lifelong commitment to the dated, heteropatriarchal ideals we’ve all gathered here to celebrate? Not having to pay for an extra person!
All of this to say, if you’re stressed out about not having a date to that wedding this summer, don’t be. And if you already have a date to that wedding this summer, break up with them. Kidding! (I’m not.)
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