Today's guester is Caryann. She's my best single friend. We both have best friends who are married, however, it's always good to invite someone to your friend shindig who can understand dating and parenting plants and managing a one income household. Caryann was an on-air radio punk for 15 years in Texas, Alabama and California. She now makes her home in Nashville and works at a swanky record label. Its swankiness is defined by the Starbucks machine in the break room.
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| Caryann flipping her hair near some rocks. |
If you are single and in your 30s, or have been, then you are probably very familiar with the formula questions that come from well-meaning family, friends, co-workers, and even strangers. These questions usually involve an investigation into whether or not you're dating anyone, want to date anyone, or how many cats you currently have and whether or not that number seems to be trending up.
One other very common question came recently, from the lips of a very cute, amazingly talented dude, of whom I’ve grown quite fond…"So do you ever want a family?"
The portion of my brain that banks all of the things that married guys tell me are dating cues, started going off like an alarm. He’s trying to figure out if I want a family with HIM someday! This means he must be interested in me. He might propose in a few minutes.
Never mind this is only the third time we’ve seen each other.
If you know anything about single women, you know we are very creative.
Before I even answered this guy’s question, I had formulated what diamond cut I would hint toward, how my first name would gel with his last, and with whose relatives we would spend next Christmas.
Ridiculous. But it’s in our DNA.
And from my mouth came the biggest lie I had told in all of my life. “I’m not sure.”
What? I had just uttered the words "I don’t want children" to my roommate two days prior. Such a hypocrite.
But he was so cute... It was necessary, in my mind.
Once he got to know me, he would fall so crazy in love with my personality and heart, that my lack of desire for children would no longer matter. So I should not scare him off now. This is what I convinced myself of in the nano-second before I lied to him.
Then I went on to explain how I definitely desired to be married (which I might have said with a wink and flip of the hair), but my uncertainty came from whether I wanted my own biological children; to give a home to kids who needed one; or just to love someone else's children. (Because I'll deal with baby-mama-drama if he's hot enough.)
The wild thing is that as I was formulating my fabrication, I actually felt like it was true. Maybe I did want kids someday. Maybe the falsehood is really in what I told my roommate, not what I told super-hot-rock-star-looking-guy.
The prideful part of me cannot admit that maybe, just maybe, I do have that maternal instinct kicking in. I guess I’m just a little late in the game.
But I cannot let this be known. It would cause me to lose some major cool points, mostly with my friends who are mothers who love their children dearly, but would give anything for neverending alone time. Plus, I would be forced to act like a grown up, eat more vegetables, and remove my facial piercings.
No can do.
Have you ever kept something on the down low for the sake of saving face?
Note from Jamie: Answer that question and then... Well...you can't read Caryann's blog because she doesn't write one. She has a Facebook, but doesn't check it. And she's on Twitter. but her account is protected. So...there you go.
{image: Caryann}
Text conversation with my friend Caryann after 11pm one night this week. It began when I heard the cheesiest song ever on the radio. I wanted to blame her since she works for a record label. 
