Wedding Blunder

Weddings can be wonderful, right? Everyone's dressed to impress, you catch yourself checking out that hot groomsman or usher who not only walked you down the aisle and winked at you when you found your seat, but he also was so careful as he helped the 96 year old grandmother of the bride down the aisle as well - you just know that he knows how to treat a lady. You find yourself batting your eyelashes and daintily smiling in his direction while the preacher reads the nuptuals, and you can't wait for the reception to begin so he can ask you to dance. The bride & groom say I do and you jet over to the reception and start hitting the wine bar. You'd like to relax a little before that hottie in the tux decides to come over and talk to you.

Enter old family friend: Ok, this is fine. Yes he's monopolizing my time and making me look like I prefer the company of 45 year olds to someone more in my age range - but this is a good thing! It will look like I don't even notice if/when the groomsman enters the room and he'll politely interrupt my conversation with the family friend by asking me to dance. And FF of course won't mind because, hello? This groomsman is obviously more my type than he is. And the groomsman is at least not old enough to be my father.

So I stand and listen to FF and speak back when it's appropriate, all the while using my peripheral vision to scope out the reception and see when Handsome walks in the door.
"Gosh you really look beautiful. I haven't seen you in so long, you've really grown up into a gorgeous woman. Really. Gorgeous."

wait...what?

"Um, why thank you FF, that's very sweet of you. How are the kids? How's your wife?" I say, as I glance at his ring-less left hand. Oh shit. Did I hear they got divorced? Shit Shit Shit. "I mean, how are things since..."

"Oh well, the kids are doing really well - you know Frank is going to school this year, and Madison is going to be a senior."

"That's wonderful!"

"I know, I can't believe how old they've gotten - I still feel like I'm 25 sometimes, definitely don't feel old enough to have kids going to college! So...what about you? areyousingle?" he mumbles quickly, shifting his weight from one foot to another, eyes darting around.

"Um, yes, I am. Definitely dating though! Lots of dating. Lots of guys. Ya know, people that are 25-30...single...men...without children. It's a fun dating world out there for my generation...Yep...lots of dating."

"Well that's great to hear! They're so lucky if they get a chance to take you out...I know I'd consider myself lucky..."

Oh shit. Here we go. I've got to get out of this situation immediately. Where the hell is the hot groomsman? Why hasn't my plan worked yet? Shit. Shit. Shit. What can I say to get out of this??? "Well that's very sweet FF - listen I promised Michael a dance tonight and this is one of my favorite songs! Have fun tonight!"

Yep Michael. Thank God for Michael. And thank God for my back-up plan. Michael is very tall - hard to miss with his red hair and thankfully he's someone I've known for years! So I literally darted for his table after leaving FF and grabbed his arm and yanked him to the dance floor.

But I couldn't really explain what had just gone down between me and FF - it's kind of on the DL that he and his wife split and I don't want to make the guy look bad to everyone we grew up with by saying he's skeezy and was hitting on me at the wedding. I'm sure he was drunk and sad that his wife wasn't there. No one expects to be single and divorced at 45 at a wedding. It couldn't have been easy on him, but I am NOT going to be someone's crutch and get cornered and not enjoy myself because someone else is miserable. Not my style, holmes.

So the evening plays on and that hot groomsman that I was eye-flirting with, definitely turned out to be married. Of course he was. And why I didn't look at his ring finger when I first laid eyes on him, is beyond me. I know better than that. Guess it's for the best though, right? After all, I did have a date with Cameron before the wedding, and he's pretty freakin adorable. Erin's parents were at the wedding and they said I should have crashed it by bringing Cameron anyway...but I somehow didn't think that was appropriate. I don't know, something about the fact that my parents would be there made me less eager to bring him around. Nothing like a first-date-meet-the-parents-because-you-have-a-great-smile-and-profile conversation to get things started right. But Cameron was great as far as first dates go! I definitely wanted to hang out with him longer than I could but...life happens. So we had to cut it short. But maybe I'll be lucky enough to score a second date soon. Here's hoping :)