Where Have All the Couples Gone? Is There Friendship After Marriage?

It's 9 p.m. on a Saturday night, and the closest thing to fun that you have done this weekend consisted of trying to find the quickest way to get your 2 year old son's latest attempt at Picasso off your living room walls. Your hair is tied back in the same ponytail you wore the night before, you can't quite be sure if the pajama bottoms you are wearing have been washed in the past week, and you smell suspiciously of Pine-Sol. As you flop into the closest piece of furniture you can find, you let out the same sigh that escapes every night of the week after the children have finally fallen asleep. And the sigh says it all... there has to be more to life than this.

You glare across the room at your spouse, who seems content to be sitting in his ragged recliner with a beverage in one hand and the T.V. remote in the other. You wonder, Doesn't he feel it? Can't he feel that there is something missing? He (doubtfully) may, but more often than not, he's blissfully unaware of your needs.. the ones that don't exist behind closed doors. And your husbands ignorance to your emptiness is just the surface of your dilemma...
Friends don't grow on trees. Especially when you are a married parent.

So, you ask, what could possibly be so hard about finding a couple, making an arrangement to hang out, and following through? A whole truckload is wrong with that scenario, and below I will list my biggest hang-ups of Marital Friendships.

Great. You meet a couple. They seem cool, laid back, your type of people. Until you realize they have no children. What?!?! Okay, relax. No harm done. They don't seem to mind that you have children, it might still work. So the arrangements begin. And this is where you realize that this couple doesn't seem to mind hanging out way too late on a Wednesday night. And they would absolutely LOVE for you and the hubby to join them at the local hot spot for a few drinks and some good times. A few hundred phone calls later, and you realize that you can't get a mid-week babysitter for all hours of the night. And this rambunctious pair won't be swayed. It's their way, or the highway. So you buckle your seat belt, and hit the road. Couple number one, and all those in their category, have bitten the dust.

You find yourself sitting at home on another lonely Saturday night, nothing much has changed other than the attempt at Picasso on your living room walls. This week, it's mashed potato art on your brand new carpet. Once again, you have flopped your tired rear into a chair that gives you a great view of your husband. And his nightly ritual, which still doesn't bother him. You vow to try harder this week at forging a bridge with a new friendship, and swear that your husband won't be cleaning the mashed potato art out of the rug next time with his teeth if you can't ease your abundant couple blues.

Couple number two enters the picture, stage right. All systems are a go at first glance. Friendly, outgoing, and they have children! This might be the answer to all of your problems. Well, okay. Not all of them, but those pertaining to extreme week night boredom. The date is set, a sitter isn't needed, and they arrive on your doorstep ten minutes later than expected. Little Sally had an accident in the car, and they had to make a pit stop. The scene is set, and for the first half hour everything seems to be progressing. Until the female counterpart comments on your son's Wall d'Arte. Particularly, how lousy it is. And how she would NEVER allow her children to do that to her beloved walls. In fact, she doesn't allow her children out of her sight, and for the life of her she can't understand how your son managed to get his poor little hands on that awful crayon. You sink into your well used sofa as far as you can (the kids haven't quite managed to completely ruin it yet, and right now you're desperately wishing they had so you could completely disappear) until you see her children out of the corner of your eye. Little Sally is skillfully drawing across your dining room wall with a hand that is surely no novice at the art of graffiti. And the decision is made, couple two has to go. So you re-shelve your new found happiness at temporarily ridding your nights of the blues, and toss couple number two out on their collective ear. You hang a sign on your door reading "Hypocrites need not apply" and wait for the next applicant to stumble across your step.

Saturday number three rolls around. Same setting as the week before, well.. almost. Add your husband on his hands and knees in the middle of the living room, trying to gnaw ground in potatoes out of the carpet. You sink back into your chair, and sigh that same old windy version. The only upside to this Saturday night is the hilarious show you get to watch until your carpet is clean. But it won't last forever, so the hunt for the perfect couple continues...
A month later you find yourself still sitting at home with no relief in sight. You would never have guessed that looking for friendship could be so draining! You have looked everywhere, and nothing is surfacing. Grocery stores, the library, the post office.. every single one of them couple-less each time you were there. But you won't be resigned to this, no sir! There still has to be a way...

And it hits you. Someone needs to come up with a website that pre-screens couples to match them up with another couple in the area, a couple that meets all of your friendship needs. Meet these requirements, and a friend will be zooming your way! The only downside, that you can see, would be the couples looking to swing. But, there are enough sites that plainly state on your profile what you are looking for, so YES! That should be included too!!

An acquaintance of yours takes pity on your plight, and lo and behold! She is a web-designer! Within a month, she e-mails you the link to a proto-type webbie. You eagerly register and browse the site. Within 15 minutes you have your profile in gear, with your search criteria clearly defined. A month from that, others are accessing the website and signing up. Who would have thought that there were other couples so picky in their friendships as you are? You spend hours browsing through the profiles, poring over every detail and tossing out one after the other. As you finally decide that you are just too picky and are certainly destined to be friendless for the rest of your mundane marriage, you run into the perfect couple. You nervously click the couple match button and sit chewing on your thumbnails. When the match comes back, you bolt out of your seat and nearly knock your husband out of his chair when you jump into his lap to celebrate the news. He mumbles something incoherently as he peers around your head to continue watching his show, but you won't be deterred from your excitement. He playfully pats your rear as you climb off his lap and head back to the computer to e-mail your perfect couple. Arrangements are made, the date goes over like a hit. And you spend the rest of your life without having another mundane night ever again. The End....

Unless you live in the real world. Which, unfortunately, MOST of us do. And until the right couple DOES happen to come along, I will resign myself to sitting in my favorite chair every Saturday watching my hubby rid my rug of mashed potatoes with his teeth. Okay, okay, I'm not really that mean. I'll toss him a pair of knee and elbow pads to make it easier on him.