All of My Friends' Kids Were There... Not Just My Friends' Kids, But Their Friends' Kids Too

The past two years have seen an alarming number of my friends get married. Last year I was invited to 8 weddings; the year before I went to 3 weddings. I also know four couples who are engaged and who will most likely invite me to their weddings. The sheer quantity has helped me take each new engagement-ring-appearance in stride, and the sheer quality of all of them has made me kind of look forward to the next one.

Kids are a different thing.

Don't get me wrong, I really like kids. A lot. I want to have a few myself someday. The key word here is someday. On Saturday I went to my friends' house to meet their 3-week-old daughter, Eleanor. Who is really adorable. And who is not fussy at all. And who is their second child. In a matter of moments (horrible pain-filled labor moments...) my friends went from "my friends who have a kid" to being a family. I mean, the three of them were technically a family, but now they're a family family. And so there I was in a house in Sherman Oaks eating potato salad and bratwurst as one little kid was careening all around the house vying for my attention while the second tinier one just sort of stared at me with a vague "what-the-fuck?-I'm-getting-used-to-it-here-but-I-still-think-I-liked-the-womb-better" look, and then spit up. Again, I like kids a lot so the spit-up didn't bother me in the least, but the whole Big Picture disconnect between this scene and my normal everyday single 27-year-old life did bother me. But it was more of an inkling; the perception that there was something else at work here. It wasn't until later that I fully understood it.

Which is when we were bowling. My friends, some of their friends they know through various parent groups, and I all went bowling. Now these are cool, hip people. My one friend is a television writer, his wife has an acting/dancing background, and one of their friends is a music producer. They're all smart, politically-aware, and funny. Genuinely funny. And when one of them announced how great it felt to have the kids at home with a babysitter affording them a few hours of not worrying about anything and letting loose with a few beers... when one of them announced this and everyone else agreed and I just sat there timidly smiling because this was my night to relax and take it easy with only three beers, well, I realized my friends had moved on. And this was made all the more clear when my references to the newest bands and Stephen Colbert at the White House Press Correspondants dinner and Deadwood's season premier and the World Cup and the merits of the new bars in Silverlake and McSweeney's latest quarterly... when I referenced all of these things everyone was vaguely aware of their existence but didn't have any first-hand knowledge to add to the discussion. "Discussion" which was basically my monologue ("oh, yeah, that Wolf Parade album is really good I think and I'm going to see Belle & Sebastian at the Hollywood Bowl and Stephen Colbert must have balls to talk to the president like that and Al Swearengen is one of the great television characters of the past 10 years and Michael Ballack is hurt but Germany will still do well and I really like the Shortstop they play good music there and McSweeney's 19 is really cool it came in a cigar box." "Oh. Sure")

So basically I've lost some friends. Next weekend I'll be out at a bar with some other young, single people and I'll be wasting Saturday doing nothing and going to concerts and doing all kinds of other leisurely activities because basically the single life is the leisure life. And it'll be a few months before I see my friends again because they're too busy for me. And I say this in a completely non-judgemental way. That's just the way it is. Because they're interested in all of those things that I am, but those things really don't matter anymore, because Wil was sick a few weeks ago and with the 2nd kid they really don't sleep a lot and sure, even if they were free that Thursday night and could get a sitter again they'd love to see Belle & Sebastien but pediatrician visits aren't cheap so they really can't blow the $50 on concert tickets. As they shouldn't. Because they're legitimately good, responsible people. Selfless people, really. They've given up a lot for their children. And here you can see that the underlying, fundamental reasons they're such great parents are basically the same reasons they're such great friends. They were always there for me, but now they have to always be there for their kids.

And it's why I won't see them too much anymore.