Side By Side By Side

First post on the new laptop! First post of the new year! Lots of tales to tell since Christmas. Ok, really just one or two. Probably a post on MLA. But that's all forthcoming, because today I'm going to talk about my New Year's Resolution.

While attending the Annual Modern Language Association Convention in glorious old Chicago, it occurred to me that I know a lot of people who are coupled together. When dining, it was quite often the three of us, or the five of us, and I realized that a large majority of the people I now associate with and consider my friends tend to come in pairs. Similarly, back in St. Louis, my associates generally consist of my friends and their wives. At my New Year's party, it was the same: people and their partners. Wherever I go, I tend to travel in packs of odd-numbered people, largely because I make up that added extra.

This isn't necessarily a problem, of course. I like all my friends, as well as their partners, and would conceivably be friends with either or both regardless of their coupled status. I've gotten very good at not feeling like a third or fifth or seventh wheel. I like to think that my inherent charm and panache overcome the oddity of the numbering. So please don't feel I'm self-pitying or lamenting the cruelties of fate. But it is noticeable.

Now, intellectually, I have nothing against couplehood. The human tendency to form pairs and travel within these pairs has many benefits. It makes every gathering inherently more crowded, because twice as many people are there, thus making conversation easier and more varied, particularly when you feel the urge to move from one conversing group to another. It allows for humorous paired costumes at Halloween. It means you only have to e-mail one person instead of two, and you can just assume that both people will hear about it. It often can halve the amount of Christmas presents you have to buy, as one gift for a couple is inherently less expensive than two gifts for two individual autonomous people. More often than not, it provides a designated driver, should the need arise. I'm told the added companionship is pleasant. And there are other benefits, I suppose.

But still, the odd man syndrome, while beneficial in that it often provides a spare chair at any dining establishment (useful for storing coats, bags, and the occasional parcel), has more than its share of drawbacks. It's very difficult, for example, to carry three drinks at a time, making collective ordering at a bar somewhat problematic. Five people make a car too crowded; three means one person is alone in the back seat. And good luck finding seating arrangements for seven at all but the largest tables at any decent dining establishment. Little things, one might say. Petty trifles, another might scornfully dismiss. But God is in the details, or so I've heard it said. And who are we to question the will of God?

So this had led me to my current resolution for the year of 2008. Rather than simply sitting back and passively accepting the situation, this year I'm going to be much more proactive. I'm going to address this issue head on, and put forth my efforts to remedy the issue of the odd numbering. The solution seems quite obvious, does it not?

Break up my coupled friends.

This seems by far the most effective and obvious way of ending the current status quo. It caters to my inherent love of strategy and mind games. It'll give me something to do instead of work on my dissertation. And it just sounds like fun. Therefore, I'm beginning an intricately laid web of lies and deceit focused solely on splitting up any and all romantic engagements amongst my friends. This is not done out of malice towards them or the institution of couplehood per se. Rather, I do it solely for my own well-being. Some might call this selfish on my part. Others, ghastly and inhumane.

I prefer to think of it as heroic.

So welcome 2008, and the fun and exciting new possibilities it brings.