Single Discrimination

I am discriminated against on a daily basis (for having to use righty-centric keypads at checkout registers), but now I'm being discriminated against for being single, too!

A friend just sent an invite out for her birthday. "Feel free to bring significant others," the last line read. Oh? And what if you don't have a significant other? Are you doomed to sit at the end of the table, since there are no seats for partnerless people? Is there a special, smaller table reserved for singletons, oh-so-slightly removed from the big one for "normal" people?

Even worse was the impromptu barbeque a bunch of wedding attendees (all staying at the same hotel) threw the night after our friends' Yosemite wedding. When I asked how much I could contribute, I was told "it's $25 per couple." Per couple? COUPLE? What if we're not part of a couple? What if we haven't been part of a couple for, hmm, let's say almost half a decade?! I ended up jokingly becoming a "couple" with another bridesmaid, who isn't even single (her boyfriend couldn't make it)!

Then there was the friend I was staying with, who told me of the unease he felt when first moving to the Bay Area. Before he got a girlfriend (and very quickly got engaged), he felt a huge gap. He was the only single person at activities -- or wasn't invited to them at all. Then *boom* he got a fiancee and a social life. Now it's a whirlwind of "couple's weekends" down to the beach, and he even has married female coworkers ask him to get lunch. Apparently being single doesn't allow smug marrieds to be comfortable around you.

My solution to the aforementioned "bring your s/o" dinner? I'm bringing a soon-to-be-divorced girlfriend. Now that's my kind of "couple."