When a bad date would be better than no date at all

I have been a bridesmaid at more weddings than I care to remember. Following the obligatory role that had to be performed at my siblings' weddings, there ensued wedding after wedding of friends and cousins who all insisted they couldn't possibly get married without me walking behind them down the aisle. At first, I thought they might all be asking me just because I look spectacular dressed up as a meringue. But it didn't take long before I realized the happy couples thought THEY were doing ME a favor – somehow they seemed to think that by including me in their retinue, attention might be deflected from the fact that I was the one person at the wedding without a date. It made me think that any date at all might be better than NO date at a wedding.

The issue became particularly obvious when I started to refuse to dress up in taffeta at weddings. I was faced with ultimatums by the bridal pair: either I could be master of ceremonies, or I could be fixed up with one of the other singles. But there was no way I could come to the wedding dateless without playing an official role: where would they possibly seat me? And then, of course, there is the humiliation that matches no other: the concussion that can be incurred when the bride makes no bones about aiming the bridal bouquet directly at your head.

One wedding in particular comes to mind when I think of occasions where I'd rather have gone with any date at all than with no date to a wedding. The wedding couple was a favorite – a cousin I adore and her childhood sweetheart, who had a love story their children will write about and a wedding I wouldn't have missed for the world. I flew overseas to be there, and agreed to walk down the aisle in a beige crimplene number, flanked by two stick figures, and feelings of dread shrouding the experience for the weeks running up to the event.

What I had not counted on was the run-up events before the wedding. When busy with dress fittings, hair trials and experimental makeup rehearsals, one tends to forget about the other fun and games that adorn the traditional wedding ceremony. But in this case, I was not to be let off the hook. My cousin called to ensure that I would come to town a couple of days early for her 'hen party'. I agreed, of course, and then called my married friends to ask what a hen party was. The explanation I got sounded like a lot more fun than I anticipated having at the wedding itself. A hen party, according to my sources, is a female version of a bachelor party. You dress the bride-to-be up in embarrassing attire, everyone gets drunk and then you embarrass her with public displays of raunchy lingerie and gifts in the form of sex toys. And as this was a party for girls only, it would be the one occasion where not having a date for the wedding would be a non-issue. I couldn't wait.

Since I came straight from the airport and had no time to get anything particularly 'naughty', I was forced to resort to the lowest form of erotic souvenir – to my relief, I found a pornographic novel at the airport bookstore that looked like it could make even the class slut blush. I couldn't be sure, as the book had been tightly wrapped in cellophane to ward off perverts looking for a free thrill, but I figured if it was dirty enough for cellophane, it would certainly be dirty enough to make my cousin flush at her hen party, and I bought the book while avoiding eye contact with the shop clerk lest she think I was buying the smut for myself.
My biggest joy was that my cousin had elected to go for a fun bachelorette do, rather than the more traditional kitchen tea that usually precedes weddings of my generation. The thought of having to sit through an evening of tea and oven gloves left me cold, but a night of drinking and raucous behavior was something I could definitely get into. I admit I felt just slightly uncomfortable when we arrived at the venue and I found myself seated between my aunt and her mother – I couldn't help but wonder how they would react to the sexy undies and dirty toys that were likely to be unveiled during the evening. But I decided not to make that my concern, and got busy looking for alcohol to start the evening off on a good note.

Before long, I realized the first game of the night was underway, and was pretty horrified to realize that once again, my lack of date was going to be held against me. All the attendees recanted, one by one, how they had met their life partners and when they had tied the knot (or at least, when they were intending to). In a cruel game of odd-man-out, I realized that other than the widowed granny, I was to be the only dateless representative of my cousin's close circle of friends. So when it came to my turn to tell 'my story', I could either tell everyone I was a bridesmaid to compensate for being still single, or I could change the topic. I chose the latter, and suggested we get going with the gift opening ceremony.

Everyone responded enthusiastically, and I started to giggle at the thought of how my gift would make my cousin cringe. As the girl sitting next to my cousin volunteered to be the first to present her with her gift, everyone told her that she had to guess what was in the long box. I actually wanted the earth to swallow me up whole – here it was obvious the box contained what must be the biggest vibrator my cousin would ever lay her eyes on, and I was going to witness her mother and grandmother's exposure to the joystick. I almost wanted to distract them so they wouldn't notice. I was so focused on how embarrassing this would be for them, that I didn't pay attention to the gift opening, until I hear my cousin's gasp of joy as she uncovered the big box and revealed nothing less than a big, electric, hand mixer.

And I realized that I'd been had. This was no hen party, but rather a good old-fashioned kitchen tea in the guise of a bachelorette party. And there I was, the sole representative of single women everywhere, toting a pornographic novel at a conservative congregation. Thank G-d it was wrapped – by the time it came to my turn, I simply raised the book in the air, announced it was the latest and greatest recipe book that was all the rage, and handed it over to my cousin while whispering in her ear that if she opened it in this forum she wouldn't live to see her wedding day.

It was several years later that I told her the true story of what was in the book I reclaimed as soon as the gift ceremony was over. And while I couldn't get out of weddings all together, I have managed to avoid the hen parties ever since.