Best Friends Don't Kiss

How do I know this? Because as a thirty-three-year-old woman in the family, I took a one-way trip to hell three years ago, and my mom and great-aunts made a deal with the devil to make sure finding a husband is the only way I’m allowed to book a flight back.

A text pings in the ongoing group chat with the three clucking hens, and I sigh as I scroll to read it.Mom: Ava, there is a cute lawyer at the dog park today!Right below her message sits a candid photo of a guy sitting on a park bench. He’s aesthetically handsome, looks to be early thirties like me, and is smiling down at something on his phone. He has no idea the photo is being taken of him, and he’s a complete stranger.Me: Have you lost your mind??? What if he sees you taking pictures of him and gets mad?Aunt Poppy: Get real, Ava. We’re smarter than that.Aunt Lil: It was a top-secret mission. ;)Looks like the whole gang is out and about today…and they’re all clinically insane.Mom: VERY top secret. He had no idea.Me: Is this the only reason you guys go to the dog park? To stalk men?Mom: Don’t be ridiculous. We come to walk Bruce too. Should we give him your number?Bruce is my mom’s ten-year-old English bulldog. He’s lazy as hell and enjoys walks as much as I enjoy finding out my mom and great-aunts are sneaking pictures of random dudes in the name of finding me a man—aka: not at all.

Lucky for him, though, the dog park is only a short walk from my parents’ house. And most likely, he just lies around in the grass while my mom and great-aunts stalk men on my unwarranted behalf.Me: Please, I beg of you. Leave that man alone and find something else to do with your time. Pottery. Fly-fishing. I don’t care, just something.A minute passes peacefully, and naïvely, I actually think the moment has passed. I go back to lining my eyes with a bold, dark line, but I haven’t even finished one of them when my phone chimes again.Mom: Oh, whoops! Sorry, honey, he introduced himself before I got your last message. We just showed him your picture, and he thinks you’re cute!A gasp of betrayal is the only thing I manage before fully realizing they played me from the beginning. There’s no way my mom would have known he was a lawyer if she hadn’t talked to him before sending me the message in the first place.

Help me. Someone help me.

Knowing the ship has sailed on this mission, and that there’s no way that poor guy is leaving there without my number and a selection of photos, I settle for reminding them of simple geography.Me: You do realize that you guys are in Vermont and I’m in New York, right?Aunt Poppy: That’s why they make cars and planes, Ava. For hot dates.Me: Um, no. I highly doubt Karl Benz invented the car so he could hook up more easily. But you three ARE about to have a hot date with handcuffs and jail time if you keep taking unsolicited photos of strangers.Aunt Poppy: Loser.Good grief. Damn, Aunt Poppy. Don’t hold back.

I don’t know what else I’m expecting, though. She never does. And, when it comes to their shenanigans, there’s no end in sight. Thanks to my baby sister Kate and her stupid fiancé Zach, by this New Year’s Eve, I’ll be the oldest and only single Lucie sister left.

My other sister Emily helped seal that fate by marrying her husband Landon two years ago.Aunt Poppy: I’m just being real, Ava. You need to find yourself a man before your little beaver shrivels up.Dear God, is this what spontaneous combustion feels like? Is my brain matter seconds away from splattering across the room right now?

It sure feels like it. I know, once you take out the pushiness and mortification, what they’re all trying to say is that they don’t want me to end up alone. They were all married by the time they were my age, and they want the same security for me. But the world has changed since they were my age. Women don’t need to get married right out of high school.

Frankly, women don’t need to get married at all.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being single and empowered and independent.

Truthfully, I’d love to find someone to settle down with, but I need to do it in my own time.

On a sigh, I type out a response that will put an end, albeit temporary, to the peanut gallery’s opinions.Me: Well, it’s been lovely chatting with you guys about my little beaver, but I gotta run! I sure hope your husbands don’t get suspicious when they find the evidence of other men in your phone.