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Year Meme: 2000 and 2001
Mar. 26th, 2008 01:24 pmSix years into my move to Boston, I still hadn't found a way to make local friends. My entire social life was on the Internet with people around the world who I'd never met. All that changed one night when Peter, the person I'd moved to Boston with and my only local friend, invited me to a party hosted by the Berkeley Older Students Organization. At just that one party, I clicked with so many people that within a few weeks I found myself with a dozen new friendships blossoming. Finally, I'd found my friend-family. Very quickly, those of us who were single banded together into a tight and busy tribe of cultured, urban, 30-something singletons all looking for the same missing element in our lives, but looking together.
Financially, times were good for all of us. In addition to my regular MIT job, I had a part-time gig as a recruiter for a consumer review dot.com, working 3 extra hours a week at $100 an hour. I had lovely clothes, a curvy gym figure and an expensive haircut. My new gang and I, who were both men and women, were passionate about the good life and about soaking up everything city life offered for smart, liberal, fabulous young adventurers.
I never had to sit home alone on weekends anymore. There were group dinners at Newbury Street's best restaurants. There were art gallery openings. We went to the opera and to Shakespeare on The Common and out dancing. We went to the beach and to farm markets that smelled of apples and wood smoke. We went to sake tastings. We did volunteer work and forwarded lefty political petitions to each other. We had lavish group cooking days and movie nights where the food matched the movie's theme. We were "dinner party animals," always ready with a fresh idea for things the group could do that might bring us in proximity to potential dating partners while simultaneously keeping us securely insulated.
We loved/hated going regularly to First Friday, the high-profile singles mixer held weekly at the Museum of Fine Arts. While it was necessary to put ourselves out there to meet potential dates, we crinkled our noses at the meat market and the vulnerability of the hunt. Usually we used it as an excuse to go out for fancy cocktails together afterward.
Why didn't we date each other? Well, that was complicated. There were certainly internal crushes, but they never seemed to be mutual, and a few people were vocal in their opinion that internal dating would hurt the group's dynamic. We pressed on in our external quests, spending freely and micro-grooming each other's Match.com profiles.
In hindsight, we probably held each other back. As a group we were more judgmental than any of us would have been as individuals. But at the time, it felt like we were helping each other to be patient while waiting for worthwhile dating partners to come along. We were rock stars who deserved nothing short of our dreams, and we never let each other forget that.
2001 came, then 9/11. My dot.com side gig disappeared, and I had to live on just my MIT salary. It took several months, but the mood within the group was sinking. In the wake of 9/11, new differences were emerging in our individual world views, and a sense of loneliness was creeping back for some of us.
C, who was beyond desperate for motherhood at 38, settled for a bumbling, gone-to-seed, much older man who did anything she said. T, our ringleader and Alpha male, fell into a dark depression that manifested itself in a constant foul mood and hermitting. Even I stooped very briefly to dating a malcontent and misanthropic Brit who considered me, at 126 pounds, to be "disturbingly fat." (That relationship ended fast and viciously.) The group still got together sometimes, but it became less and less frequent, as people gravitated away, or had less fabulous focuses that needed their attention, or found new friends. Like a graduating class, the dispersal was bittersweet, but not unnatural.
I can't say how much of a direct effect 9/11 had on it. But for me, having had that social experience with the group, and eventually letting go of it, helped make me who I am as I continue to evolve. I still don't settle for unworthy dating partners. And I'm still, just a wee bit, fabulous.
Financially, times were good for all of us. In addition to my regular MIT job, I had a part-time gig as a recruiter for a consumer review dot.com, working 3 extra hours a week at $100 an hour. I had lovely clothes, a curvy gym figure and an expensive haircut. My new gang and I, who were both men and women, were passionate about the good life and about soaking up everything city life offered for smart, liberal, fabulous young adventurers.
I never had to sit home alone on weekends anymore. There were group dinners at Newbury Street's best restaurants. There were art gallery openings. We went to the opera and to Shakespeare on The Common and out dancing. We went to the beach and to farm markets that smelled of apples and wood smoke. We went to sake tastings. We did volunteer work and forwarded lefty political petitions to each other. We had lavish group cooking days and movie nights where the food matched the movie's theme. We were "dinner party animals," always ready with a fresh idea for things the group could do that might bring us in proximity to potential dating partners while simultaneously keeping us securely insulated.
We loved/hated going regularly to First Friday, the high-profile singles mixer held weekly at the Museum of Fine Arts. While it was necessary to put ourselves out there to meet potential dates, we crinkled our noses at the meat market and the vulnerability of the hunt. Usually we used it as an excuse to go out for fancy cocktails together afterward.
Why didn't we date each other? Well, that was complicated. There were certainly internal crushes, but they never seemed to be mutual, and a few people were vocal in their opinion that internal dating would hurt the group's dynamic. We pressed on in our external quests, spending freely and micro-grooming each other's Match.com profiles.
In hindsight, we probably held each other back. As a group we were more judgmental than any of us would have been as individuals. But at the time, it felt like we were helping each other to be patient while waiting for worthwhile dating partners to come along. We were rock stars who deserved nothing short of our dreams, and we never let each other forget that.
2001 came, then 9/11. My dot.com side gig disappeared, and I had to live on just my MIT salary. It took several months, but the mood within the group was sinking. In the wake of 9/11, new differences were emerging in our individual world views, and a sense of loneliness was creeping back for some of us.
C, who was beyond desperate for motherhood at 38, settled for a bumbling, gone-to-seed, much older man who did anything she said. T, our ringleader and Alpha male, fell into a dark depression that manifested itself in a constant foul mood and hermitting. Even I stooped very briefly to dating a malcontent and misanthropic Brit who considered me, at 126 pounds, to be "disturbingly fat." (That relationship ended fast and viciously.) The group still got together sometimes, but it became less and less frequent, as people gravitated away, or had less fabulous focuses that needed their attention, or found new friends. Like a graduating class, the dispersal was bittersweet, but not unnatural.
I can't say how much of a direct effect 9/11 had on it. But for me, having had that social experience with the group, and eventually letting go of it, helped make me who I am as I continue to evolve. I still don't settle for unworthy dating partners. And I'm still, just a wee bit, fabulous.