'Not Catching the Bouquet' Good

Can we start a new wedding reception rule? If you're 35 or over and still single, you do not have to stand up for the bouquet toss. No wildly amused family member or mischievous friend can drag you out to stand among the 17-year-olds in their sky-high pumps and short skirts to grab for a bedraggled bouquet that nobody actually really wants to catch. If you find out that's what's coming up next, you can - with your dignity perfectly intact - leave the dance floor, and hide in the bathroom if necessary without the DJ heckling you or sending the seven-year-old flower girl to peer under the door of your stall to pull you out of there.

Why is this rite of passage so entertaining for older married members of the crowd? Why do they think this is FUN? They cheer and clap as you're being dragged - and I mean physically dragged - onto the dance floor. They will actually put hands on you to shove you out there, even if you profess offense. Brides think this is hilarious. They're secretly thinking, "I don't have to do this anymore! But you do!"

You know what it says? LOSER. It says YOU SUCK. It says YOU SLEEP ALONE AND WE'RE RUBBING IT IN. So the fact that everybody else thinks it's HIGH-larious to force you to stand out on the dance floor behind the bridesmaids when you could easily have given birth to them is humiliating on a grand scale.

If you're in the wedding party, I get that that's part of the protocol. That, I wearily accept. But when you're the only bridesmaid still single, that adds to the humiliation. But there are means of coping. I've taken to standing behind somebody really tall who seems eager to catch the bouquet, even if it means some frightened lad or very drunk groomsman is later going to stuff the garter up her dress. I figure I might show my support for the bride by standing there in my bridesmaid dress, but I refuse to leap for the flowers.

But I've had about enough of this gross humiliation. I'm already the only singleton in the family and as time goes on, my friends quickly succumb too. Sooner or later their kids will be getting hitched, and I'll still be out there. So I'm taking action, and it isn't going to be pretty. I'm quickly getting to the point where I'm going to start telling people to shove the taffeta-wrapped, wilted-rose-and-baby's-breath concoction far up their asses, if they try to herd me onto the dance floor with kids half my age to catch a reminder of loneliness.