1=2 if you're in a couple. (Photo via CC)
Over the Jewish holidays, I was invited to a few meals, very friendly, fun, and delicious affairs. As always, I brought something with me to contribute and because I wasn’t raised by wolves. (In both instances, I was asked to bake chocolate chip cookies, which I love doing.)
Anyway, the holiday meals I attended were a healthy mix of single friends and wonderful married couples. And everyone brought something–a salad, a bottle of wine, a dessert.
But as I looked around the table, I couldn’t help but notice (as I have on many other occasions) that while I, as a single person, brought cookies, the couples each chipped in one item per two people.
How has this come to be? Why do couples get to skirt by with just one gift? Do they eat off of the same plate? Do they eat and drink half as much? Nope.
They eat with the same gusto and appetite as any of the single folks present, but for the purposes of gift giving, they’ve melded into a unit just as they have on their tax returns in order to pay lower taxes. (I can’t blame them for that. I’d get married for insurance and the ability to file a joint return.)
Am I being shrewish and obnoxious? Or is this yet another small way that single people get screwed? (I guess the same idea applies to wedding or baby gifts.) When did we decide that when you get married you get to go halfsies on all presents?
I guess that the next time someone asks me to bring a bottle of wine to a dinner, I could drink half of it ahead of time and tell my hosts that I left the other half at home for my partner, Babo the Ugly Doll.
I probably won’t do that because of backwash. Instead I’ll be grateful for all the evenings I get to spend alone, enjoying sushi delivery and episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation on Netflix and the little dance I get to do before I go to sleep without anyone’s judgment. Except for Babo’s.
