Widow

About three years ago, I changed my facebook relationship status to "widowed." There was a brief, and stupid, interlude of "in a relationship," but then it was back to being widowed. Which makes perfect logical sense in a way. I mean, being in a relationship doesn't mean you stop being widowed. "Widowed" has the potentially enviable attribute of being a concurrent relationship status. You continue to be widowed (once, even more!), even if you marry like five more people. You always have a dead husband.

Except, I don't. I've never even had a living husband.

So why the blatant lie on a social networking site?

First of all, it is useful. The widowed status popped up around the time all of these peeps I went to high school with and hardly knew "friended" me. Not having been the social network cruiser I so obviously am, they all immediately wrote me annoying messages about being happily married and popping out kids and wanted to know just how many kids I had popped out. Because, it's America, and thus, always a fucking competition.

The "widowed" immediately put a stop to that. Instead of ebullient emails nosing into my reproductive life, people simply quietly friended me and went about their business playing Mafia Wars. After all, no one really wants to know THAT kind of info. It's kind of a downer after just wanting to brag to yet another victim that your kid has been accorded academically gifted status.

A few friends who know and love me got it and laughed. I am sure being widowed is no fun, unless your husband was a real douche and you managed to secretly poison him and don't feel the slightest twinge of guilt about it. But that is how I roll. Incorporating the misery of others into my own personal sick way of not having to explain while I still haven't found Mr. Really-For-Real-Right.

I did, however, recently get a comment from a friend who wondered why I didn't invite her to the wedding. Since I know she was kidding (hopefully) I told her I would definitely be inviting her to a wedding where I will be marrying a husband who is not in my imagination - dead. Because now my imagination has just gone and invented a perfect man who died at sea. That's right, at sea. I didn't even get to bury him. Instead I wander the coast, chucking forlorn regrets sealed in green bottles into the foam, hoping in the great beyond he knows how much I ...

Yeah, unhealthy.

The "widowed" status has taken an unexpected turn since friending some guys I've recently gone out with. I seriously think a couple have actually thought that I have been hiding something very important from them, and they are correct in the sense it might be my difficulty in separating reality from fantasy. But really, if someone doesn't get that (and my sick sense of humor) or doesn't bother at least asking about it, that relationship is headed nowhere but a therapist's office.

Thus, while I am not always okay with being single, being "widowed" fits me just fine.

He was too perfect for this earth anyway. Don't even try.