..."And Your Spouse"

I think that parties that invite you "and your spouse" are a slap in the face to single people everywhere. 

It's like you don't even exist--you didn't even warrant the accommodation of "plus 1."  It is so literally inconceivable to the person doing the inviting that someone on the guest list might be without a spouse that it doesn't even cross their mind that there is anything wrong with inviting spouses.

It's American church culture, for one thing, which by extension, is the culture I work in.  If you're married, you check a box.  You make sense to people.  You start dating someone, and sure, you're not married yet, but you at least still make sense--and now everyone can pester you about when you're going to get married.  But you become single again, and suddenly, you don't check any boxes.  You don't fit anymore with all the couples--and they are everywhere.  Because in your culture, it doesn't make sense not to be part of a couple.  And most people like to fit in.  (Or they just want to be coupled.  I don't know.)  And if you are that person who doesn't want to be shackled in that way, you just don't fit. 

So, what do you do?  Do you graciously decline?  Do you accept and attend solo in a sea full of couples?  Do you accept and take a "plus 1" in spite of the fact that the person isn't your "spouse"?

There's this party that I've never been invited to before.  And for the four+ years that the ex and I officially dated, he never took me because I "wasn't his wife" and it was for [his group of employee types] and their spouses only. 

(In retrospect, that tells you much more about him than about the event, doesn't it?)  But the party.  I don't really care about parties, generally speaking, but it always stung that I couldn't go because I wasn't his little wife. 

Because I wasn't ready to be his little wife. 

Because I didn't want to be his little wife.

And now this year, I am invited on my own merits, except I no longer want to go.  Because of him, on one level.  And because of the general awkwardness of being the only person without a spouse in a room full of spouses, on another level.

I hate Christmas so much right now, and it's not even Thanksgiving.