Lemondrop

Being the ninth at dinner parties, the fifth at brunch, and the third at the matinee can be awkward.

You're the one for whom the waitress has to drag out an extra chair. You're the one who goes stag when wedding invites are "spouses only" to save the couple the cost of feeding some semi-permanent plus one. You're the one they invite that weird co-worker to the party for, so you're not the only single one.

True, good friends will never make you feel like the odd one out. In fact, they will stand and wait politely for that extra chair and call Triple A while you bounce around like a manic squirrel. But there's the inevitable moment at every gathering where it hits you – you are the only single one left.

So how do you deal with it? I have a few methods. Some of 'em nice, some of 'em not.

Click here for Amber's tips on surviving among the wedded ...

1. When a married friend says something maddening like "I just want you to meet someone nice," remind yourself that, til then, you can sleep with anybody you want, "nice" or not. Remind the married friend, too.

2. Enjoy flirting with everybody. Do it with extreme prejudice. The hot waiter at that fifth-wheel brunch? Hit on him. Who's gonna get pissed, your husband?

3. Take pleasure in being the only one in the room with the hilarious story about the blind date with a man whose toupee resembled a dead petting-zoo inhabitant.

4. Travel wherever you want, when you want. You have no husband or kids to plan around, so go off someplace, have a great time, and take lots of pictures to post on Facebook.

5. Cultivate oddball relationships with unsuitable men. Suggested: tattoo artists, romance novelists, men who very seriously sculpt play dough into "art," renaissance fair goers, and men who don't know they're gay. Your married friends will be inexplicably jealous, and you'll become that legendary Single Gal.

6. Buy crap you don't need. Who's going to complain that you're spending too much of the mutual cash on buying expensive jam instead of the store brand? Nobody.

7. Refuse to be marginalized. Going out to dinner as a group? Nab a middle seat, thus forcing a couple to sit apart, across or (horrors) perpendicular to one another. They'll deal.

But most importantly, privately hold out hope that there's somebody out there as annoyed by his married friends as you are by yours. I know, eventually, that I'll have someone to drag onto the dance floor at weddings. I just have to find some single friends to annoy the hell out of.

Amber Adrian writes about dating and love and is a frequent Lemondrop contributor.