And Guest

Posted by Cynical Sarah on June 11, 2007

There are certain obligations that come with putting on a wedding ring that people don’t tell you about. This weekend, I discovered one of those things – being “and guest” at a class reunion.

Somewhere during our first, private marriage ceremony or during our wedding, there was some unspoken commitment we made to each other to be there even for those occasions where our biggest role will be to just stand their and smile. That, my friend, is the role of “and guest.”

So, on Saturday, I did my hair, put on a dress, and prepared myself for an evening of being my hubby’s guest at his 10-year class reunion.

Step number one for the evening was meeting the core group of friends at the pub before heading over to the main shindig. That was the easy part. It was familiar territory, people I’ve already met and had a chance to get to know a little bit. There I am “Sarah,” and not necessarily just Troy’s wife or Troy’s guest.

My “and guest” experience began when we headed over to the hotel where the grand event was taking place. When we walked up to the registration table, pre-made name tags were already printed up for the grads who said they were attending. For us boyfriends, girlfriends, wives and husbands who were just tagging along, there were blank tags with “Guest” printed on them, and the greeter then wrote our names on them with a sharpie.

And thus the rest of my evening was defined as pre-printed name taggers got reacquainted with each other and us “guests” stood by their sides, smiling, holding hands or doing whatever else it is we’re supposed to do as the silent partner for the evening.

I could look around the room and pick out all the other “and guests” in attendance without even looking at name tags. We were the ones trying to look interested in a conversation about what some stranger has been up to the past 10 years.

We were the ones with drinks in our hands just so we had something to do while we were standing around waiting; the ones patiently waiting for dinner to be served; the ones with slightly panicked looks anytime our significant others wandered too far, leaving us adrift on our own.

We were also the ones who had much less pressure going to the reunion. Nobody knows what you were like before and is examining every detail about you from your job to your social life to how your jeans fit.

At least we’re not the actual microbe under the microscope, just the interesting speck next to the microbe.

- Sarah L. Polson

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