• Abby: Knock, knock.
• Me: Who's there?
• Abby: Orange.
• Me: Orange who?
• Abbey: Eat me!
• Me: Tell that one to your teacher.

Have you ever noticed that when single people congregate, the attitude towards each person’s relationship status remains a relative non-issue, but if you introduce a couple in a happy relationship to the group, the dynamic changes dramatically? Suddenly, it’s no longer good enough that you’re enjoying your youth, meeting different types of people and not pressuring yourself to explore a relationship with people you wouldn’t trust to walk your dog let alone take you on a date.

In my experience, once people decide that they are satisfied with their partner, they feel it important — their mission — to try and find a partner for single friends. At first, the act is casual, perhaps arranging group hangouts, which serve as a “singles mingle” event without the need to announce a desire for people to pair up. If that fails to produce results, “accidental” run-ins with single acquaintances at places you frequent with friends become noticeably more regular before resorting to the excruciatingly dreadful blind date.

People often reason that it’s comfortable for couples to spend time with other couples, but really? When people are in a relationship — especially during that early honeymoon phase where it is perceived that nothing can be better than actually being in a relationship — do couples even pretend to care what is going on around them? No. That is why high schools have rules banning public displays of affection, colleges have to explicitly list sex as a banned activity while one’s roommate is in the room, or why any man has ever seen a movie based on a Nicholas Sparks book.

That’s well and good, but what’s my point, you ask? Calm down. I’m getting there.

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To my dismay, when I am at the beach, I am usually accompanied by those who prefer to tan or read or do just about anything that sucks the fun out of not being at work on a nice afternoon. To distract myself, I do a lot of people-watching. Sometimes I take notes. Sometimes I forget about notes I take.As I was looking for an old grocery list this evening, I found the following excerpt on my iPod. I have not edited it, so this note appears in the form that it was when I completed it on the beach that day.

The beach is uncrowded for a midsummer, Saturday afternoon, though this probably has much to do with overcast and windy conditions. Unlike most, I love this type of beach weather.

Two men in their early thirties, probably brothers, throw a football around near the water. The older is standing somewhat in the foreground, closer to where his extended family has set up camp on the beach. Nearby, his adolescent daughter digs at the sand. After a few moments, she wanders over to him, lightly tugging at his bathing suit to get his attention, but he gently nudges her away. She persists, and he grows tired of discouraging her efforts to spend time together, coaxing a cousin of the girl to join her as they go to the shoreline.

The younger of the brothers cannot catch the ball with any consistency. He tries to play off his misses coolly, certainly aware that each drop further quashes any hope of utilizing his athleticism to impress the attractive female lifeguards nearby. It is clear the older brother hurls the ball across the beach with a fervor indicative of a latent need to relive what I can only assume are the glory days of collegiate flag-football games of yesteryear.

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Why is it suddenly considered quirky and amusing to refer to one’s significant other using “the” — a distinctly impersonal definitive adjective? The trend is by no means a recent one, but occurrences seem never-ending now that social networking sites are used by everyone and not just college students and sexual deviants.

It is near impossible to peruse the comments section of a friend’s status or photo album and not find an exchange such as the one below:

The practice seems almost a contrived effort to nonchalantly remind others that, yes, someone actually does let me have sex with them. Freud might say that not attaching a possessive modifier in such instances suggests latent feelings of dissatisfaction with one’s partner or yearnings to explore repressed primitive impulses outside of the relationship.

I contend that this effort to promote a blasé attitude allows you to acknowledge you’re in a relationship despite struggling to not be defined by it.

Or you’re just a dick. It could just be that, too.

I just sat and listened imagining that, if TV were never invented, this would be the equivalent of listening to an episode of Law & Order over the radio, slouching in a chair before an oversized piece of electronics, staring into oblivion while sipping some hot chocolate and wondering how I could actually be doing something that mattered instead of sitting here and listening to this pointless garbage.