Charming, but single

This evening I had a snack-supper with two girlfriends to watch the Apprentice finale. I've never been one to have a party or anything for a TV show, but it seemed like a good excuse to eat unhealthy snack foods and gossip. (As if you needed a reason for that.) Also, Kendra won, which was cool. Mad props to hard-working young professional women who get so many mixed messages thrown at them -- "Get married and have babies!" "Have a career!" "You can't have a career with babies!" "Yes you can!" Also, if I would have had to hear about how Tana is just a "housewife from Iowa" one more time ... Enough with the Apprentice. As we were leaving, my friend and I were exchanging plans and whatnot for the weekend. We were both blowing off a party we'd be invited to. This turned us to the topic of invites and parties. Now, we all have friends who go to every party, every happy hour, every dinner, every barbecue or any other kind of celebration that they're invited to. They're determined to make an appearance at every social function they know of. They're constantly seeking invites to events and worrying far too much about the details. You know the type. They call you the second they find out about a party and hassle you about if you're going and then send you a million reminders about the party and stress about every detail of it and then if you don't go, they call you and say, "Why aren't you at [Name's] party? We got invited to it a month ago!" These people drive me crazy. My friend has a theory that I sort of agree with. "They can't miss you if you're never gone," she says. Now, I'm not trying to make people miss me or anything like that. But in many situations, I take a "leave them wanting more" approach. There's a big difference between being well-liked and the life of the party and being a groupie barfly. If you're going to go to every event ever held by someone you know, you just as soon paste yourself to the wall, because you're basically wallpaper. Truth be told, you never want to be the girl or guy who's always hanging out around closing time at the same place every night. Barfly is a derogatory term, not a badge of honor. I'm not advocating skipping social occasions to be fashionable. But to err on the other side, to be the first person to every party and the last person to leave and the first person to RSVP on Evite every time just makes you look overeager and not busy enough. (Not to mention, who doesn't want a night off sometimes? I know people who go out every night to every bar where they know someone. I'm too old for that.) I've missed a few things with my normal partying crew. Most of it had to do with sickness, although I skipped a few events just because I didn't want to go. I've been reverting to the "I'm an adult and I don't have to go if I don't want to" excuse with people a lot. It's my new favorite excuse. To recap: Parties, good. Busy social life, good. Being a groupie, bad bad bad.