Image from bpuppy

In middle school, I was the lunch-table advice guru—“The One with the Boy Answers.” I talked many an awkward seventh grader through school dances, first dates, and, inevitably, the breakups. Ten years later, I was the first in that same group of friends to get married, prompting lots of raised eyebrows and laughter at my expense.

Last week I was in the car with a friend, starting out on a two hour trip to visit the grad school crowd. We set the GPS, picked a radio station, and started to play catch-up. I asked how her boyfriend was doing and received that telling sigh. They had talked and he needed space. After hearing her story, I thought it over and realized I had nothing to offer. Marriage had rendered me completely useless in this situation. Sure, I rattled off some cliche lines, but solid advice? I couldn’t do it. Nothing I said could have helped anyway; it would have all been negated by the fact that I was “the married one.”

As we creep through our 20s and 30s, more and more of our single friends go over to the other side. The commitment-phobic friend is suddenly spending Saturday with her husband and their new kittens. Your devoted wingman just registered at Crate and Barrel. The big question is how to navigate friendship between the single and the married. Here’s my take on it, the top 5 things you should know about your 20-something married friends:

1. We feel boring. We may have had the busiest, best week ever, but we still can feel boring around our single friends because we don’t have the built-in stories that come with being single. You went on a crazy first date? You think he might be ready to get serious? Great, we spent Friday night putting together a bookshelf from Ikea.

2. We’re scared to death of sounding like our parents. We fear the question “so what’s new with you?” We scramble for a few seconds—made quesadillas last night, went to the dog park, went to the gym, work is good, husband is good—and conclude (again) that we are boring.

3. We find ourselves strangely drawn to HGTV. Somewhat kidding, but house-mania can sneak up fast and we can get a little self-conscious about our close encounters with domesticity.

4. We don’t know what to do at bars. We want to hang out, we may want to go out and dance, we may want to check out somewhere new. It sometimes gets tricky when we’re with a group at a bar and it becomes obvious that everyone else is there to meet someone. Don’t be too hard on us when we decide to call it a night early.

5. Most importantly, we don’t want to lose our single friends! If you weren’t friends with both partners before the wedding, don’t feel like you always have to invite as a pair. We are still separate people who want time with our friends—promise.

Even though we’re married, we’re still interested in your life, so bear with us as we do our best to find that balance between wanting to listen to your crazy nights and having to go home to fix to toilet.