Balance.

'Guess who's getting married?'
She questioned me with a knowing grin, as if she'd been holding up two fingers behind my head for a photograph.
It was obvious to me that she knew that I knew the answer, but for some reason, tradition maybe, that little silly guessing game is always played.
'Tom and Katie?'
'No... well, yes, but they're not our friends.'
'Paris and Paris?'
'Heck no. Any self-respecting person should never unite with someone who shares their namesake. Plus, I don't care, she's a trampy ho.'
'Brangelina?'
'Y'know, I'm not sure on that one. I will say this though: I was a much bigger fan of Brad and Jenn. They were so cutesy.'
Ugh. Cutesy.
'Janice and Ron?'
'Is that your final answer?'
She did a mad hot impersonation of Regis Philbin, followed by an equally impressive turn at Meredith Viera mostly out of respect.
'Yes. It is.'
She always let the suspense linger just a tad too long, in my opinion, and I consistently made her acutely aware of my feelings on the matter, but I decided to let her have her slightly overdrawn moment of tangibly sarcastic tension this time because she and I were both rather ecstatic regarding the thought of two friends like Janice and Ron being wed.
'That is... correct, congratulations.'
We both heaved a mock sigh of thankful relief, wiped our brows with our rights, and then with our lefts, and then wiped one anothers brows with our lefts and rights, and collapsed exhaustedly onto the couch, breathing deeply at first, progressing dramatically to a very labored heavy panting, finally culminating in a fit of girlish giggles in which, of course, I had no part.
'I'm so happy for them, they're fantastic.'
Janice had been her best friend for the past seven years, and even though they'd lived in different cities for the last two, things hadn't changed.
'Weddings are such happy occasions.' I added brilliantly.
I always feel sort of exhilirated and giddy when I hear of engagements, you know? The immediate feeling I get is almost one of relief, or maybe the relaxation of frustration. I get flustered, angry, confused when I see the promise of love in people and then see how tarnished and useless it can become. When I hear of two people making that original decision to trade eternal vows, I get optimistic and jubilant in the hope that maybe this time someone will receive the prize that all our fairy tales and all our Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan-romantic-comedies have promised us. Of course, the drug of Hollywood love never seems emulated in real life, but regardless, new nuptual news is always a thrill.

She paused with that thoughtful look, scrunching her eyebrows together above her nose, giving them a few slight wiggles, as if massaging her frontal lobe in order to aid the flow of her brain-juice.
'Though,' she started slowly, 'it's sad. Heartbreakingly sad.'
To me, the only thing sad at a wedding is when that last slow song finally draws to a close and everyone stops moving and takes notice of how sweaty everyone has become.
'Sad?'
She knew an explanation would likely be necessary, so her reply was almost immediate.
'Yeah. I mean, that's it. They're married. Not single. No more single gal chats about loathesome dirtbags, present company excluded, or Babely McHottersons-'
'Present company included.' I jabbed playfully.
'Ha. Ha.' Came her palpably deadpan reply. 'I'm serious though, it's over, and sure it's great that things are just beginning for them as a single entity, but it's like a part of them is dying, or at least being locked away in some upstairs cupboard or something.'
'I get it. It's like their single selves dissolve when they become one, like sugar and water, I think,' for I wasn't entirely sure whether or not sugar dissolved in water, 'both great things on their own, sweet and satisfying, but together it's just gross sugar-water that nobody wants to drink 'cause nobody likes sugar-water and if they do, I think a part of them should be put to death anyway.'
'Almost..'
She had that distant look in her eyes again, the one that indicated to me that I was about to become a bystander. It was that expression that I knew all-too-well, that communicated the fact that this was probably turning into a one-sided conversation where I just became an annoyance with all my peanut gallery comments while she expounded on the subject at hand, not really caring who she was talking to, with my existence digressing to solely that of 'sounding-board'. I hate that.
'Well,' I began, with a non-chalant air about me, before she could wander off on her own, 'I do know a fair bit about this game of love.'
I had intended to add, 'I'm considered to be somewhat of an expert in the field' but instead said, 'I'm considerably tubby summat,' and 'I'm considering to become what,' and then I stopped trying to say it.
'Gonorrhea.' She said dryly.
Now, with no historical context, this may have been a shock to my ears, but I knew exactly what she meant when she said it. This word was bred through an arduous evolutionary process that had begun several years ago when we had agreed that the cliched sayings of our times were just that: cliche. A grand realization to some, simply another mundane epiphany to us, it was at that point we decided to battle upstream against the floodwaters of the status quo, turning modern thought on its head as we went. It started when a saying or phrase was uttered in conversation. From that point on, we altered it every time it re-surfaced in our chats. In this particular case, she had uttered, 'cat gotcher tongue', which so naturally became 'can't gonch a ton' within a couple of weeks. Later, it would become 'gonch pull', through the free association of words and ideas. Next was 'taffy pull', followed by 'former President Taft', which preceded 'Gerald Ford', which gave birth to 'Ford Aspire', 'aspirations', 'asphixyation', 'syphillus' and finally to 'gonorrhea', where we find ourselves today. A further example of this lovely game is brought to us courtesy of the phrase, 'a certain je ne sais quoi', which we mostly use without knowing it's true meaning anyhow. Almost immediately it became 'a certain genocide quack' and stood as that for quite some time before losing rank to 'Rwandan duck', which, while being slightly offensive and making light of an horrific tragedy, did stand as the new je ne sais quoi for a good six months. Eventually the Rwandan duck gave way to 'duck and run', which evolved into 'Three Doors Down', which became 'The Doors had no bass', followed by 'loudmouth bass', then 'Lance Bass', 'Joey Fatone', Uncle Joey' and finally the phrase we know and love today, 'The Li'l Myrkals Feat. Unca Creep'. So, as you can see, with the right background, her previous statement made total sense.
'Yeah.'