Single in Sydney: My friends are all getting married ... to people I didn’t know they were dating

IT’S not that all my friends are getting married. It’s who they’re getting married to that’s the problem. ...

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JOURNALIST Sarah Swain has been single (but dating) for longer than she cares to remember.

That’s because it’s tough out there, as any single will tell you, so to bring hope to others across the city, she’s sharing her no-holds-barred adventures on the Sydney single scene every Friday.

Wedding bells are ringing ...

Two of my friends have got married now.

Nothing strange about that.

But what I should say is two of my friends have got married now, to people I DIDN’T KNOW THEY WERE DATING.

How did this happen?

Toni Collette in classic movie Muriel's Wedding, about a girl who really, really wanted to get married.

I mean they’re both some of the nicest girls I know, and I sadly don’t speak to them as much as I used to.

One of them, a gorgeous uni friend, had been engaged to a guy since the first year of uni, and they’d been living together in London.

And the last time I met up with her, for lunch at Westfield White City in the UK capital, from what I can remember, everything seemed good.

Then, the next year, she posted some wedding photos on Facebook.

Lovely! I thought.

I’m not like Muriel in Muriel's Wedding, honest.

I mean I thought her boyfriend looked a bit different from how I remembered, but I posted a congratulations message anyway.

And then I looked again, and realised — she’d married somebody else.

I never have found out the details.

And now it’s happened again.

A lovely friend from Dubai messaged to tell me she was heading to the Seychelles to get married.

I was so pleased for her, as she works so hard running her own company.

And I haven’t seen her, except on Facebook, since 2014.

A lovely friend from Dubai messaged to tell me she was heading to the Seychelles to get married. Picture: Thinkstock

Then I got distracted by work, and didn’t really take in her next Facebook message.

It said: “to someone else!”

I thought she was joking.

Rebel might be promiscuous but she’s more me than Muriel.

But when a selfie popped up of her in a wedding dress with a man I didn’t recognise on Facebook, I re-read our conversation.

She really had married somebody else.

And I’m happy for both of them, really.

But it just seems a bit unfair.

I mean, I’m not Muriel’s Wedding-style desperate to walk down the aisle at all.

I’m more like Rebel Wilson’s character in new movie, How to be Single (I saw it at a Hoyt’s Girls Night Out event, which was pretty fun).

My favourite line was when she’s criticising Dakota Johnson’s character for constantly going from one relationship to the next. (my lifecoach would call it ‘gap-filling’).

“At least I know when I find someone, they’re going to like me for who I am, because I know who the f*** I am.” she yells.

And it’s true.

Also, Muriel might have got her wedding, but it didn‘t exactly work out for her did it?

And one thing it shows, is things can change faster than a movie star’s hair colour.

*I’ve solved my wheely big problem of having no date for my sky-high dinner at Luna Park next month. After my appeal last week, I received around a dozen emails, a handful of tweets and even a few What’s app messages. And I’ve said yes to one! Who? Well, you’ll have to wait and see.

Tweet me @swainey123