Family Weddings Are Giant Cliches.

So. It's a cliche, right? Hooking up with someone at a wedding. It's totally a cliche.

And I didn't do it. But the only reason I didn't do it is because it's a cliche. So it would be nice of everyone to tell me that it is a cliche, so that I don't feel like I threw away a perfectly decent chance to have really drunken sex for no good reason whatsoever.

I should start at the beginning. Not the middle. In media res, people. I am an ARTIST.

Family weddings are always a delicate situation. There's always a sense of wait, who are you again? And what that particular question ALWAYS means at a family wedding is "Who do you share DNA with? So I can know if I share DNA with you." This is particularly true in large families, that don't see each other often, that take extended family very seriously. I mean, the families of people that married into my father's family are regularly included at family gatherings. When my father's mother's family has reunions, there's a softball game: the Tschinkle's versus the "Out-laws." Everyone with Tschinkle blood is on one team. Everyone without is on the other.

No, seriously.

Anyway. There's this guy that is in much the same position that I am in when it comes to family: his siblings and cousins are all somewhere between 15 and 25 years older than he is because he's the product of a second marriage. Just like me. We're actually the same age. At one of these massive weddings back in the day when we were something like three and four, we were made to dance together. He was wearing a tiny tuxedo, I had flowers in my hair, it was a thing. There is a picture. It is famous. Everyone and their mama has a copy of it. And I mean that pretty literally, in this case. I have a copy, my mother has a copy, my grandmother has a copy, his mother has a copy, his brother's wives have copies, my aunt has a copy, and on and on.

FOR THE RECORD here, we aren't related. We worked shit out.

But he grew up pretty darn foxy, if you ask me. He's got a nice beard thing going on, likes skinny suits, is sort of nerdy with his cell phone tower job stuff. And really, really gorgeous hazel green eyes with that super Italian round-almond shape and incredibly great eyelashes. Holy shit, the eyes.

So we're at this wedding that includes a solid three days worth of events, and we're talking and laughing and drinking with both our generation (who are now all in their forties) and the older kids from the generation below us (who start at about 24 and range downward). Everyone's always in high spirits because, hey, it's a wedding. Also we haven't had a big family wedding in AGES. Also, this is the last of Uncle Dan's boys, so we won't have another one until the older kids start getting hitched.

And this guy and I, we're laughing and drinking and doing it up all right with everyone else, but we're also sort of scoping each other. I mean, he's cute. I look good in a dress. He's the right height for me in heels and we're both a little more awkward and a little shyer than most of the rest of the family. It works.

AND EVERYONE IS SUDDENLY TEASING US ABOUT THE PICTURE WHEN WE WERE TODDLERS.

Then we get to the actual wedding reception. Last night. It's a black tie affair. There are tuxes and evening gowns and a cocktail hour that goes on for two hours and more champagne toasts than you can shake a stick at. But when it comes to seating arrangements, they have put this guy and I together at a table with a bunch of the rest of our generation. Meaning, a bunch of 40-somethings. We are the only two under 30s at this table. Also the only two single people at this table. And OF COURSE my cousin Craig makes sure to ask me if I am actually single as we're sitting down to dinner. You know, in case I had a boyfriend stashed away in Wisconsin that just didn't come with me. And then makes sure to point out to me that the foxy guy that's not my cousin, but my cousins' childhood friend's younger brother is also single.

We roll our eyes at each other.

Dinner, a whole goddamn lot of merlot and cheap beer later, and we're dancing. There are no slow dances at this wedding reception. We do not recreate the sweet picture from our youth.

We end up in the hotel bar with a collection of other partiers after the reception. We proceed to drink more. We chat together. Ignoring everyone else. I tell myself to stop flirting. It does not work.

I could flow through the rest of the night, but it ends like this: we're kissing in his empty hotel room. He pulls back and tells me that there are at least 20 pairs of eyes on us at this moment. I tell him that's ridiculous because EVERYONE ELSE IS ASLEEP. (They totally are, for the record. Asleep or passed out in drunken stupors. Same thing.)

He says it's still weird. It's now like 3 in the morning and I tell him that I can always leave and he kind of stands there like a deer in the headlights and so I just kind of kiss him on the cheek and book it out of his room and into my own bed.

But what I realized standing there, after kissing him for five minutes or so, is (one) that he was WASTED and (two) that the whole thing was just so cliche. I mean, I hadn't seen it because I was genuinely interested in him for his beard and his eyes and his awkwardness and his mixed up Long Island/South Florida accent and his nerdiness about cell phone towers.

But I'm pretty sure he was just all like: "It's a wedding. People hook up at weddings. She's my age and she looks nice in a dress. Good enough."

So, probably walking away was a great decision. I mean, for my heart and all, given how fucked up I already am.

But then I think that I haven't gotten laid in what seems like FOREVER and I think to myself, "You've got stop not being willing to settle a little bit for a simple one-night stand, Ryan. Not everything must or even should be grand passion."

Because getting laid would be really nice. Serious.

Oh, Long Island.

So, I am going to this big family wedding in about three days. The youngest son of my father's younger brother is getting married, and it's a whole big to-do and the whole fan-damily is going to be there.

I have been incredibly uncomfortable contemplating said upcoming event. Well, events, really, because in addition to the wedding there's a rehearsal dinner and a Sunday brunch that I am compelled to attend. It's really more like a family reunion than a wedding.

And my discomfort could have come from many sources. One, this will be G's first vacation/plane ride. She's three. She's not potty trained yet. She hates loud noises, is wary of new things, and is prone to temper tantrums in the late afternoons and early evenings because she refuses to nap. All of these factors tell me that this "vacation" is not going to be very "vacation-esque."

I am also faced with the prospect of sharing a single double-bed hotel room with my parents and my kid for six days, five nights because I can't afford my own room and the 'rents certainly can't afford a suite of any description.

Shoot me now. Seriously. It will be a mercy killing.

And then it could also be because this branch of the family and I, we don't get along at that well. I can be pleasant as the next person, but there's only so many veiled and unveiled racist statements, blatantly insensitive remarks about people that don't have money and generally undeserved snobbery I can take before I explode.

I may be a snob, but at least I'm gracious about it, and I have the sense to only be snobby about the things that I can back up. Like my impeccable taste in shoes, cheese, and wine.

But actually, my dread of this trip stems primarily from none of these things.

What it comes to is this: the last time I was on Long Island, G was with me. She was probably about 64 total cells just implanting in my uterus, but she was there.

Because I stopped on Long Island for a few days on the way home from that fateful trip to London.

I was so happy. I was so secure. I was getting text messages hourly. I carried around a piece of the parting gift he gave me, so that I could always put a hand on it. I was so happy.

Now what am I?