The Best Kept Secret Blog - We Need To Go Out More

She was trying to up sell me. All I wanted was the lipstick but she kept pushing the shimmer powder. "She" was the sales representative at the NARS cosmetic counter at The Bay.

"You can put some on the corner of your eyes to give you that wide awake look. Or, for a special night out, sweep some on your decolletage."

"I don't go out," I replied.

She laughed. She was 22.

"You must sometime!"

I thought hard.

Hmmm... well, there was that recent parent - teacher interview. But then, everyone involved was a little more concerned with math than they were with my decolletage.

"No, not really."

As I pondered my reply, the sad, sad truth of it struck me. I'm a middle-aged married woman and my social life revolves around book club meetings or, on a particularly good month, drinks with the neighbours.

"We need to go out more," I announced to my husband that night.

"Why?" he asked cautiously. Like it was some sort of trick question along the lines of "Does this make me look fat?"

Why indeed. We both work hard. Life is busy enough. An evening in with a glass of wine and a good movie seems pretty darn good after a long week.

But I must admit that when I look at friends who are back on "the scene" following separation and divorce, I do feel a pang of envy.

There goes one taking a new LavaLife "friend" to a concert. There goes another for a ski weekend in Banff. When it's not their week to have the kids, they manage to get in movies, dinners and lectures at the ROM.

But it's more than that. I used to go out. I would get dressed up, go to a clubs or have dinners with friends. But the comfortable rut of middle-age marriage had slowly put an end to all of that. And as I thought about it now, not going out was just another way of letting myself go.

Just when I was beginning to get so low about my lack of social life that my husband's company Christmas party was starting to look good, said husband announced that he had invited another couple to dinner. A business acquaintance and his wife.

In my depressed social state, it sounded good.

The day of the dinner passed quickly in a flurry of house cleaning and food prep. Now it was time to get ready.

First, what to wear. My wardrobe was weighted heavily in jeans and sweaters at one end - the kind of garb I wear to walk the dog and take out the garbage - and, at the other end, two business suits circa 1986, shoulder pads and all, a little black dress and my stand-by dress in case someone dies and I have to attend a funeral.

I threw on my "good" jeans and a sweater and made my way to the bathroom mirror. Time for some makeup.

I figured I had things aced in the makeup department. Having recently purchased some new, mineral-based powder foundation I was ready to project a healthy glow. Unfortunately, the powder had a way of finding and falling into every wrinkle going. The finished result was something reminiscent of the Gobi desert.

On to the ambiance. I did a little better in this department - how hard can lighting a few candles be, after all? With just two minutes to go until the guests were due to arrive, my husband offered to put out some nuts until the appetizer was ready.

"Are you crazy?" I asked. "The dog will eat them!"

I felt I had things, more or less, under control when the doorbell rang. We received our guests, got them settled before the fire with a nice glass of Merlot and were getting on swimmingly when I remembered the hors d'oeuvre. The smoke alarm was just starting to beep as I entered the kitchen. Thirty-two canapes dumped in the backyard snow. How popular we would be with the raccoons that night!

The evening unfolded on more or less a fun note. But as we bid our guests goodnight and turned to the mountain of dishes in the kitchen, I turned to my husband and said, "We need to go out more."