The specific thing that gets tiring
It is rarely the being single. It is the arithmetic — the seating plan, the fifth wheel at a table for six, the same gentle question from the same relative, the weekend away where everyone else shares a room.
None of that is unbearable. It is just a small tax on every invitation, and eventually the easier answer is not to go.
What actually changes
- You arrive with someone, so the seating plan stops being a topic
- The questions land differently, or do not land at all
- You spend the evening on the people you came to see
- You stop pre-declining things you would have enjoyed
What to tell people
Whatever you are comfortable with. The simplest true sentence tends to be the easiest to hold all evening — he is a friend, you came together — and it needs no maintenance.
He will not invent a shared history, which is the point: an elaborate story is a thing two people have to remember identically at a table full of relatives.
Keeping it in proportion
This is company for an evening, not a solution to a season. It is strictly platonic, agreed in writing beforehand, and it ends when the booking ends.
If the honest problem is that your friendships have narrowed, a booked plus-one will not widen them. It will get you to the party in a better mood, which is not nothing.
Frequently asked questions
Will it be obvious he's booked?
Only if you say so. He takes your lead on how he is introduced and does not volunteer the arrangement.
Can he come to a whole weekend away?
Yes. Longer bookings are agreed in advance, and length never changes what is on offer, which is platonic company.
Isn't this a bit sad?
Going to things you want to go to, in a better mood, is not sad. Pre-declining them quietly for a year is worse.