All the Single … People

A few months ago I had what I thought was a brilliant idea brewing for a book …  a novel if you will. It was entitled: “Redefining Masculinity … Aiding Men, One Clueless Homo Sapien at a Time.” Unfortunately, I realized recently, much to the jubilation of most of the gentlemen that have ever taken minor part in my life, that I know nothing about the male psyche or process, and therefore the idea was to be forcibly shelved until I find a counterpart worthy of co-authorship. So instead, I decided to write a bit on something I do know … that of being female … And that of being single.

In a confusing world.

A world where it seems that everyone is getting married. There is in fact, something in the water. If you’re anything like me, you have not partaken in said water, nor are you sure you want to. To be completely honest, you avoid the faucets and stick to the bottled variety in locales you find suspect, knowing despite your best efforts you’re probably still drinking tap water from somewhere, thanks Dansani, but your hopes are that this select H2O is from the east coast … somewhere like Chicago, Boston, or New York City, some rational city where the average age for marriage has steadily risen into the mid-thirties since the early 90s. But here, in your West Coast reality,  you’re getting a definite Jonestown vibe from life. In the words of one of my newfound favorite people, Sloane Crosley, marriage, seems to be “an epidemic, and we’re all invited.”

If I had a dollar for every time someone found out I was single and responded with the dreaded, “Oh my gosh! Really? But you’re so cute, what’s wrong with you?” some rogue cowboy looking to be a kept man would have swept me off my feet for my millions years ago.

The above statement is wrong on so many levels, the most profound of them being the unwelcome assumptions, including, but not limited to:

a. There’s something “wrong” with me (and let me be the first to tell you, there are a million things despairingly “wrong” with me, my mom would tell you that there are also an equal number of things that are charmingly and impossibly “right” with me)

b. The only reason someone would ever want me is because I’m “cute”

And, finally

c. I desperately desire a ball and chain, but because of all aforementioned faults, no one will fit me with the ankle bracelet required.

Alas, I am a (dare I admit it?) contentedly single twenty-seven-year-old female. Shocking, I know.

Could I be married? Probably. Am I? Not last I checked.

Other than drunken proclamations of love, romantic nuptials, and unconceived children, hands down the best marriage proposal I ever received was at the ripe old age of 19 and not from a man … rather from the mother of said man, Pedro, who offered me, in exchange for my hand in marriage to her son, a shanty, three cows, and a considerable plot of land viable for many crops of plantains on the shores of beautiful Lake Nicaragua …

I told her to throw in the chickens and she had herself a deal.

Unfortunately, the avian animals of an egg producing persuasion were simply something could not part with.

Therefore, a few weeks later I joined some Euro friends on the back of a flat bed truck bound for the capital city of Mangua. Amidst entertaining the locales with blood curdling screams when spiders of pre-historic proportion would fall from the trees above into my tangled web of blonde hair, I filled myself with an appropriate amount of Romeo and Juliet inspired despair, wept, and bid a painful farewell to what was surely my one chance at marital bliss.

“The misery, the exquisite tragedy. The Susan Hayward of it all…”

One of the greatest delights of my life has been investing and being around women. In this, you’re indefinitely going to join them as they navigate the rough seas of romance … dating, processing, falling in love, breaking-up, getting back together, breaking up again, and generally learning to define who they are as individuals, as women, and as members of a much larger world.

It is one of the greatest beauties of being women … of being human … of being alive.

Am I here to downplay the magnificence of the romance working out … marriage, commitment, the largest of which we can make person to person whilst here on earth … certainly not.  And for all those I know and don’t have the pleasure of knowing who have or are tying that everlasting knot in the near future, my most sincere and honest congratulations.

BUT, am I here to tell all the single ladies of the world (thank you, Beyonce) that you’re not alone and that you’re not without hope? Most Certainly.

Lest we forget, “Husbands are like tattoos – you should wait until you come across something you want on your body for the rest of your life instead of just wandering into a tattoo parlor on some idle Sunday and saying, “I feel like I should have one of these suckers by now. I’ll take a thorny rose and a ‘MOM’ anchor, please. No, not that one – the big one.” (Sloane)

The comment I hear from singles that causes me the most profound heartbreak is: “If I get married, then I will __________ (fill in the blank).”

And ladies, (In the words of a multi-billion dollar ad campaign by Nike) Just do it.

Despite what your statistics (for Communications Majors) professor led you to believe, life isn’t a physics problem, easily explained with the correct formula, the “if … then” … isn’t always plausible … and love and our existence is most definitely not something to be solved.

Do it now. Don’t wait. Prince Charming (or Aladdin, if you’re me) is unpredictable … who knows when or if he might show up. And chances are, when and if he does rear his enchanting head, I would be willing to bet that you hope you’re living life to the absolute fullest, doing something you love, so he loves it too. Don’t put off the trip. Don’t put off the dreams. And most definitely don’t put off the dancing.

Carrie Bradshaw, another famously once single (until she finally wed Mr. Big in SATC Movie … whatever, Carrie) female once said of relationships, “You have to figure … if the world’s fattest twins can find love, there’s hope for all of us. Somewhere out there is another little freak who will love us, understand us, and kiss our 3 heads and make it all better. And until then, there’s always Manhattan.”

So, don’t ignore the proverbial Manhattans. Life is brilliant right now; this moment is here for the taking. Grasp it. Hold it. Cherish it. And never let it go. Today isn’t going to happen ever again, whether you have that special someone in your life or not. And the inevitable loss of the present creates the utter brilliance and sheer urgency that makes our existence here on earth worth fighting for.

I have had the supreme pleasure of dating many an eligible bachelor. They have been charming, smart, funny, successful, and in more than a few cases exactly what some lucky lady was looking for. Her irreversible, for life tattoo, if you will …  That lady, however has yet to be me. Therefore, I have, without regret, relinquished my right to these men, with amicable delight realizing that they have found their happiness, while knowing, with unequivocal confidence that I’ve found mine. And when and if I stumble upon someone I want for life, the tattoo that’s right for me, a male counterpart, and most importantly, a competitor for an absurd number of card games, I hope to honestly say that my life will simply go from brilliant to brilliant.

And, until life makes that jump, I plan on living … on going … on seeing my life’s goals through from learning to eat with chopsticks to speaking Spanish fluently to stalking my favorite authors until they agree to meet me for a beer (or a cup of coffee, considering most of my favorite authors are recovering addicts) to jumping on a plane every time I can get my dirty mitts on a ticket to writing a memoir to kissing many sweet kids to catching up on Lost before its rapidly approaching finale.

There’s no need to put off life. Don’t buy into the “But I don’t have anyone to share it with  …” argument. While I would be lying to say that there aren’t flashes of short-lived loneliness, moments where I think to myself, “Wow, it would be really great to have someone who I could forcibly convince to sit with me on my bed, learning to eat phad thai with chopsticks from a “how-to” website while listening and attempting to interpret classical music that neither of us actually care about …” Or to have someone around obligated to laugh at my antics to please me (which, let’s be honest, won’t happen no matter what) … Frankly Connect 4 seems like it would be less predictable with a partner. That, however, I could be wrong about … if you throw those damn checkers in fast enough …

However, a beautiful sense of clarity never fails to make its welcome arrival once I remember to look up, to see. I share the planet with billions of other people, billions of people with a brilliant story to tell. They may not be in love with me, but that’s neither here nor there, we can share life on an incredibly profound level regardless. At the end of the day, when I’m truly honest with myself, I recognize that I  fall more deeply in love with life daily, despite the minor detail that there is not a man written into the script of the Lindsay Schuette Show anytime in the near future.

So, like our gay friend George, from “My Best Friends Wedding” so eloquently reminded us all, “There may not be marriage, there may not be sex, but, by god, there will be dancing.”

So, let us remember, No one promised us romance. No one promised us marriage. In fact, no one promised us tomorrow. So dance.

Immediately.

L