Monday, January 18, 2016

In Praise of Single Life


After years on match.com, a short-lived marriage/long date and several 6-week-long relationships (seems to be my cut-off point), I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m just not motivated enough to have a man in my life.  The idealist in me is surprisingly realistic on the subject: I’m happiest when I’m single.

Sure, I miss having someone take me in his arms at the end of the day and whisper, “What’s for dinner?”  And when I’m outside sweating over heavy yardwork, I miss having my man come outside to bring me a glass of water and ask, “Are you going to do any laundry today? I’m out of socks.”

Maybe I’m happiest when I’m single because there is still the dream that someone wonderful will come along and I’ll live even more happily ever after. When I’m in a relationship, however, common courtesy demands that I not dream about Mr. Wonderful.  Apparently a girl is obligated to hang in there for a decent length of time to see if this guy could possibly work out, and maybe I should dial back on my expectations, and smelling like an unwashed old man and eating his own boogers are not hanging offenses, after all.

I have to admit that not having a man in my life makes it very easy to maintain my pattern of starting and abandoning self-improvement projects. A man would surely question the No Bake Cookies cooling on the counter if I’m supposed to be on a diet. He would undoubtedly ask me if I took my walk today or spent time writing. Being single makes it very easy to convince myself that it’s too cold to walk and 3 little cookies never killed anyone. 

Still, it would be nice to have someone take me out to dinner. Someone for whom I’m the most important person in the world. Someone who tells me I’m wonderful.  Someone who gets me the most ergonomic snow shovel they can find and insists that I wear a hat and good boots when I use it.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh, the horror stories on match.com--I have two friends who gave it a good try. One went on several dates with multiple others and he is convinced they all lied on their profile! He has dated a couple of them long enough to know that he'd really rather not raise their children who were 30+ years old and still on the payroll at home. But my sister in law did find a good partner, not Mr. Right (as they are rather dangerous), or even Mr. Tolerable (as who wants to do that every single day of our lives). And this fella she did marry, her second marriage, who would not be my match is definitely good for her. My mom should have gone on match.com instead of marrying the four men she did marry in her lifetime. She might have had better luck! Not that I'm counting . . .

Sue T said...

It's good to have you back! I look forward to more posts.

Nancy said...

Ironically I did meet my second husband on Match.com.I had my oldest son help me sign up and create my profile. He was seventeen at the time. I had been divorced for three years and was still reeling from the shock of it. We created a rather tongue in cheek profile under the snooty name of "Bea Literate". There was enough detail in it that a man I had met four years earlier (when we were both married and now both divorced) recognized me. It also helped that our distance from each other came up at 0 miles as we lived a few blocks apart and didn't know it. So here we are today having been together for 19 years and married 10. He mows the grass and I trim the scrubs and weed the flower beds. So glad to know about your blog. I love you writing and great sense of humor.