The other night, over birthday drinks, I wound up talking to some friends about compulsive serial monogamy and how in general it is not good. Not a novel stance on our parts, but always a subject worth revisiting. Partway through, I realized that my three comrades were all in longish-term relationships, and were talking about not just what it's like to be single, but about what one has to do in order to be single in a healthy way. It occurred to me that I, in fact, was single, and that in an inadvertent way they were inherently describing what my life needs to be like in order for me to be healthy. Which I do not say negatively--they were, after all, saying good things, and presumably believe that I (basically) live my life as a Good Single.
The thing that struck me, as it always does, was that to some people singledom is something one must work towards. Now, this year I did some dating that was not necessarily awesome but mostly got me over my idea that I am incapable of dating, and that dating is something that other people do. However, it still occasionally blows my mind that, to many people, dating is a default setting. Some people have to learnto be single.
Just below, I discussed my theory that "Some people were born to fuck." Maybe some people are likewise Born To Date. And just as I ought not constantly be fucking, so too is it a good idea for the BTDs among us to chill out now and then. And most of them do. But when a friend of mine, having settled in a few months after moving to New York, said "I think I'm ready to start dating now," it actually spun me a little. It hadn't occurred to me, in practical terms, that dating was a function of readiness. That is, I'd always thought of it as some kind of alchemy that you might stumble into a person whom you not only liked but who-- BY FREAKISH COINCIDENCE--happened also to like you. The odds have always seemed to me very slim that I would like someone who, out of every other person he knew, liked me--and vice versa. It seemed like something that had to just magically happen. Surely there was no element of human willinvolved.
So, perhaps the BTFs and the BTDs can learn from each other. Okay, I actually have no idea what the daters can learn from me, except that maybe when a BTD dates a BTF, ze will know that being sexually active is not a sign of spiritual bankruptcy. I don't know. But I am learning--and, as a New Year's resolution, will continue to learn-- that perhaps I have some agency after all. We shall see.
Monday, January 7, 2008
How The Other Half Lives
Friday, November 16, 2007
That Helpful Third Wheel
Your friend Susan B. does not date a lot. It's not that I'm a sad sack sitting around moaning for a boyfriend*, and I've dated nicely this year, but usually I am not in a relationship, and don't have many serious ones under my belt.
And yet.
I have always found this really funny, but my becoupled friends love to ask me for relationship advice. I don't understand why. Sometimes there's a clear reason--like, there's a specific issue and they know I have knowledge or experience in that area--but much of the time there is not. One pair in college simply tried to make me into their couples therapist. And I wonder about the impulse. Is it because I was a psych major? Because I seem generally wise? Or is it partially--and I've long suspected this--that they think my chronic singledom means I know something they don't? A lot of people in relationships romanticize being single to a degree, but I wonder if some of my friends (especially ones who are younger or don't know me THAT well) view me as somehow above the fray. There was a Times article after the Dumbledore outing about how "[t]he master wizard is not a sexual being; he has shelved personal cares and embraced a higher mission." So maybe I'm some kind of paladinic guru! (On the other hand, no one that I recall asked Gandalf for relationship advice.)
But seriously folks. I guess it's that people want an outside perspective, and a single person is more outside than someone in a different relationship that comes with its own problems and biases. But why a PERPETUALLY single person? Eh, I dunno. I don't dislike it --except in situations where I feel like people ONLY want to hang out so they can tell me about their romantic problems--and I love being there for my friends and being trusted to help, or at least sympathize, with their important issues. But I don't really understand it. One of my friends posited, mostly joking, that I was single BECAUSE of all the relationship tsuris I'd ingested over the years. She envisioned me meeting the man of my dreams, getting flooded with the memory of every bad story I'd been told, and running in the opposite direction. Which is a convenient excuse--I'm not a dateless loser, I've just been scared straight!
But, yknow, probably the Loser Hypothesis is a little more accurate :)
*That would be what we call "four years of college."
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