When Singlutionary is "Sick of Being Single!"

In my last post, I mentioned that, in part, my long hiatus from blogging was due to feeling "sick of being single": I felt like a hypocrite.

But Eleanore of The Spinsterlicious Life wrote a delightful comment which inspired me to write more about the very thing which prevented me from writing.

Being single is an adventure -- especially if you're someone who has never been single and suddenly finds yourself there or if you've lived a life where you've never felt comfortable with being single but suddenly realize that learning to be comfortable with being single is the most important thing you can do for yourself.

When I started this blog 3 years ago I was excited at the thought of learning how to be happy and single. I was fresh out of a pretty sketchy relationship with my former therapist. (Duh, bad idea, right?) I was still in and barely coming out of a deep-down-supper-shitty, bad-as-its-ever-been low point. I was upset with myself for making yet another bad decision when it came to a relationship (or relationship material) and upset at the universe for all the time and space I had wasted in my life wishing for some Knight in Badboy Armor to come trotting into my life only to rip my life out of my own hands and trample it under his sexy horse.

But after being single for 2 years, the gloss and struggle of singleness wore of. There was a honeymoon period that I had with myself and it was over.

But I loved the community I had found through Singlutionary. This blog fed my soul and my fellow bloggers were a rare light for me during a very difficult time. I felt sane and comprehended and like I was a part of something important when I wrote and read and commented and conversed in the singles blog-o-sphere. So I kept trying to keep this blog up.

But I was bored. I was bored with everything. After a traumatic experience, it takes a long time to feel stable again. And at first that stability is like this great and wondrous thing. It feels SO GOOD.

And then it gets boring. Suddenly, stability is taken for granted. I wondered what was next? What would I do with my life now that I had my life back in my own hands, mended of horse hooves and heartbreak?

I needed a new real life friend, some intellectual stimulation and a job that didn't suck.

And I wanted to be with someone in a sexual/love relationship because THAT seemed like the new adventure. And because I'd finally got enough confidence in myself and in the world to think that being in a relationship could be a positive thing -- as long as I did it Singlutionary style.

Well, the first relationship was a disaster of needyness. I was Singlutionary and the other member of this relationship was Needilutionary. It was over almost before it began, but not soon enough.

I was so glad to be single again after that 4 month 1st try.

But I hadn't had sex in over 2 years and I was on the prowl. But THAT story is the subject of another post.

The point of this post is that even if you're totally happy and comfortable with being single, sometimes you get bored. Sometimes you're bored because your job is boring or because your friends are all old farts or because you're an old fart and only like to watch old episodes of The Wonder Years on VHS and think about the olden days.

Sometimes you're horny because you haven't had sex in 2 years and you've just turned 30.

It is OK to crave a new adventure! Sometimes this adventure means going offline for a bit, or quitting writing for a bit. And sometimes this adventure means trying out that thing that we're all about doing just fine without -- a relationship.

What adventures are you craving? When do you know that you're entering into this new adventure not out a desperate need to get away from where-you-are but because you're ready to share where-you-are with the world?

Comment Away!

Love,

Singlutionary

PS: The wordpress site isn't quite ready yet but getting a little closer every week. My new academic/work/social schedule permits me to check in, comment, read and post about once a week so it will be a matter of weeks before the transition to wordpress is complete.

Love and Other Disasters

I've posted before (partially) in jest about my enjoyment of flatulaughter (laughing and farting at the same time) but I didn't know that other people were out there making hilarious analogies between farting and relationships as well. Today, as I was enjoying a random online netflix experience, I came across this hilarious scene in the film Love and other Disasters staring Brittany Murphy.

I hope you find this clip as awesome as I did:

Flatulaughter Love

I guess that the guys on craigslist weren't into flatulaughter. My post was flagged and removed after one day. I was sad because I think I was serious about the whole thing. 

Thats OK. I've been eating dried fruit and beans ever since.

Singular Satisfaction vs Pitiful Pining

Lately I have been having a hard time finding things to write about mainly because my life is so great. One reason that my life is so great is because I am no longer a pitiful piner!

I will admit that forever and forever and forever I would go to sleep while imagining snuggling with some well-defined-abs-man. I don't do that anymore. Its bizarre that this lifelong habit (I started this pre-puberty although then he didn't have abs: Instead he had a great GI Joe collection or something like that) has so suddenly vanished.

And I'm glad to be through with it however, I feel that there is something to be gleaned from this oh-so-lame part of my past:

I've spent more time pining way for guys than I have spent in actual relationships with them. Being a pitiful piner is convenient because I could always fixate on some sexy object of my affection and go to sleep with my hand resting on his imaginary abs but I never had to actually deal with him. I never had to pretend I wasn't farting in his presence. I never had to actually spend the night with him and get all pissed off when he kept me awake by snoring like a pig and then moving his finely muscled body into the middle of the bed while I clung to the side like an inept cliff dweller. I never had to pretend I wanted to spend an entire holiday with his parents.

Pining is a great way to imagine being in a relationship without having to sacrifice anything. When I was super tired and dropped into bed after working 16 hours, I never had to worry about how absalicious's day was. I could pine away when I had time and when I didn't he just vanished.

How delightfully convenient.

Over the past four years or so I've slowly become aware of my pining tendencies. But it wasn't until after a really luducris breakup this summer that I realized the extent of what I had been doing.

Pining is a problem because no real relationship will ever match up to the expectation developed as a piner. The longer you've pined, the harder its going to be to adjust to a real human relationship. I suspect that pining is typical of very independent folks who are pretty satisfied with being on their own yet somehow feel that something is missing. I thought it was harmless but I am now convinced that is is not.

Why?

Well, I got a boyfriend. I wasn't even pining away for him. He just kinda appeared in my life. And I tried to fit him in and make things work but melding two full formed lives together is a challenge and not one for the weak-of-heart. It turned out that my life was far better without him. But I only discovered this after we parted ways.

Ironically, I'm now being treated to life on the other side of the pining problem. The ex-boyfriend is now pining away for me. And I know that what he wants isn't really me with all my fire and independence and lack of desire to procreate but some idealized concept he has of me which is in no way based in reality. I know this because he writes me pages and pages of pitiful pining about this and that and leaves these books on my doorstep or in my mailbox. And the more I read of it (I don't read it anymore) the more I see that he has no idea who I really am.

Pining is a way to feel romance and intimacy without every interacting with a real person. It might be about imagination: There was a time when I thought that my pining was merely me manifesting a relationship a-al-The-Secret. But it is only about one person's imagination and doesn't leave much room for the wonderful surprises which come with getting to know a unique individual.

How did I quit my pitiful pining? I am not sure. It happened shortly after I started this blog and it hasn't come back. I am so infinitely satisfied with my life and I feel so loved and supported by the various people around me that I no longer feel the need to pine away for someone. I am putting all my passion for absalicious into my volunteer work and my real work and my house and my dog and my various delightful real life (plutonic) relationships.

Like I said, I WAS an independent woman who was satisfied with being on her own but felt like something was missing. This recent breakup and its aftermath have so clearly illustrated to me that nothing has been missing this whole time. I have been living a creative, adventurous, delightful, love-filled life. The only thing missing (which I now possess) was a calm clear understanding that my life is overflowing with fullness and love and comfort and security. Only when I am ready to accept the breadth and depth of all that is available to me will I be able to meet the real life absalicious (or beer gutted) man of my dreams.