Moments When it Does Suck to Be Single

I don't have many moments where being single sucks for me. I am not even phased by valentines day, for example. But tonight I had one. It isn't so much about having a shitty experience as a single as it is about having to do horrible something entirely alone and having no moral support or physical support or any kind of support.

So.

My most recent moment where it pretty much sucked to be single:

Moving cat carcass from my driveway.

I really could have used some moral support but nobody was available. Could this have happened if I had a loyal loving husband? Yes. Totally. Loyal loving husbands are not always available either when icky things occur.

But tonight, for the first time in a long time, the following thought went through my head: :I really wish I had SOMEONE to help me deal with this".

This is a BIG cat. I was pulling my car out of the garage. It was dark but I saw something large and fluffy lying across the lower part of my driveway, almost at the street. I got out to investigate and sure enough it was the large cat that poops along my house. I don't mind cats pooping along the side of my house because I am rarely over there and I figure they ought to enjoy pooping in a place that I rarely frequent. So this cat, more like the size of a dog, is dead, at the bottom of my driveway in all his fluffy orange glory with a decent stream of blood flowing from his opened jaw.

I got back in my car and just sat there. I called my roommate to see if the cat had been there when she got home. I called my parents twice -- no answer.

Most of the time I know what to do about a situation pretty much immediately but this one had me stymied.

So I finally maneuvered out of the driveway, around the giant dead cat and went to the grocery store, thinking the whole time: "What are the logical steps to take in this situation."

I was pretty sure that moving a giant dead cat is a fairly unpleasant task.

I had gone through the dead pet process at Thanksgiving time with my roommate's hamster. But this isn't MY dead cat. I felt wrong moving another person's dead cat. But I also didn't want the cat's young owners to find it lying there in the morning. I also didn't want a neighbor to think that I had carelessly run over their cat while backing out of my driveway.

At a certain juncture, I finally quit freaking out, summoned my inner grown up, found an old towel and a big cardboard box and approached the dead cat.

And that is when I thought: "I really wish I weren't single right now. I really wish that there was someone to stand next to me while I try to pick up this giant dead cat carcass and place it somewhat ceremoniously in this empty toilet box."

I ended up having to scoot the cat into the box and then when I righted the box, the cat thumped to the bottom. Oh. It was a fairly awful experience. I then wrote notes to my two next door neighbors inquiring as to the ownership of the big orange cat. I did not put in the note that their beloved Garfield was now resting in peace in a cardboard toilet box with a cement block on the top to keep out the possums and stray dogs.

And that was my Saturday night Singlutionary adventure.

Singled Out: Coupled at the Hip

Even if you're a solidly, non-desperately satisfied single, there are some things which can be irritating. They usually have to do with interacting with couples.

I am not here to hate on couples or anything. The Singlution is STILL for everyone.

I'm just here to offer some guidelines for both single and coupled individuals to live in harmony.

To the Single People: 

Do you have a friend/relative/co-worker/other (FRCO) who for whatever reason can't be out of sight of his/her spouse/partner/bfriend/gfriend (SPBG) for more than 2 minutes? Does he/she want YOU to do EVERYTHING with the TWO of them? Is his/her SPBG annoying/boring/stinky/a conversation dominator? Does your FRCO invite you over for what you think is some friendly bonding time only to give you the bonding performance of a lifetime with her SPBG?

This situation seems to be one of those things that maddens single people and coupled people are just clueless about. Single people: you are not alone. This behavior his totally gross. Of course, you may have done it yourself at some point in your life and heck, you may even fall prey to it later in your life to torture your then spinster/sadbatchelor friends. Maybe you'll see it as paying forward the revenge.

Regardless, here are some suggestions on how to handle these kinds of situations:

1. Go on vacation from the friendship for about 2.5 years or the breakup (whichever comes first)

2. Counter each invitation with an offer to attend a spouse/parter/bfriend/girlfriend FREE event. e.g. girls/boys night out, an activity which you KNOW that the SPBG will be utterly repulsed by (although be careful. this can really backfire. and you'll end up backpacking with a SPBG in a miniskirt and platform hiking boots).

3. Tell your friend/relative/co-worker/other how you really feel (which brings us back to #1).

4. Bring a video camera, edit out all the boring parts and post the offensive ones in a comment!

To the Coupled People:

Are you so deeply in love that you can't see straight? Do you feel like you can't breathe when your lover/soulmate/husband/wife/fiancee (LSHWF) leaves the room? Do you want to spend every waking moment in his/her arms? Can you not imagine going a single day without seeing him/her? Do you NEED him to attend the baby shower or to give her a goodbye kiss before going to the bathroom?

I am so happy for you that you have found the love of your life. Learning and growing with another person is a wonderful, priceless thing and I wish you well in your life together. Now that you have found your one true love with whom you will spend all eternity its time to remember that other people exist in your life! Its important because although you may be spending eternity with your soul mate, in this life you may need some support from folks other than your LSHWF. What is something happens to your LSHWF? It will be so absolutely awful for you that you will NEED people to help you through that. So, for your own sake, please maintain the other relationships in your life even if being away from your LSHWF makes you ache from head to toe and you feel nauseous and break out into a cold sweat. You can survive a 45 minute lunch date with a friend/relative/coworker/other (FRCO). You can do it!

Here are some suggestions of easy ways to keep up with those other people in your life:

1. Assign one night a week (not Friday or Saturday of COURSE) to get together with a FRCO and actually do it and make sure your sweetie has a FRCO to get together also but NOT on a double date. The 1.5 hour absence will make your heart only grow fonder.

2. Email all your FRCOs from a computer snuggle with your sweetie but tell them about ANYTHING other than how much you love your LSHWF even if its about how badly you have to pee (but leave off the part about how you can't pee because you can't stand to untangle yourself from your LSHWF's arms).

3. Take advantage of the time that your LSHWF is on the pot with a super stinky turd to start calling up that long long long list of unreturned phone calls. You might want to start just by checking your voicemail.

4. Kill a lot of burdens with one stone and plan twin parties for you and your LSHWF. For the first two hours you will be with all your friends at one location and your LSHWF will be with all his/her friends at another location. Afterwards you can join the parties together. Just like a liberal bachelor/bachelorette party. 

Single Serving

This could be about two things. It could be about singles serving the world through their dedication to various causes and by being available to help all the married people out when they need it, etc.

Or it could be about eating.

Right now, I prefer the latter.

SO. I am on my third day of baked potatos. This is kinda OK with me because I am almost out of potatos and the spud is now blacklisted from my grocery cart. The end is in sight my baked potato friend! 

But still, being single poses its own set of challenges when it comes to eating thrifty, nutritious yet simple meals (and not having enough left overs that you could eat the same exact freaking thing until NEXT thanksgiving).

I have a really bad habit of eating a bowl of rice and/or a gardenburger patty (just the patty defrosted in the toaster oven) for dinner. (If you have a more disgusting dinner habit, please share it below in a comment. Winner of most disgusting dinner habit will be entitled to a bag of rice.)

My focus, as of late, has been shopping and menu planning so that I do not waste a ton of veggies every week. The only problem is that I get too lazy to cook the veggies. (Which means that tomorrow's blog is gonna have to be about making time for your relationship with yourself or some other cheezy-go-happy-sounding title). 

Regardless. What are some good ideas for simple, quick, single dish, single serving meals? Lets put the baked potato in its place!

Here is what I resort to (I am a vegetarian with an unhealthy attraction to carbs but remember, the Singlution is for everyone!):

A salad with lots of chunky yummy proteins and fruit and stuff

A baked potato

Tacos with whatever veggies are in the house sauteed up right quick

A baked sweet potato

Sandwiches with fresh veggies and other deliciousness

Rice

Chillie Killies (I know this is not spelled correctly and I am totally OK with it)

Brown rice

Comment back, yall! Put the name of the dish in the subject line for easy reference! 

Don't keep waiting around for someone to cook for or for someone to cook for you! Its your body so freaking feed it already. 

To Be or to Have A Beautiful Sidekick

There are about three super nice guys that I have dated in my many years of singledom.

One of them, The Landlord, was not only very kind, attractive and functional but he also WANTED to be a provider. That was a new concept to me at the time and I wasn't sure I liked it. I didn't know WHY I didn't like it or that it made me feel uncomfortable. I am sure he would have had no problems with his girlfriend or wife working but he wanted to be sure that she wouldn't need to. 

I, of course, wanted to work so for me this wasn't some great boon. It made him a good person, yes, but it didn't hold a whole lot of value to me because I didn't want to be provided for.

This quickly became a moot point when I moved 2,000 miles away and refused to move back. He had a home and a business and roots back where I came from and wasn't interested in following me. 

We kept in touch for a while and at some point I asked him what he wanted in a partner mainly because I was confused as to why he was ever interested in me in the first place (I couldn't imagine why a quality guy would actually be interested in me). 

His response made me gag a little. "A beautiful sidekick" he said.

And he meant it. He meant it in the best of ways. He wanted to continue to live his life and he wanted a woman who wanted to live his life with him. He would love her and think she was beautiful (even if she was just average) and he would provide for her and show her a really good time. She would be blessed. She would be cherished. And she would NOT be me.

I've been observing other people's relationships for a heck of a long time now and it seems that, for the most part, many of the successful ones fall into this pattern:

One person is dominant (usually the man) and that person is the one who follows their dream, makes the money and calls the shots. The other person (usually the woman but not always) is living their dream by contributing to the dream of the dominant person. Here is an example.

A husband is a real estate broker and runs the business. The wife used to stay at home to care for the children (her dream but also his) and is now the office manager for the real estate office. 

A young man has a dream of opening a cutting edge restaurant. His girlfriend has extensive marketing experience and he convinces her to quit her real and do marketing for the restaurant.

The two above examples are totally awesome ways to live life. There is nothing wrong with them. Both people are using their skills towards a common dream. 

The problem for me is that I do not want to be a beautiful sidekick. I have my own dream which I can not put aside for the dream of another person. Like it or not, I am an ambitious and capable woman. I have struggled with this part of myself for a long time because there is a part of me that wishes I could have been satisfied staying back in my hometown and marrying some boy-next-door and having dinner every Saturday at my parent's house. 

Living a more conventional life just seems so much more simple. The truth is that I simply do not want that life. I thrive in the world that I live in which is one of change, exploration and constant challenge. I am an explorer, an entrepreneur and I am wildly ambitious. I want to be the star, not the assistant.

So. OK then. If I don't want to BE a sidekick, maybe I should HAVE one.

Interesting. 

But I've also dated some very sweet guys who were not ambitious, were not adventurous, were not self-directed. They were pretty hot though, at least to me. They would qualify for the role of a "sexy sidekick" in my life right?

And they were hella boring. Sorry to put it that way but I do not think there is any nicer way to say it. Maybe they weren't boring but I was bored by them none-the-less. I didn't want to spend all my time with someone who just did whatever I did or whatever I wanted to do. I didn't want to be in charge of everything and calling all the shots. I don't want to be a provider for someone else no matter how attractive they are. 

So, when it comes down to it, I'd prefer a peer. The whole sidekick setup doesn't work for me. I'm not dissing it but I am rejecting it for myself. There are lots of A types out there who need a sidekick and there are lots of people out there who would LOVE to be provided for. 

I am not one of them. 

Does this doom me to being single forever? No. It merely reduces the pool of potential mates. This does not bother me anymore. I am not worried that I have set my standards too high and must now suffer alone for eternity. 

Heck no! First of all, I am not SUFFERING alone. Second of all, I have developed a deep faith that the right person is going to be so badassly perfect that he will be thrown into my path when I least expect it. 

If two people are going to share a very specific ambition (outside of raising a family) in which they both contribute equally as creators, instigators and providers there is no way they CAN'T find each other.

And if my life is not going to be made so much more awesome by the random/unexpected arrival of Mr. Badassely Perfect, well, heck, I can just continue doing what I am doing surrounded by my (married and single) network of family, friends and community.

DC Comics has this thing called The Justice League. Its Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman and some of the other DC characters. They all come together to fight crime. They are all still superheros on equal footing.

That is the life I am looking for. 

Maybe I should post that on craigslist: Wonder Woman seeks Superman. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh-ha. Hell NO. Because that my dear friends is desperate dating!

Singlution FAQ

What is the Singlution?

The singlution is a fledgling movement, started right here, which supports single people in living full and satisfying lives just the way they are. It celebrates single living and offers hope and community to people who struggle with single life. 

What is the Singlutionary?

The Singlutionary is actually a who. Singlutionary refers to both the author of this blog (kinda like a self-appointed revolutionary for single people) and it also refers to anyone who wants to live life as a satisfied single and feels really brave doing it or anyone who totally gets what this blog is all about and wants to partake in the singlution!

What IS this blog about?

Good question. Its about several things: its about me and my experiences, its about being a solid/satisfed/non-searching single and its also about the trials of being single and how best to overcome them or how I overcame them, at least (I make no guarantees).

What made you decide to write this blog?

I have been single for almost ALL of my adult life (and before that also). Not just single-as-in-not-married but single-as-in-not-even-a-successful-relationship-in-sight. So why then, was I the recipient of everyone's midnight calls seeking advice about marriage or engagement or lack of engagement or potential date or lack thereof? I have no bloody clue. What I do know is that I've done all the wrong things a single person can do and I FINALLY figured out how I can live a happy satisfying search-free life just where I am. And I want to share that because the path to here was pretty lonely and very frustrating. 

There is little community/support for single people that isn't about hooking up. This blog is an attempt to provide a healthy forum for single people to live and breathe and grow and communicate.

Got a Question for the Singlutionary?

Post it as a comment or email me!