To the dismay of my single friends who couldn’t make it to last year’s Singles Awesomeness Day party, there was no such party this year. One reason is that my last year’s party co-host and ringleader is no longer single, so I’d be throwing this one on my own. A few other of last year’s guests are also not single now (though I can think of one or two friends who are single now and weren’t last year), so therefore ineligible to attend. And a couple of last year’s guests, including my personal favorite, are away. Frankly, I’m just not sure I could pull together the critical mass of awesomeness needed to equal last year’s experience.
But perhaps the main reason the party isn’t happening is that I’m no longer in the same place I was vis-à-vis my singlehood (nor is my roommate). I needed the party last year. It stood out to me as such an outstanding event not only because it was a lot of fun and the cupcakes were good, but also because it caused a real shift in my feeling about being single. I can honestly say it represented a turning point for me.
I’m happily single. Can you believe it? I might be happily coupled again someday. I might even be married (though I kind of doubt it). Or I might stay single, which would really and truly be all right. What has shifted? I am no longer grasping for love. There is a lot of love in my life, mind you, maybe more than ever before, and that includes all kinds of love, even super-hot-sexy love. I’ve found that it comes to you more easily when you stop trying so hard.
So, this Valentine’s Day, there’s no need to feel sorry for the single. (I think most of you know that.) The majority of the single people I know are quite happy and loving and connected and sexy and fulfilled. Try not to envy us too much either, if you’re paired up. The grass is always greener, right? With regular watering, all of our grass can be green.
Well, dear readers, Internet is down at home with no solution in sight, so I’ll put together a quick update here at the office. No real theme this time except to bring you up to date on the events of a very busy week. I swear all of this happened since I last posted:
We got a new director at work, after 20 months in limbo, and I couldn’t be happier. Not only am I glad to have the uncertainty settled, and glad for the prospect of having actual co-workers, but I am also really pleased with the choice. I’m feeling so much better about work already. Wonderful news!
My friend Jane took me out for a fabulous V-Day lunch, and the blog broke records. The Grindr is off my phone again — what was I thinking? — and I disconnected from all the dating sites. What a relief. I finished 1Q84.
Speaking of connecting with people the old-fashioned way, the Singles Awesomeness Day party was a smashing success, beyond all expectations. It was really and truly a mind-blowingly positive experience and represented, for me anyway, kind of a seismic shift. After an evening of drinking, laughing, sharing experiences, and eating Wheat Thins with about 15 very together, happy, self-loving singles (from 11 different countries, no less!), I honestly feel different about being single now. I know I’m not alone. I’m in good company, and there are no limits to the kinds of connections I can make with other people. Others had similar reactions.
I had the next day off and spent it in Napa with a dear girlfriend. I was reminded I’d traced a similar route almost exactly a year before on what would turn out to be the last such trip with my last boyfriend. What was interesting and somewhat new, though, was finding I could look back on that trip and that boy with loving fondness, without feeling sad or lonely or that I was somehow missing out by being single. It was a great day.
I was still riding that high yesterday when I got the call — 3 months to the day since I got the all-clear from my last surgery — with a repeat of the infamous Dia de los Muertos diagnosis. Yup, ‘fraid so.
The exact-sameness of the circumstances was kind of eerie: routine visit to the dermatologist, didn’t look like anything too serious, but let’s test it anyway, a call 2 days later to say it was melanoma, surprise, the surgeon will be calling to schedule something…only this time, less explaining was needed since I’ve just gone through it all.
I’m not particularly worried they can’t get it all again (this one is independent of the last one, which is good news…or at least less bad). It was caught early, I think — hey, 3 separate experts each gave me a full body check just a few months ago and none of them caught it, which means it probably wasn’t there — but I am really not looking forward to going through that whole process again. Surgery is not fun.
It’s also more than a little disturbing to wonder how many more of these buggers I’ve got lurking. I’m not so vain — well, ok, maybe I am — but who wants to get a chunk of their flesh cut out and sewn back together every few months? Thank you, sweet boy, for saying my scar was sexy the other night, but really, scars are not sexy.
So, once again, wish me luck. The surgery is not scheduled yet, but chances are good I’ll be out of commission or recovering and not doing any yoga pretty much the whole month of March.
Addendum (March 6, 2012): The surgery is scheduled for March 21. I liked it better when they rushed me through the process really fast…feeling just a little less special this time around.
Addendum (March 13, 2012): Make that March 16. And all kinds of tests beforehand. They can’t be sure this new one is independent of the last one, so are doing every test in the book to find out.
Like it or not, it’s coming. Valentine’s Day brings up a lot of stuff for a lot of people, particularly for people who are not partnered up. I’ve always kind of liked it, but then I like all holidays — not the commercialism of it, but the sentiment: love — and I like it whether I’m seeing someone at the time or single.
That’s because I don’t believe, as many do, that celebrating something means those who don’t match the holiday’s target group are any lesser. I don’t think Valentine’s Day is a put-down to single people any more than Mother’s Day is meant to make childless women (or men, for that matter) feel bad…though I understand some may feel that way, too.
What’s more, holidays, like all days, are what you make of them. For me, Valentine’s Day is first and foremost a celebration of love: romantic love, sure, that’s where the big money is, but also love of one’s friends, family, pets, and — hold on for this radical thought — love of oneself.
But that is kind of a radical concept, isn’t it? We are told over and over, by those we meet, by the music we grew up with, by the romcoms at the cineplex, and by the echo chamber of it all, that we can only be happy when paired up. (We’re also taught loving ourselves is somehow, well, selfish.) We are somehow incomplete or deficient losers if we are not coupled with someone, the story goes. Well, guess what? We’re not. Irony aside, Whitney had it right.
Sure, being single can be hard. Loneliness used to be my greatest fear. (I’m happy to say it has been replaced by cancer.) And being partnered with someone can be really great, if it’s the right someone. But, as I’ve said before, you’re never alone. And if you think you need someone to complete you, I’m sorry, you’re just wrong.
I would go so far as to say that self-love is a prerequisite to being in a good relationship. Note the operative word, good. To those who say relationships are really, really hard work — and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that — I recommend considering that maybe you’re in the wrong relationship.
Though I like the holiday, being with someone is no guarantee of a Happy V-Day in any case. I’ve been told, “Nah, I don’t do Valentine’s Day,” by a boyfriend who, come to find out, chose to spend our first February 14 with someone else he’d just started seeing. I’ve had the opposite experience of a partner feeling obligated to spend a fortune on roses and Godiva chocolates year after year because that’s what he did our first year together (and I would spring for the overpriced dinner to balance it out)…so that became oppressive in its own way, as often happens with traditions.
This year, I had the brilliant idea of holding a party February 14 with my roommate, also single, with only other single people invited, a party to celebrate singlehood. It’s reverse discrimination, we know, and odd yet kind of thrilling to have a party where the majority of our friends are not invited. It’s also odd to have a party on a Tuesday. Coupled friends I’ve told about the party they’re not invited to have unanimously loved the idea. I wonder if any will break up in order to attend?
It’s not such an original idea, I know. Evite even has templates for SAD (Singles Awareness Day), for god’s sake. We’re using one. (I’m not crazy about the acronym, which sends the opposite message we want to get across; that it also stands for Seasonal Affective Disorder doesn’t help.) We’ve named our party Don’t Be SAD.
Carrie Bradshaw famously had a party for her single self on Sex and the City, but she approached it from a kind of whiny perspective and wanted expensive gifts. Our focus is not on grievance, it’s on celebration. It’s not an anti–Valentine’s Day party, but a celebration of what’s good about being single, of love, and of our fabulous single selves.
The most common reaction we’ve gotten from invitees has been, “Wow, what a great idea!” The second most common reaction has been along the lines of, “I’m unhappy about being single. I don’t want to celebrate it,” which is a little sad (as opposed to SAD) because there is some “I don’t like myself as I am” mixed in.
There’s a little of that in all of us. It’s hard to overturn a lifetime of anti-single song lyrics, after all, but that’s kind of the point of the party: to celebrate self-love. A friend wryly said, “So, you mean we’re all going to pretend that we like being single?” (Kind of like how Jerri Blank famously said, “You mean I’m supposed to act like I don’t like sexual harassment?”) I thought for a minute before answering, “Yeah, we are.” I don’t claim to be fully there yet. Sometimes you’ve got to fake it until you make it.
Who knows, with a house full of single people feeling good about ourselves, a few romantic connections could be made. Although that isn’t the main theme of the party…or, it wasn’t initially, but the RSVP list is looking pretty foxy…it wouldn’t be a bad outcome at all.
Being happily single doesn’t mean you don’t like being in loving relationships, serious or casual or whatever. It means you’re open to all loving possibilities should the right also-happily-single person come along. Are you ready? It could happen Tuesday. It could happen any day.
IT’S VALENTINE’S DAY AGAIN, and love is in the air. (Here, listen to Love’s Theme while you read this.) How great that there’s a holiday dedicated to love! I reread my V-Day post from last year and its follow-up post, doing that thing I can’t seem to get enough of — looking back a year to see where I was then as compared to now.
I can't believe Dave X Robb doesn't have a blog 