They Shoot Single People, Don’t They?

An incredible thing happened when I announced I loved, I absolutely adored, being single.

My comment has been met—nearly universally—with raised eyebrows and a, “really?”

Really.

I really like being selfish. I like getting a full night’s sleep, or a short night’s sleep because I stayed up all night watching shitty television and writing Subway Philosophy. I like eating cold cereal in bed. I like waking up with morning breath. I like making whatever plans I goddamn feel like at any time of the day or night. I like flirting. I like going on first dates with comely men and second dates with obnoxious men and splitting the check and having a story to amuse my coworkers with in the morning. I like kissing my high school crush upstate and my magazine crush when I’m back in the city. I like walking into a room and not having to introduce someone and engage them. I like walking furious down the streets, music loud in my ears, an angry stride that takes me right past the slow-walkers and the cell-talkers like a real Manhattan marathon. I like taking up the sheets and blankets and pillows and entire length of my bed.

I like it, if you can believe it. And I’m goddamn good at it.

I’m not sure if this ever comes across. Do I sound like a man eater or a saboteur? Maybe I am. I’ve been psychoanalyzed before.

I think, maybe, this is healthy. I think it’s good.

But my friends don’t. The ones who are coupled are offended. The ones who are looking for a date are perplexed. The men think I’m emotionally offensive. The women find me catastrophic competition. Why be on the market if I’m not looking to be taken off?

Well, I love the market.

—And that’s another thing. I love going food shopping for one.

But not Forgot-Ten

“Remember Graham’s party?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says, and sips his beer.

“Was that the one after prom?”

“No. It wasn’t after prom because my parents wouldn’t let me sleep over.”

“Oh,” I say.

“It must have been that spring. I think you had on a tank top.”

I laugh.

“And you kept asking if I was gay.”

“I don’t remember that,” I say, “but it sounds like something I would have done when I was that age.” I’m not proud, but I’m honest.

“It worked.”

“We were on the stairs.”

“Yes,” I remember. “Graham’s stairs.”

He wipes some of the condensation off the pint glass.

I look at his hands on his beer. “Was it nice? Do you remember?”

“I think so,” he says. “It was ten years ago.”

Rubberbands

There is only so much you can push someone before they snap back, or in this case, snap away from you. Away from me.

Now.

I don’t want to wait to love you, I want to love you now. Maybe this is why I date older men. Maybe this is why I don’t want to date at all.

Serialsly

My last really serious relationship ended in February, 2007.

Since then, I’ve dated upwards of 100 men.

(Okay, that’s a guess, but I bet it’s not far off.)

Since then, I have had unsubstantial relationships with three, maybe four men. Some of them meant something to me and some of them haven’t. I rarely think about The Architect or Mr. Orange. Jon—who was important enough to have a real name—and I still talk. We occasionally go back over what went wrong, which is stupid, considering I’ve moved on and he has been in a serious relationship since we called it quits.

But mostly I’ve dated. There was the Deviled Egg, my best friend’s boss, the Vice Guy, the Owner, the kosher friend-of-a-friend, the coworker, another coworker,  plenty of coworkers, the Asshole, the college friend, the Not Fat Cat guy, the Craigslist Killer, the Williamsburg Waiter, and now, for now, there’s the Writer.

I’ve been, give or take, single since February 2007. I’m coming up on three years of mostly meaningless sex.

And since then, since February 2007, he just jumps from deep love to deep love, a serial monogamist—by comparison—in need of a serious serial killing.

Most of us need the eggs.

You need to love me patiently, like you’re whisking in eggs, or else it will all coddle.

Hate is a strong word.

There is nothing—nothing—I hate more than this.

I’m his plus one, and he’s deep in conversation with another writer from another publication.

In heels, I’m taller than him, and yet, he walks into the room and because of his stupid job, that (okay, I admit it) I am completely jealous of, people approach him and l0ck him into the type of indulgent, self-satisfying conversation that I can so easily identify because I am, ironically, a publicist, and can spot the body language, the compliments and the fawning.

So I sit here, totally abandoned beside him, watching quietly.

I hate this.

Literrors

Can a writer date a writer?

It’s worked before. Take Mary and Percy Shelley. Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning. Joan Didion and John Dunne. Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes.

Just kidding.

But this one might be doomed. We’re all drawn-out-drama, all thunderstorms and lightening bolts. You know, we’re a conversational shipwreck—in a good way. But sooner or later, my head might end up in the oven.