Single for a Reason

Harnessing the power of my dating apps, I changed the settings of potential mates, shifting the age from early 40’s- early 50’s, removing guys in their 30’s (I’m in my early 30’s) and limiting my pool of options to a decidedly more seasoned type. One guy’s wife started an affair with her high school sweetheart, vanishing for an alarming amount of time at her high school reunion, and essentially never coming home. Another learned his wife was having an affair with a divorced dad at school, and now (post-divorce) co-parents their three-year-old with the “other man” who his ex -wife is now happily married to. Further complicating the beliefs I’d already held about the difficulties of marriage and the limits of monogamy, I learned that just like scorned wives, there are a population of men carrying around their own pain and secrets — as the cheated-on spouses left behind.

For single people I think it carries an added significance- celebrating the absolute freedom of being unattached. I spend a lot of time thinking about what that would look and feel like. My friends, my family, my apartment, creative endeavors, work friends, rescue dog, community in LA– all the things that make my life unique and solely my own– as a single person. My married and engaged friends tell me they look back to the time right before they became attached and wish they could go back for one last hurrah, one last experience of being single and free– to do it all over again.

Cut to 45 minutes later, two people having asked me if my boyfriend was the one sitting with the Gumnut Baby, and I had had enough. I interrupt their conversation to inform my boyfriend that I’m feeling ill and feel like leaving the party, and he tells me he’s going to stay to chat to the girl for a while longer. I walk out of the house, with him following behind about two minutes later, yelling at me for having the audacity to “make a scene” and walk out of the party. Apparently by having a problem with his flirting, I’m an awful person who is trying to run his life and take away all of his freedom and independence, and he won’t have a relationship with someone who wants to “restrict his personality