Being Single: A How-To Guide

Right now you’re picturing me as the stereotypical single twenty-something who hasn’t shaved her legs in weeks, who wears bulky knit sweaters and has a tumblr account and re-reads ‘Pride and Prejudice’ every couple of months and cries every time. And that’s just not me, aside from the leg shaving thing which I’m mostly doing to save on shower time. I’m a cool girl! I wear a leather jacket and hip bellbottoms and try my best to look like a cross between a more put-together Janis Joplin and a much, much angrier Zooey Deschanel. No sweaters and no Kleenex boxes next to the Jane Austen. I keep it pretty together.

That being said, I devote a lot of time and effort into keeping the howling, sucking, angry black void of loneliness inside me from spilling out into the world and engulfing the earth in a fury of harrowing sorrow. I usually hold back the tide by drinking, going through a 24 pack of Costco burritos in a week, chain smoking, listening to terrible pop music about teens breaking up, carrying a flask, masturbating, and finishing off a twelve pack while watching Friday Night Lights.  

If he's fictional, sign me up.

So why am I terminally single, you ask? Well, in high school I had bigger things to worry about than boys, like where to get more pot, or how to get money for pot, or how to not smell like pot. I wasn’t so much a tomboy as I was completely androgynous for a couple of formative years and therefore mostly didn’t notice the boys who mostly weren’t noticing me. Being a late bloomer didn’t help, neither did being a total smartass and also absolutely terrified due to inexperience. So I just never really understood what the girls were talking about when they broke out the Tiger Beat’s at sleepovers and went on and on about Devon Sawa and N’Sync and the rest of those horrible 90’s hair-gelled mama’s boys. In university, however, this overwhelming fear of the unknown translated outwardly as an aloofness that turned out to be incredibly attractive to a certain type of guy – who turned out to be a certain type of narcissistic sociopath. I dated a string of these winners in a succession of hazy party years that consisted of screaming matches, tantrums, groupies, weird sex and any intoxicants I could get my hands on.  Then, about three years ago I woke up - put my clothes on - walked home, and realized that it was time to stop looking for someone who could chug a bottle of absinthe and time to start looking for someone who I could hold a ten minute conversation with without reaching for the whiskey.

Ever since that fateful day I have been somewhat frustratingly yet mostly happily single. I’ve dated sporadically, sure, but nothing serious and nothing that’s lasted more than a couple dinners and trips to the movies. And sure, there are nights when Loneliness creeps in and brings his friends Desperation and Depression, but it only took me a short while to realize that these things have less to do with being single and more to do with being uncertain. Feeling lost is a horrible place to be and it’s hard to feel lost when you’re sleeping next to someone. Yet, I haven’t allowed that sense of being adrift to spur me into settling for some schlomo who doesn’t quite do it for me. As hackneyed as it may sound I’m holding out for something big, and as hyperbolic and histrionic as I may get in some of these entries, I want you to know that being single isn’t pitiful, it’s hilarious, and I hope you can laugh along with me as I wade through uncomfortable romance and misplaced passion and awkward flirtation.

By now I’m an expert.  

Adventures in Dating: A Rope of Sand

     Let me tell it to you straight: I am a reasonably attractive, twenty six year old female of average height and weight. I have no gross deformities, speech impediments, or facial tattoos (yet). I am athletic, as long as the athleticism in question involves absolutely no form of running, is called ‘pool’ and allows me to drink and regularly take smoke breaks. I have a partially completed degree in English – which, while being only slightly less embarrassing than having a fully completed degree in English, allows me to correct people’s grammar in Facebook posts and I do not require spell check nearly as much as regular people. Yet despite all these ridiculously attractive qualities, I find myself alone. Not, like, ‘can’t buy nice clothes because my thirty cats will just ruin them’ alone, but definitely lacking in what I like to call ‘Floor 69 – the Romance Department’. I’ve even reached that terrible plateau where all my friends are in steady, long term relationships. And their frustration with my seemingly eternal third wheel status has gotten to the point where my inability to trick someone into spending a few hours in my company on a regular basis as well as looking at me naked more than once has overshadowed every other aspect of my personality, and has become the defining feature of my lonely, desolate existence – e.g: “You remember Maddy? My single friend?” That’s me. So, after many, MANY false starts and failed attempts I’m venturing out of the comfortable valley of not having to shave my legs on the daily and starting the precarious descent into the dating world.

Date # 1: Sebastian – 29 year old food blogger, which I later discover is a really interesting and clever way of saying ‘hopelessly unemployed’. He does, however, spend the better part of an hour defending his ridiculous non-job by showing me his past week of meals in the photos he posted on Instagram. I have to admit; grilled cheese photographed in sepia looks doubly delicious. We meet for dinner at a hip restaurant and he arrives wearing a women’s trench coat, cowboy boots and jeggings. Actual jeggings. I immediately order a double and excuse myself to use the washroom and do a shot on my way past the bar. When I return to the table he is questioning the waitress about their selection of organic fruit ales. I order another double. When the food arrives he takes a picture of it. We spend twenty minutes discussing his passion and my confusion towards fixed gear bicycles before the meal is over and we part ways, politely agreeing that while a nice time was had by all, he’s looking for someone with more horn-rimmed glasses without lenses and I’m looking for someone who doesn’t look better than me in jeggings.  Total failure.

His food blog is surprisingly entertaining, I admit.

 Date # 2: Jason – 28 year old journalism student. I usually avoid other ‘writers’ like an STD but Jason struck me as really down to earth and not at all horribly pretentious like the rest of us, so I agreed to meet him at a small club downtown. Jason informs me that a friend of his is performing that night. Cool. As we chat I notice that the dark club is decorated with highly modern and somewhat terrifying art, which Jason informs me some of his friends created. Alright, neat. Our conversation is easy and he doesn’t mention blogging once before his friend takes to the stage amid a flurry of applause. With no introduction, he launches into his first ‘song’ which consists of playing one note on a synthesizer continuously while pouring a gallon of milk onto the floor. I burst out laughing and can’t stop. Jason drags me out of the club, tells me he’s never been so embarrassed, and leaves me on the curb, still laughing. Train wreck.    

Date # 3: David – 33 year old software engineer. David picks me up at my apartment in a decent car that does not smell of dogs or marijuana which is immediately disconcerting. He proceeds to take me to an upscale restaurant and orders wine without looking at the menu. I begin to sweat profusely and wonder if he can tell that I ironed my dress with a hair-straightener. He asks me lots of questions about my life and interests and all I can think to talk about is how disappointed I was that the new Total Recall movie was kinda stupid. He politely agrees and chugs his wine. He tells me that last year he volunteered with the Red Cross to help victims of the earthquake in Haiti. I tell him I once gave a homeless man a bite of my donair. He orders a double scotch. He pays for the best meal I’ve eaten in the last year and drives me home, turning down my offer to come up citing he has work in the morning. He shakes my hand goodbye and I trudge up to my apartment to crack a beer and watch Total Recall again.

       I wish I could be one of those women who are so totally with it but just can’t find a partner because they seem to be awash in a sea of weird, uncouth dorks who fall all over themselves in her presence. Instead, I’m realizing that I am one those dorks, and my goal should not be to find a partner who sweeps me off my feet with poetry and bathtubs filled with rose petals, but to find someone who will come get me from the airport at 3 a.m without too much complaining, convince me not to put my contact lens back in after accidentally dropping it in the toilet and altogether making me feel less weird about my aversion to feet by being more weird about his hatred of emoticons. So if you’re out there, dream guy, just know that I’m single, and that the new Total Recall wasn’t as bad as I first thought.