Would you rather be married or single?
A few years ago, as I was standing on the soccer field sidelines watching The Kid do his magic, a mom I marginally knew through The Kid’s various sports started chatting.
It was the usual meaningless sideline chitchat — “How have you been?” “Good, and you?” — but then it switched to either something more genuine or, perhaps, voyeuristic.
“What’s it like to be single?” — a valid
question since I was still a relatively newbie
divorcee. 
And so I shared a little of the ups and downs of my new life as a cliche — 40-something
divorced Marin mom. But, as I started telling
her what was going on, I realized there was more up than down. And it was true; I was past the point of figuring out “Who am I now?” — which consumed a good year of my life, a celibate year, BTW, which was necessary but still sucked — and onto the next phase, which included Boy Toys followed by lots of dating
and safe but raunchy sex with guys other than the one whose boxers I washed for 15 years.
If you could forget the financial struggles and the uber-exhausting work-home balance thing, I was having fun.
“I envy you,” she said.
Envy me? What in the world was there to envy? I wondered.
Then, for whatever reason, the conversation moved to a different level — a confessional level. She and her husband were struggling — what married couple isn’t? — and she was turned off by sex. Well, that’s not exactly true. She was absolutely interested in sex; she confessed some pretty freaky sexual fantasies that even had me blushing, so it wasn’t as if she’d suddenly turned frigid. She wanted to be ravaged in real life as she was in her dreams — just not by her husband.
And that’s a bit of a problem, isn’t it?
There are many of us who are perfectly content being married, and then there are those who look at singles with envy — we have freedom! we have sex (or for some, no sex)! we have no one to answer to! — while they have a hubby who snores and farts, doesn’t do his share around the house or with the kids, and who spends his weekends watching ESPN.
And yet, ask any single person what he or she wants — even the quirkyalones (remember them?) — and I’ll bet it will be this, a partner.
If most singles didn’t want to be happily hooked up, there wouldn’t be the massive (and incredibly lucrative) singles industry — dating coaches, self-help books, singles seminars, online dating sites, matchmakers, etc. — all intent on finding us The One, or someone close enough.
It’s the classic green grass on the other side thing for many: married folk envy singles, singles want to be married.
We all love a love story. In the past week, Single Mom Seeking blogger and author Rachel Sarah announced that she got engaged; dozens of her readers — me, too! — chimed in to wish her the best, the most comments she’s gotten on her blog in a long time.
Many of those same people have written in to celebrate her moments of triumph as a single mom, and offered advice for her “seeking.” But now, she is a “singles success story” — she’s getting hitched.
We all want a story to end with, “and they lived happily every after.”
I don’t need or necessarily want to be married again, but I certainly don’t want to spend my golden years alone. I’ll bet my fantasy-filled soccer mom doesn’t, either. And the closer I get to the age when I am no longer a desirable woman, the more seriously I think about that.
People like Lori “Marry Him!” Gottlieb say that none of her quasi-happily married female friends would trade places with her, a single 40-something choice mom. And people like “Singled Out: How Singles are Stereotyped, Stigmatized and Ignored and Still Live Happily Ever After” author Bella DePaulo are always throwing out stats on how singles can, well, live happily ever after all by themselves.
Having been single, married, divorced and now in a relationship, I can say each offers its unique joys and sadness. I would like to find something that offers the best of all of those without having it look like a marriage, just like what author Elizabeth Gilbert was hoping to find with her lover, Felipe, who lived halfway around the world from her, at the end of “Eat, Pray, Love.” Then, she went and got married on me — !! — leaving me all alone in trying to figure it out. Yeah, thanks, Liz …
So, which would you rather be — married or single, and why?
Photo © Igor L.Petroff – Fotolia.com
Be my groupie, please
When I was younger, I imagined myself a bit of a rocker — meaning I’d stand before the full-length mirror in my bedroom wearing my hip-hugger bell-bottoms and tightest, low-cut top, cupping a highlighter pen in my hand as if it were a mic and singing along to Joni Mitchell’s “See You Sometime” or some other ’70s emo song:
Where are you now
Are you in some hotel room
Does it have a view?
Are you caught in a crowd
Or holding some honey
Who came on to you?
It was a nice dream, but my guitar-playing wasn’t quite up to par and, besides, Joni Mitchell, one of my favorite musicians back then, wasn’t even a rocker! You weren’t going to see men ripping off their Hanes and throwing them at her (actually, I wouldn’t
want to see that; I know what guy’s undies look
like after they’re worn. It’s not pretty). 
Men don’t do that anyway; if you’re going to be a groupie and fling your unmentionables on stage, you pretty much have to be a gal.
So that made it easier to give up my rock ‘n’ roll chick fantasies; I was in it for the groupies! Instead,
I decided I’d be a groupie. First, I look good in black (even when screaming hysterically), second, I always wear thongs (they look nice on and thrown casually on stage) and third (and the only thing that matters if you’re a rocker, I suppose), I don’t have any hook-up hang-ups. Not to mention that you don’t need any talent (well, except, you know …)
The problem back then was that I was, well, chicken. I just didn’t have it in me to go up to the
hot lead singer and ask him, “What are you doing later?” I was afraid he’d say, “Banging that blonde over there, little girl,” and by then, the bass player and guitarist would be spoken for and only the overweight, sweaty drummer with the bad haircut would be left. Or the roadies.
When I finally got my sexual mojo, I was married and then, when I got divorced, I was already middle-aged and you can’t — and certainly shouldn’t — be a middle-aged groupie. Even the Stones’ No. 1 groupie Marianne Faithfull (who
once said, “My first move was to get a Rolling Stone
as a boyfriend. I slept with three and decided the lead singer was the best”) knew when to give it up.
So, I missed my calling as a rocker and as a groupie. What’s left?
A Facebook fan page.
I know, I know — I’m cringing, too. When I got invites from a few of the bloggers I follow — Dad’s House and Single Mom Says — to fan them on Facebook I thought, what, is being a Facebook friend suddenly chopped liver?
Asking someone to be your “fan” seems a bit presumptuous, especially if you don’t “do” anything. Well, I blog, but so do about, what, 50 million other people, sometimes intelligently and other times with meaningless “disgorgement of the bowels,” as someone once observed. I sure hope I’m in the former category!
But, is any of that preventing me from creating a Facebook fan page anyway? Noooo …
And, it’s not like being a fan of Walmart or something like that (although, granted, I’m not offering you discounts; but, who knows what the future holds?)
So, if you like what I write here, please “fan” me; it’s the next best thing to my rocker chick/groupie fantasy.
Plus, you get to keep your undies.
Photo © Roman Makhmutov – Fotolia.com
Two 20-somethings “do” me
Here’s the big doh of the day — being single and dating when you’re 20-something and when you’re middle-aged is as different as, say, Velveeta and Humboldt Fog, even if you live in the same ‘burb — which, BTW, you should never do if you’re 20-something, and if you do, don’t complain about how boring it is or how you can’t meet any chicks, OK? New parents, grandparents, empty-nesters, aging Deadheads driving ’76 VW buses and cougars live in the ‘burbs.
And, of course, middle-aged divorcees. A lot of middle-aged divorcees.
I would not want to be dating as a 20-something nowadays — it seems so much more complicated than it used to be. Still, I can remember my single 20s (though I lived in a small town and then a city, no ‘burbs!) so I know what it’s like, unlike 20-somethings trying to imagine what dating as a middle-aged divorcee is like. In the ‘burbs, no less. 
So, I’m somewhat flattered — I think — that two 20-somethings, brothers Hugh and Matt (or, those are the names they go by, anyway) are interested in what dating as a middle-aged divorcee is like. They follow this blog, and then do a dramatic reading of a post every week over at their podcast, HellaCast (you’re welcome, boys, for the plug).
Well, it’s an abbreviated reading — they cut out all the intellectual stuff (yes, there is some, really!) and go straight to the, um, dirty parts.
Boys will be boys …
Matt plays Sara, and Hugh is me. Go take a listen.
But, as they say on an early podcast, my tell-all sexual posts make them somewhat “uncomfortable.” I get it; when you’re in your 20s, you really don’t want to be thinking about older people — or your parents — getting it on. Too much flesh jiggling around, I guess. And, yes, there’s a lot of TMI in the blogosphere, although I’m betting much of it is Botoxed writing, enhanced to driver reader traffic and etc.
Although, some of the stories Matt and Hugh tell — like the one about a party at which some very drunk Sonoma State sorority girls were “dancing on the pole, if you catch my drift” … by turning a skinny guy into a (stripper’s?) pole — make me feel glad to be middle-aged.
Never saw that in my 20s (although, I’ve seen a few middle-aged women act like that recently; very sad), and I have never enjoyed frat-boy antics — have I been missing out?
And Hugh and Matt, who describe themselves as “mid-20s,” “virile” and “creative,” lament, “where are all the young women in the suburbs? There’s about six or seven single women in their 20s, and I’m pretty sure they’re related to my friends.”
Not too different from being a middle-aged divorcee. Could Marin’s cougars have it right?
So, Matt and Hugh, if you’re going to “do” me, I’d like to lay down a few ground rules:
- Hugh, please, I have a much sexier voice; can you work it?
- “Uncomfortable” may be a generational thing. Way-drunk sorority girls, human “pole” dancing and drummers trying to hit on girls with rings of sweat around their butt aren’t quite my thing (and I’m rather broad-minded and have a good sense of humor).
- Finally, why do you put the dramatic readings toward the end of your podcast? Unless, of course, you’re forcing listeners to hang in through the blather just to get to the main event — me! Hmm, that’s smart …
Oh yeah — those pics you’re taking from my site (especially from the old IJ blog); they’re copyrighted. I’d remove ‘em ASAP.
But, the HellaCast boys did get me thinking about dating back then, in my youth, versus now. Each has its own complications and joys, sure, but I’m so much smarter and self-aware now (although I come with “baggage,” a kid). I wouldn’t want to be back in my 20s trying to figure it all out. Would you?
- What has been your experience dating in your 20s/30s versus middle-age?
- And, are Matt and Hugh capturing the true essence of Sara and me?
Photo © Cristian Laza – Fotolia.com
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