May 13, 2008 | Filed under: I Write About My Feelings

There is nothing that makes me so acutely aware of my singleton status as getting on an airplane.  It’s not the ridiculous amount of extraneous space in the hotel’s king-sized bed, it’s not attending a yet another damn wedding alone, it’s not spending Friday nights with Stacy and Clinton or Kyle Chandler.  Nope, it’s sitting at the airport knowing that I don’t need to call anyone before I board my flight to remind them to take the chicken out of the freezer to defrost tell them I love them. Knowing that I don’t have anyone to check in with tonight, to tell about my day’s adventures. Knowing there will be no one counting down the minutes or waiting for me at the airport upon my return.

(Let’s be clear, here – I haven’t had any of those things even while dating someone. Which may explain, in part, why we’re no longer dating.)

This is not helped by the airlines’ insistence upon showing romantic comedies on my long-distance flights. Please, please, I’ll take a seventeenth viewing of Transformers over Music and Lyrics or 27 Dresses or Once or Away From Her. Even stupid Alvin and the Chipmunks had a solid guy-tries-to-win-girl storyline.  I cannot think of anything more distracting than looking up from my laptop, where I’m supposed to be putting together a PowerPoint presentation, and catching glimpes of a movie that remind me, P.S. Nobody Loves You.

(Incidentally, does anyone know how I can look more like Hilary Swank? That might alleviate the problem.)

This is a challenging piece to write, because there’s no pivot point in here, no moment I can point to and say, “that was then, but look how wonderful life is now,” so if you’re looking for a Hollywood ending, look elsewhere. In real life, things are much more complicated. Most of the time — the vast majority of the time — I’m happy to be single. I’ve long said I’d rather be single than wasting time with the wrong person, and I really, truly, feel that way — when a long-overdue relationship ends, when I meet someone new who just doesn’t quite fit, when I wonder if I should be spending more time on cultivating a personal life. I like being single, and there’s no reason to force anything else. But, if we’re being brutally honest, I have to admit that there are moments when it really sucks.

1. pam says:
   

   I don’t want to be mean. But, there’s always a but, and it’s not me, could it be you’re not a nice person? I mean I’ve read you for a couple weeks and my title for my subscription to you is ‘Big Complainer’. Just sayin. Which I’m unsubscribing to now. But good luck. Constructive criticism and all..

   May 13th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
2. Superfantastic says:
   

   Hmmm…I clicked through to comments to say “Preach it, sister”.

   But now I feel compelled to point out to Pam that “you’re not a nice person” is not constructive criticism. And if you ever feel compelled to start any statement with “I don’t want to be mean”, you should immediately stop that statement because it will inevitably be mean. (See how I gave you a specific way of improving? THAT’S constructive criticism.) By the way, this is me doing my best to be a nice person.

   May 14th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
3. Aimee says:
   

   I’ll point out that you’re prettier than hilary swank too.

   May 16th, 2008 at 11:21 am