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By Root 158 0

I am swollen—like a big blown-up tick. Conversations ebb and flow, cascading in crescendos over the table. We talk about what we are doing and what we’re not. We laugh about how we are going to hell in a bucket but that it’s all going to be okay because we’ll be there together. Sure, the economy is fucked, but maybe in the long run that will be a good thing. We talk about the new drugs we’re taking to control whatever conditions that age is bringing on. We talk about movies and books that we’ve seen and read or heard so much about that it’s almost like we’ve already seen or read them.

We sing a rousing “Happy Birthday” to Sophie. I even sing it, and I hate singing it, but I owe the kid something, even if it’s just my bad singing. It’s nice to be with friends.

And, yes, I think one more glass of wine will do quite nicely. And why not? I have nothing to do tomorrow, except work on this book. I’m writing about Christmas, so fuck it.

After we’ve finished the meal, a woman arrives. She is introduced as a Single Woman.

“She’s looking,” one of the guests announces.

“For what?” I wonder. I mean, the dessert is there for the taking.

She starts to turn red.

“Well, she has three kids, and, technically, she’s still married.”

Technically?

“But she’s getting a divorce.”

Now everybody is looking at me. As if it’s up to me to say or do something. As if everybody forgets that after the divorce, when she’s technically single, she’ll still have three kids, and so really she’s part of a foursome. She’s not single.

Shouldn’t her friends let her relax for a bit, then revel in her newfound freedom, when she finds it? Oh, no. That’s not the way these things work, Lewis. You can’t be alone for a minute in this culture.

Lewis, you’re available. Why aren’t you interested in this woman you’ve known for exactly ten minutes?

Yes, I am single. Is there something wrong with that?

Well, yes, there is, because you don’t have to be. So why are you? What is wrong with you?

In our culture, we don’t really want single people around. I guess we make the whole social scheme messy. If we are not with someone, then somehow we are creating chaos in the universe. We raise too many questions, I guess. How come we haven’t chosen to pair up? It throws things out of balance. Noah brought pairs of animals onto the ark; he didn’t bring on any animal without a mate. There was a reason for that. Maybe it’s hard enough to be judged for who you are, let alone to be judged for the person you’ve chosen to be with. I don’t know. If I knew, I’d be with someone, goddamnit.

There is no real support in this country for people who choose to be single. Of course one could argue that they don’t choose to be single, that by being by themselves, they somehow are getting what they deserve, but for the purpose of my argument, let’s not go there.

I perform at a lot of colleges, and although there seems to be a new kind of dating, where males and females go out in packs, marriage still seems to be a high priority for many of the young people I meet. If the species and civilized behavior are to survive, it does make sense that we are pushed onto the marriage-as-monogamy track. As a result, though, most of us get married when we are under thirty, and the standard line is that 50 percent of those marriages eventually end up in the shitter. Is it crazy to maybe suggest that one should learn to be alone before one learns to be in a couple?

Is that really so nuts? For a country obsessed with the freedom of the individual, it doesn’t seem to apply to being single. You can have all the freedom you want, just be sure to get married, for God’s sake.

It took a long time for me to adjust to being alone. It may shock you to learn that I was never really comfortable with myself, and because of that I never got fully comfortable in a relationship.

Or maybe I’m just full of shit.

But if given a choice, most people, it seems, would rather be in a bad relationship than no relationship at all. As uncomfortable as it may be, there’s a consistency to it that we seem to crave. It fills