I’m not what you could call a regular reader of Salon, but enough of the bloggers/twitterers I follow comment on Cary Tennis that I do read his articles on occasion. This week, there was one that absolutely caught my attention, eliciting fist-pumps of victory. A single woman wrote in asking advice as to whether or not she should give up a satisfying, single life for a relationship that doesn’t make her truly happy, because she’s feeling the pressure of time. Cary responded with this:
“Imagine being an independent, self-sufficient woman with a number of relationships whose intensity and duration are negotiated according to the shifting needs and circumstances of the individuals involved. What’s wrong with that kind of life?
It sounds like a good kind of life to me. It sounds like the life of a single woman.
So I suggest that you declare yourself unabashedly, consciously, deliberately single. Not single until the right man comes along. Not single as a regrettable consequence of a series of failed relationships. Not single as in poor lonesome spinster who can’t land a man. Single as in free, self-sufficient, independent, committed to growth, happy and OK with who I am. Single as in maybe I’m free tonight and maybe I’m not. Single as in I control my own time. Single as in I have choices. Single as in I like you a lot and I will try to meet you halfway but this is my bed and I have to be somewhere in the morning.
Well said, Cary!
November 1, 2008 at 11:10 AM
Well said indeed!
November 9, 2008 at 5:19 PM
@Kathryn, I keep coming back to this comment clip; it just makes me happy. So cool to see someone embracing the benefits of singlehood as actual benefits, rather than a consolation prize for something supposedly “better.”