Advantages of Being Single

Yes, I know the standard ones—you can wander around the apartment in your underwear, you don't have to tell anyone where you are or what you are doing, and you can eat ice cream for breakfast.

There are others, and I'm not sure whether I'm being cynical or not. My elderly mother was sort of musing about Dad, who has been gone for about ten years now, and I remember some of my sister's comments too. I'm not sure whether my parents had the hot love affair of the century, but at least they were there for each other and my mother felt very cared for. Now she feels very alone. And I've talked with younger friends who remember the joy and comfort of being loved and having a physical relationship with boyfriends or girlfriends. One said he thought the cuddling was better in some ways than the sex. I'm sure there are other advantages, whether it's having someone to hold the other end of a large box you are moving or someone to bounce ideas off of.

Of course, we chronically single people don't have any of that, but I'm not entirely sure it's a bad thing. There seem to be only three ways a relationship can end: You die first, you die last, or you two split up. Sure, if you die first, there's no emotional pain of losing the relationship, but either of the other two result in pain of separation, whether you were together half a year or half a century. In a way, I'm much better equipped for the pain of elderly loneliness. I don't have the sense that I've lost something (or someone). My mother can't get over the anger at her situation, and some of that (irrationally) is directed toward my father. Yes, I'm angry that I'll never have a lover, and I direct the anger against God, but in my quieter, saner moments, I realize I'm sort of like Popeye. I am what I am, and that's all that I am. It's like an anger that I was never tall. Irrational. And I truly don't know what I'm missing. I've read about and briefly experienced, but that's not the same. The intense passion of lovemaking. The long-term intimacy of simply knowing each other for years. I miss it and daydream, but I really don't know what either is like, except for brief previews and second-hand glimpses.

So a weak cheer for being single. I can run around the apartment in my underwear. I don't have to conform to anyone's schedule. And I'm most definitely prepared for the inevitable loneliness of old age.