Stasis Field

There are ways to be single, of course. I didn't watch the revival series A Thing That Apparently Happened or whatever it was called, but I learned a lot about singeldom from the original Sex and the City, the entirety of which occurred while I was heavily married twentysomething human who had dated close-to-not-at-all pre-marriage and had no prospects or interests in doing so in the future (such as it was), near or distant. I watched it like an anthropologist's eye, breaking down the ritual and ceremony and complicated group and cultural dynamics, with the goal of a deeper understanding of my species and the side bonus of regularly seeing boobs. Exactly like an anthropologist.

When, like, I don't know, 10 years later, I actually and (somewhat) unexpectedly became single, I learned very quickly that maybe the model of being a 30-plus woman with an apparently unlimited wardrobe budget and access to cabs wasn't the best fit for a 30-plus man with three kids and a used Prius in exurban Southern California. It also didn't help that I didn't really have three besties who were free for lunch every day. Unless you count my kids, but none of them are really a Miranda. You can't fake it with one Samantha and two Charlottes. The dynamic doesn't work.

What I found is that your method of being single is tied pretty closely to your interest in being not-single. There are those who are not interested in another relationship (at the moment and/or ever), which manifests in either real, intentional solitude that lends itself to growth but also sometimes a stunted kind of safety OR a frothy, sweating parade of mutually-understood no-hoper hit-it-and-quit-its with whomever you can convince to participate. I've never attempted either of those, partially because I have a personality that thrives in feedback and connection, and partially, at least as far as the second option is concerned, I don't think I have the cardio.

Others are more of the "the universe will provide" kind of camp, where they are open to finding someone/something but without actively kicking over stones or engaging magical thinking on the subject of frogs. These are the most annoying types as they kind of pinball through their social, professional and family lives without really making much of an outward effort and then one day they show up at a function with some goddamned underwear model with good teeth and a beach house. And we all get to know Sebastian and we're so pissed off because he smells so good and he's so self-deprecating and he is so deeply in awestruck love with your woo-woo-hippy friend that you are incapable of disliking him and they live happily ever after, in a mockery of your own struggle. Aspirational, but still assholes.

Then there is the type I fall into, the ones Out Here Trying. On the apps or doing activities or volunteering, just in all the ways Being Available. You monitor your likes and your swipes and engage in the chit-chat, and the small percentage of those that actually go anywhere you foster and nurture into a first date, which might be great or might be the kind of thing that ends with you soaking wet, sitting on the back of a parked firetruck, googling on your phone which kinds of scorpions are the really poisonous ones while you wait for your emergency contact to come pick you up. This shit can get complicated fast.

If a first date works out, then you can anticipate a second and hopefully a third and now you're in A Thing, that isn't yet The Thing, but heading in that direction. And you can back off the apps eventually and start assuming time together and spending nights or weekends maybe and thinking about introducing them to your kids... and then, for one of 8,223,406 reasons, maybe that doesn't take either and you're spat back out into Being Available, re-downloading the apps, doing the swipes, engaging in the chit-chat...

It's an anticipatory limbo of everything and nothing. It's a life of all potential energy, where literally nothing moves or happens, but you know at any second you're one BLOO-DE-WOOP alert sound on your phone away from the first conversation with the last person you'll ever have to date. Which is great, but it's something you have to be ready for and open to at all times, which is exhausting and life-affirming all at once because hey, it turns out positive outcomes require focus and effort sometimes. In the meantime, it's a series of half-hopes and little swings. It's self-doubt and wondering. You feel stuttering and un-started, like somehow you're a whole person somehow made up mostly of gaps. The trick is to understand the gaps are your own to fill, which is a good way to avoid co-dependency and also, depending how you get down, a decent masturbation joke.