Is Single-town being engulfed by Coupledom?

As I get older I feel that being single is like being an endangered species; we are dwindling by the day. Every time I turn around another friend or acquaintance is leaving Single-town for Coupledom, which is great and I am happy for them. However, I sometimes feel like Single-town is being engulfed by Coupledom, a place where everyone is happily coupled off engaging in and not necessarily producing offspring but at least practicing, buying houses and erasing all traces of Single-town from their memories. This is couples, is a PROBLEM especially for your single friends. Why? Because you no longer understand or try to understand our lives anymore and you ask stupid and quite frankly if the truth be told hurtful questions at times like: don’t you want to be married? I have actually had friends tell me how they are so happy they are no longer single, like it’s the black plague of our “modern” society.

First off many couples fail to see that being single is not necessarily a choice for everyone. I know shocking but true. Not all of us choose to sleep alone night after night wondering when our next great organism will occur...will it be next week, next year or five years from now? Ok let’s be honest here many of Single-towners would happily settle for good or even adequate sex. Some of us are still single because as we aged we also acquired standards and they get higher the older we get. We do not want to settle in either our sex lives or relationships.What’s more the older I get the more I see Coupledom as a somewhat looming battlefield that I am not sure I want to propel myself onto. It seems to be rife with compromise, age old gender roles, forgetting your life as single entity and making sure plans fit in with the spouse, children and their plans. I am not saying this is a bad thing but from Single-town it’s not really a great reason to join the ranks of Coupledom. However, a sex only relationship doesn’t seem all that appealing either. I mean who is going to do all the stuff I hate doing, like checking my oil. Bed buddies don’t do that – mates however do. Don’t they? Please tell me this isn’t a falsehood.

Trust me people, the more you see couples in your idea of a less than ideal relationship it really makes you question the hurry to be in one yourself. And the biggest reason why we are still single is.... because we just haven’t found the right person or they haven’t found us yet.

What I want to know is why do couples forget what it’s like to be single, to forge through the crap to the gold? Why do they not have single friends to introduce other single friends too? Or if they do, why don’t they? Why do they not understand that you don’t want to constantly be the third, fifth or 7^th wheel at dinners and other social occasions? Don’t get me wrong I like my friends, their spouses and my couple friends but sometimes I wish they would understand and remember what is was like when they where single and except that I don’t want to attend events where I will be the only one single person at the event. It gets old! Single people hate answering the same questions again and again: married? Boyfriend? Girlfriend? And then the conversation dries up like an old prune and you get the sad old maid look. Men is there a sad old bachelor look I am unaware of? If so please let me know. Basically you feel like you should have a sign on your forehead: single please give wide berth (black plague here). It’s not a pretty experience people and TRUST ME your single friends have experienced this A LOT and most likely at one of your events like a dinner, wedding or both. We are just too polite to say your great Aunt so and so thinks I am a looser because I am still single so if you want me I’ll be at the bar getting cosy with my friend Merlot.

I have always enjoyed my life in Single-town. I have traveled a lot, taken jobs all over the world and pretty much done whatever I wanted to when I wanted to. It’s not as if I have never been in a relationship, never yearned to know that I have “found the one” and can stop looking because looking is exhausting people EXHAUSTING. It’s a world full of internet dating, unwanted sexual propositions, no sexual propositions, married folks posing as singles and many other land mines. However, there is a part of me that still hopes that one day I will go bravely forward into Coupledom, to see and experience being a couple from the greener side of the grass leaving Single-town but not single me behind. For now I go bravely forward happily in Single-town a land slowly but surely being encroached by Coupledom.

Food for Thought

"I'm single because I was born that way." - Mae West