Celebrating Singletonia
Inspired by a random chat I read on a messageboard, a girl complaining how sick she was of reading facebook updates or twitters or whatever of other girls complaining about their rubbish boyfriend. I replied, the answer to that is simple: dispense with them entirely.
She thought I meant to dump said rubbish boyfriends and obtain a new one. No, I didn't mean that at all. I meant dispense entirely with boyfriends and the desperate need to obtain or keep one.
I was being frivolous of course. Having myself been celibate for... christ, 4 years coming up next March, it's not as if I don't *miss* sex. I filled out a LiveJournal survey and the answer to the "thing you would have liked to have had this year but didn't" or "hope you get next year" remains sex. It's not as if I don't get terribly, horribly soul lonely. (Though that, honestly, has less to do with not having a boyfriend and more to do with not having a "best friend".) And yes, I have caved in several times during the past few years and joined internet dating sites and even ::gasp:: gone on dates.
But the stark truth remains, I am single because I don't *want* a boyfriend. (Or, perhaps, to put that a bit more harshly - because I don't want to settle for the kind of boyfriend that seems to be available to someone like me.) Because I don't want all that stupid bloody hassle that seems to go with obtaining and keeping a boyfriend.
If I were in a more financial state of mind, I might go about estimating the amount of money I've saved. However, I can still do this as a mathematical analysis:
Since I have Officially Given Up Having Boyfriends:
-Amount of money I've spent on cosmetics, makeup etc: £20
(and granted, the great majority of that was buying nail varnish to refinish my bass guitar in)
-Number of professional haircuts I've had: 0
-Number of shitty movies I've had to sit through because BF wanted to see: 0
-Number of parties or gigs I've had to leave early because BF wasn't into it: 0
-Number of shitty parties or gigs I've not been able to leave because BF insisted it would be disloyal of me not to stay: 0
-Number of videogames I've had to watch someone play: 0
-Number of diets I've been on: 0
-Number of unsatisfactory sex acts I've had to participate in despite not being "in the mood": 0
-Number of pregnancy scares I've had: 0
-Number of early morning trips to the chemists for morning after pills: 0
-Number of nights I've been dragged out to pub with BF's mates when I wanted to stay in and read/write/sleep: 0
-Number of pointless, long-lasting IRL fights I've had over some stupid misunderstanding that turned out to be nothing: 3
(OK, despite not being in a relationship, these things still happen with bandmates)
-Number of uncomfortable shoes I've worn more than once: 0
(sometimes it takes wearing a pair of shoes once to find out how uncomfortable they are)
-Number of uncomfortable second dates I've been on, wondering what on earth I saw in bloke the first time around, if I'd simply had too much to drink and mistaken drunkenness for camaraderie: OK, 2
-Number of bad records I've been forced to endure in mine own home: 0
-Number of times I've been told, in mine own home, to "turn that bloody shit off": 1
(OK, I believe this was @GiaScala's reaction to Justice)
-Number of art openings/DJ sets/gigs etc. I've had to sit through, bored off my arse, simply to show "moral support": 0
-Number of times I've had to waste hours of my time listening to diatribes and complaints of BF who shrugs off mine own concerns: 0
-Number of times I've been:
-physically seized or otherwise assaulted during an argument: 0
-told I look "fat" (or otherwise unattractive) in that outfit: 0
-emotionally blackmailed or manipulated: 0
-cheated on: 0
OK, now this is starting to get depressing. But you kind of get the point.
It's really hard, sometimes, at the holidays, with the entire world seeming to conspire to shove this image of family and coupledom and the like down your throat, to make you feel as bad about your single status and lack of family as humanly possible. Sometimes it takes being really negative, and remembering all the awful, horrible, bad things about being in a relationship, in order to feel happy or at least content about being alone at this time of year.
So, in case, anyone wonders, I'll be spending Xmas day alone, in my flat, with the phone turned off, watching last season's episodes of Doctor Who and eating loads of junk food.
She thought I meant to dump said rubbish boyfriends and obtain a new one. No, I didn't mean that at all. I meant dispense entirely with boyfriends and the desperate need to obtain or keep one.
I was being frivolous of course. Having myself been celibate for... christ, 4 years coming up next March, it's not as if I don't *miss* sex. I filled out a LiveJournal survey and the answer to the "thing you would have liked to have had this year but didn't" or "hope you get next year" remains sex. It's not as if I don't get terribly, horribly soul lonely. (Though that, honestly, has less to do with not having a boyfriend and more to do with not having a "best friend".) And yes, I have caved in several times during the past few years and joined internet dating sites and even ::gasp:: gone on dates.
But the stark truth remains, I am single because I don't *want* a boyfriend. (Or, perhaps, to put that a bit more harshly - because I don't want to settle for the kind of boyfriend that seems to be available to someone like me.) Because I don't want all that stupid bloody hassle that seems to go with obtaining and keeping a boyfriend.
If I were in a more financial state of mind, I might go about estimating the amount of money I've saved. However, I can still do this as a mathematical analysis:
Since I have Officially Given Up Having Boyfriends:
-Amount of money I've spent on cosmetics, makeup etc: £20
(and granted, the great majority of that was buying nail varnish to refinish my bass guitar in)
-Number of professional haircuts I've had: 0
-Number of shitty movies I've had to sit through because BF wanted to see: 0
-Number of parties or gigs I've had to leave early because BF wasn't into it: 0
-Number of shitty parties or gigs I've not been able to leave because BF insisted it would be disloyal of me not to stay: 0
-Number of videogames I've had to watch someone play: 0
-Number of diets I've been on: 0
-Number of unsatisfactory sex acts I've had to participate in despite not being "in the mood": 0
-Number of pregnancy scares I've had: 0
-Number of early morning trips to the chemists for morning after pills: 0
-Number of nights I've been dragged out to pub with BF's mates when I wanted to stay in and read/write/sleep: 0
-Number of pointless, long-lasting IRL fights I've had over some stupid misunderstanding that turned out to be nothing: 3
(OK, despite not being in a relationship, these things still happen with bandmates)
-Number of uncomfortable shoes I've worn more than once: 0
(sometimes it takes wearing a pair of shoes once to find out how uncomfortable they are)
-Number of uncomfortable second dates I've been on, wondering what on earth I saw in bloke the first time around, if I'd simply had too much to drink and mistaken drunkenness for camaraderie: OK, 2
-Number of bad records I've been forced to endure in mine own home: 0
-Number of times I've been told, in mine own home, to "turn that bloody shit off": 1
(OK, I believe this was @GiaScala's reaction to Justice)
-Number of art openings/DJ sets/gigs etc. I've had to sit through, bored off my arse, simply to show "moral support": 0
-Number of times I've had to waste hours of my time listening to diatribes and complaints of BF who shrugs off mine own concerns: 0
-Number of times I've been:
-physically seized or otherwise assaulted during an argument: 0
-told I look "fat" (or otherwise unattractive) in that outfit: 0
-emotionally blackmailed or manipulated: 0
-cheated on: 0
OK, now this is starting to get depressing. But you kind of get the point.
It's really hard, sometimes, at the holidays, with the entire world seeming to conspire to shove this image of family and coupledom and the like down your throat, to make you feel as bad about your single status and lack of family as humanly possible. Sometimes it takes being really negative, and remembering all the awful, horrible, bad things about being in a relationship, in order to feel happy or at least content about being alone at this time of year.
So, in case, anyone wonders, I'll be spending Xmas day alone, in my flat, with the phone turned off, watching last season's episodes of Doctor Who and eating loads of junk food.
posted by Masonic Boom | 3:12 pm
3 Comments:
Great post! My Christmas will be spent likewise, only I will have Benji the dog with me and we will be watching Alan Partridge. I do have a boyfriend but he doesn't mind me not coming with him to spend the day with his family, because he's pretty bloody great generally. The point being that even in relationships it's worth putting one's foot down regularly so as to keep the items in your list (well, most of them) at zero.
Right there with you guys w.r.t. Xmas day. Think I'm going to go with a marathon of the old Gerry Anderson U.F.O. series.
Put that to a "No Charge" type backing track, and you could have next year's Facebook Campaign Xmas Number one!
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