Creating Inequality

One of the things that bothers me most about single life is how accommodating you are expected to be. People don't seem to think your time is worth as much as theirs; they think that they can throw you a pittance of their time when and if they feel like it, and you should be grateful.

And you are. You're so starved for quality contact that you start to give less respect to your own time as well. You value your enjoyable moments with good friends so much that you gather the tiniest scraps of them eagerly. You keep your schedule open like a doctor on call, ready to drop your own solitary activities the moment someone can spare you a moment.

And it's not just time. You get shuffled around on flights so that couples who didn't bother to check in until the last minute can sit together. You fit yourself awkwardly at the corner of the pub table because you aren't attached to someone specific. You're served much more solemnly by waiters who cheerfully make nearby groups' experiences more enjoyable. And frustratingly, people handle you with patronizing protectiveness in a tacit assumption that you can't take care of yourself.

You feel obliged to defer to everyone around you: couples, seniors, single mothers, children. Unless you're career-driven, you probably defer to anyone you interpret as being professionally above you.

But at some point (after years of this treatment and observation of human nature), you realize that treatment is largely a matter of image. You can command more respect than society deems appropriate for your class. The catch is that you have to give up a piece of your identity to do so, but identity is evolutionary and fluid—and the happy truth is that you can stick up for your lifestyle these days.

What's an Age Worth?

My first long-term job was on the front desk of an administrative office. It was a stepping-stone kind of job, which in a perfect world I would have moved up from almost immediately. It was a good place and I didn't want more than part-time work, as I was in the middle of working on my master's degree and simultaneously trying to knock off exams for my composition ARCT.

One day the watercooler conversation turned its attention on me, and the accounting assistant learned for the first time that I was in graduate school.

"I wouldn't have guessed you were in university," she said with a superior laugh. "I was thinking high school, maybe." I knew exactly what the comment implied: I've always been on the gangly side of willowy, small-chested, deferential, quick to smile, eager to complete directives, and sporting a kind of aged-emo style. In our largely big-boned office, I was like the runt of the litter.

But I'm in the camp that wants my years in this world respected.

People seem to think they are paying you a compliment by grossly underestimating your age. The implication is that you lack life experience, that you don't have adult responsibilities or worries, that you're not independent or successful by their measure. Look a little closer. Take a look at my eyes and you'll see a world of aged pain and wisdom. Really look at my smile, and you'll see how it has etched my skin. Look at my work, and you'll see years of higher education and adult common sense.

If you really want to compliment someone, think about what you actually mean. What is it about the person that looks youthful? Pick a feature—maybe it's their smile, or the sparkle in their eyes, or (and you're walking on eggshells) their physical build—and if you still feel the need to verbalize your thoughts, try to spin it in a non-offensive way.

Lifer

Only one hairdresser ever inspired the loyalty in me to return time after time for over five years. She was a single mother of a teenaged son, a multitalented artist, and a downright beautiful and genuine human.

During one appointment, we chatted about Las Vegas, as I was looking forward to my first Vegas trip. She told me I would have a blast. "There's nothing as fun as girlfriends," she said. I didn't mention that I was traveling alone and meeting up with some people I had never met before. "One of my girlfriends is a lifer, like me," she said. "We went to Vegas and joked that we should get married. I really think platonic marriage should be a thing."

Not being very well informed on her personal life, I had to turn her words over in my mind long after I had left the salon. I was stuck on the word "lifer"—what did it mean? What former circumstances would have prompted this attitude?

Her idea of platonic marriage also intrigued me. It shouldn't be a foreign idea, but it is. You don't realize how hyper-sexualized the world is until you spend time as a single. Everything seems to be focused on romantic relationships and families: advertising, media, social activities, conversations, tv and music and art. Anything that doesn't elevate romance is only the more conspicuous for the steadfast avoidance, and comes across as the resentful thought-child of some spurned being. As a single, you feel out of place, unnatural, terribly visible, like a bright red actor in a black and white film. All this fixation on relationships and romance creates an issue in your life, where a nonissue once stood.

Maybe that's one facet of what some of us singles are—spurned beings. But if so, it's a small facet. To think that a person's life experiences doesn't make them evolve to be larger than any label or category is a rookie mistake. Experience and time will teach you otherwise. More and more, I'm getting to understand what being a 'lifer' means to me, and how it is isn't an oppressive label. Rather, it's an open door of life opportunities, and emotional and physical freedom, and optimism.

Last year, she went on sick leave and never returned. I haven't found a stylist since then who can measure up, and more importantly haven't found one with such genuine wisdom.

Elitist Garbage

My childhood best friend lived on a farm a couple miles down the road from mine. We were born during the same summer, and were friends through thick and thin right up through highschool graduation, after which we largely went our own ways in the world.

She was also good friends with a slightly younger girl even further down the road, on a farm with a few horses. They would occasionally go horseback riding together.

One year she kept a horse as well; I can't recall who it belonged to, but it was a fairly short venture. They went riding more often, and I—knowing that there must be an extra horse now that my friend had her own—asked if I could come along some time.

"You don't have a horse," she said.

Young Me was confused and hurt. We were all in the same general social circle, so the awkwardness of overlapping friend groups didn't seem to be an issue. A long-germinating seed of resentment was planted in me—not toward any person, but toward the very idea of elitism that causes some people to be excluded. The Horse Incident was just one instance in a long childhood full of brushes with exclusivity.

With the optimism of the terminally bullied, I was sure that the adult world was a place where I could find belonging. Children are ignorantly cruel, but surely that behavior wouldn't follow me past the school that spawned it.

Surprisingly, the seed has taken well over a decade to bloom into a useful fruit. The adult world has its own guidelines by which The Other is excluded. It's tough to break into any circle, even as an adult. And don't let the image fool you: circles do indeed have a hierarchy, and someone is usually only loosely attached and easily overlooked. Even the most welcoming of communities will unknowingly make somebody feel unwanted, uncomfortable, and reluctant to return.

But when you can overcome your own anxieties and accumulation of bad experiences, and actually break into a new community—well, that's one of life's triumphs. Just keep an eye toward the periphery; and if you recognize yourself in anyone lingering there, be a champion and welcome them in.

Valentine Interludes

When you're a single person, you come to expect that nothing but bad things and bad feelings will come on Valentine's Day. After all, it's dedicated to elevating romantic love above all else.

Platonic love plays a huge role in my life, but the world always cocks a skeptical eyebrow when it sees two humans together, particularly if (like me) you connect best with the opposite sex. You can't go anywhere—a restaurant, a movie, a museum—with a friend, without people assuming you're a couple and treating you accordingly. It really feels like coupledom has a monopoly on social activities. It's reinforced every day, but never more so than on Valentine's Day.

This is how it is every year for me. And so, nobody was more surprised than I was that a large part of today was perfect. It was all thanks to my very best friend who is generous with the most precious of gifts: time and kindness. He's sympathetic to my need for friendly connection, yet sensitive to society's incorrect assumptions. But social image be damned, we spent the late morning through late afternoon out and about, and my traditional Valentine's melancholy was averted.

Almost. Dinner and evening are still prime couple's time, which is simultaneously disappointing and understandable. If you've planned to spend time with a friend or two, they'll almost certainly have made additional plans for afterward, even if you envisioned that you'd be laughing and drinking into the wee hours. I think of these after-plans as the "main event," and my role as the interlude, which is something like playing second fiddle. It's like ordering a dessert so as to replace the taste of the meal on your palate. It's like you're good—maybe even great—but not sufficient. You're not the note that anybody intends to end on.

And then you're back to Baltic Avenue earlier than anticipated, wondering if that unopened bottle of Kraken will fill you with cheer or melancholy (hint: supermelancholy), while the couples take over the rest of the monopoly board outside the four walls of your apartment.

So you end up making yourself some toast for Valentine's dinner, and watching your favourite Downton Abbey rerun, trying to wring a little bit of self-pampering out of the dying day.

La Familia

For such a small month, February devotes a lot of itself to anti-single propaganda. There's the obvious source (Valentine's Day) that can seem manufactured just to cause melancholy in those of us in non-romantic situations.

Where I live, today is "Family Day," and although it doesn't carry the commercial appeal of Valentine's Day, it has the added import of being a statutory holiday. I think the idea of "family" is flexible enough these days (at least in this town) to include a range of previously excluded types:

As a rabid anti-bigot, it's a delicious privilege to live in a place where these differences of familia are becoming non-issues. But the obvious deficiency is exclusion of non-pet-owning singles. Those of us who would love to have a stable enough home to have a pet, but just don't. Those of us who, perhaps, don't like pets. Those of us who have a household consisting only of ourselves.

But even we have family: the supportive unit that we create for ourselves, carving space into our lives for people with whom we have connections akin to kinship. What bothers me is that the idea of "family" usually doesn't allow for this, and these deep connections don't get the respect that they deserve for being relationships as strong as blood or marriage.

So Happy Family Day to all the singles out there. I hope you spent it the way I did: cherishing some new moments of laughter and love with the closest beings in your world.

What's a non-issue, anyway?

If I'm completely honest, I don't really like the number 5. It's okay, but I much prefer 4 and 7. I downright dislike 3. I also kind of dislike J, but I'd still take a J over a 3.

So which do you think is better, J or 3?

That, my friends, is a Non-Issue. It's a matter of apples and oranges, and it's exactly the kind of non-issue that you encounter all the time. Maybe you've heard (or said) this sort of thing before:

"The book was great, but the movie is terrible because it's not exactly the same."
"The movie was okay, but the TV series is better."
"This dessert is okay, but not as good as the one at the other restaurant."

People invariably use the words "better" and "good" when what they mean is "I prefer" or "I like." I guess when you use the former words, you don't have to bog down your sentences with things like justification or reasons.

I'm immensely open-minded, on the verge of being rabidly anti-opinion. Certainly I've been called apathetic a good deal over the years, because of the "I don't cares" I express. But I like open-mindedness. I like approaching things without preconceptions or expectations, and derive all the goodness it has to offer. I like to enjoy things without worrying about where they fall on some giant spectrum of "goodness." Why rank things? Why let your enjoyment of a thing be impacted by the mere idea of some external thing? Even more importantly, why should your opinion of a thing impact my enjoyment of it? Arguing against somebody's likes/dislikes is generally fruitless, and invariably arrogant. It's so common, though, that I've long since ceased crediting anybody's opinions on any matter of taste.

I don't understand the obsession with ranking, with qualification. When you allow one thing to inform your enjoyment of another thing, you're robbing yourself.

The book vs movie battle, for example, always bothered me—but I couldn't place why until I took a graduate seminar on movie adaptations of books. (Okay, I dropped it after the first class; but it was an informative first class!) Books and movies are simply not the same textual experience, and each tells a story using the range of conventions peculiar to itself. Comparing them qualitatively doesn't offer anything productive, and diverts attention away from being fully present. It's like saying you didn't like a book because the soundtrack sucked.

But more importantly, all of this is subjective. It's mind-boggling how much people confuse their own subjectivity and opinions with fact.

I kind of get it. I've proclaimed myself to be anti-opinion, but even I admit to being passionate about a few things, and I understand the personal affront it can feel like when another person dismisses something you think is simply amazing. But even dismissal is preferable to the arrogance of people who actually argue with you about what you should or should not enjoy. I am staunchly anti-snob, in the sense that I don't dismiss an entire genre of anything. There are always shining examples, and life is richer for this realization. Sure I have my preferences, but I recognize them as subjective.

Allowing totally irrelevant things to inform an opinion is nothing less than a logical fallacy, a non sequitur. Where did this tendency come from, to illogically manufacture discontent?

I've been accused more than once for being apathetic, or perhaps too dense to appreciate quality. This used to seem like a fair assessment, but now I'm glad it's my way, though I'm not saying my attitude is better than anyone else's. It works for me. The fact is simply that there are a lot of things I'm largely indifferent about. I literally don't care where we go for dinner (and I'm not "one of those" who claims indifference and then complains at every option), because there's guaranteed to be something at least mildly appealing on the menu. Maybe it's not my very favourite meal, but I don't know anybody who would want to eat their favourite meal at every opportunity anyway.

Back in undergrad, Roman history class was always my favourite, though some bits are foggy after so much time has passed. I remember the prof explaining to us why one of the triumvirates had failed. One member was content to be paralleled, but not surpassed. The second member would not bear to be even paralleled. (Perhaps the third member had no strong opinion on the matter.)

Sometimes my dinner partners strike me as being the problematic triumvirate members. Rather than enjoying a given meal, they get distracted by what it could have been. Maybe the meal is fine. But is it as good as other meals they've had? And if even if that isn't enough, is it better? If other people's enjoyment seems to hinge on whether they dine at a specific subset of restaurants, why wouldn't I leave it up to them?

But the point of all of this is: there are things in this world that just are, and they should be taken as simply that. Things that don't deserve special remark. Things that do deserve to go unremarked. Things that aren't black or white, or even grey; things that can only really be what they are, if they're allowed to be without judgment or appraisal.