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Was it a dinner party? A brunch? I don’t remember. What I do recall is I was newly divorced and the man seated next to me felt he ought to weigh in on that development. He patted my knee and told me not to worry; he was sure I’d marry again some day.
In his estimation, without a husband I had no currency. In truth, this was the second time I’d ended a marriage. It’s been years since and I don’t regret the decision. Either of them. There was no other reasonable choice. Well, at least none that didn’t include jail time.
The other side of this singleton coin is represented best by my friend Robert. Invariably, he’ll sidle up alongside me, then, as if soliciting military secrets, ask me the same question he asks every time, a question freighted with titillation: How’s your love life?
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To long-married Robert, my singleness is an unimaginable novelty, one that he seemingly spends a great deal of time imagining. He thinks of me as an explorer, an astronaut, someone who has eyed the world from a great distance. Apparently, I know things. You know – wink, wink, nudge, nudge – things.
Rather than disappoint Robert, I animate the myth he believes is the reality of every unmarried person. That we cannonade from one intriguing assignation to another; that life is a series of seductions played out to the maracas soundtrack of a cocktail shaker. A life spoiled for choice.
So I offer a conspiratorial smile and confide that I can’t stay long – there’s a convention of geologists in town. Or I’ll tuck my hair behind my ear, revealing emerald clips. “A gift from the Duke,” I purr.
I think he actually believes me. Or wants to believe me. He’d be disappointed to learn that, actually, I share my bed with a pile of unfolded laundry.
But these men aren’t my only social arbiters. Scores of women will open conversations with me by asking in hushed tones whether I’m seeing anyone. I have a wardrobe of responses depending on who’s asking.
“I’d rather not say; the monarchy has enough trouble already.”
“It’s complicated – I’m dating two thirds of the Backstreet Boys.”
“I’d love to tell you all about it, but I signed an NDA.”
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Even in this era of matrimony delayed, circumvented or abandoned, we idealize marriage. Achieving it remains the goal. The finish line. And we complain about it from both sides of the fence.
It was ever thus. “Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside, equally desperate to get out,” asserted French essayist Michel de Montaigne. And that was in the 16th century. Long before any risk of being caught on Coldplay’s kiss cam.
I traffic in my own fables about marriage. Many of my friends – both male and female – are truly happily hitched. In spite of that, they spend a lot of time disabusing me of lingering matrimonial fantasies. Recently, it was explained to me that being married is all about solving problems together. I nodded in enthusiastic agreement too quickly. Problems, my friend added, you wouldn’t have if you weren’t married.
As Jean-Paul Sartre famously said: Hell is other people. And that wasn’t including sharing a bathroom.
At present, I’m completely and utterly happy being single which, of course, isn’t entirely true. Would my life be improved by a fine romance? Perhaps. But one of the lessons you learn in the trenches is that happiness is a choice.
Still, I think about marriage a lot. I often wonder what I’d have been like if I’d stayed married. I wonder what life lessons I’ve missed. Cohabitation demands compromise and surely I’ve grown reckless and obdurate in my ways. Such are the wages – and luxuries – of independence.
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If I pine for anything, it’s not romance. I want the opposite of romance. I want the shabby comfort of soup-and-slipper Sundays. My feet in his lap while we watch the news. The pleasure of being the passenger, not the driver. Someone to make sandwiches for. A shoulder on which to lay my head would be a thin slice of heaven. The trouble is, that shoulder comes with a head and a history.
Chasing the vaunted ideal has no appeal. I’m gleefully postmatrimonial, relationship-retired and calling every shot. The only words I want to hear when walking down an aisle are, “This is your captain speaking.” I feel about marriage the way I feel about winter camping: It might be fun, but it’s not for me. Although I suppose everyone ought to try it at least once.
These days, I lean on the wisdom of the philosopher kings. German polymath Goethe nails it with his statement, “Love is an ideal thing, marriage is a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.”
I’m not confused. I choose to be happy. Especially when the fleet’s in town.
Isn’t that right, Robert? Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.