Is it me?

My forays into the dating world seem to result in little more than a few evenings out and a crazy story to tell friends later. As this has repeatedly happened to me over the last 5 years (and yes it has been 5 years since I have been in a serious relationship), I had to ask the question “Is it me?”

And the answer… “Maybe, but I don’t think it is a bad thing.”

Some women and men get more desperate the longer they are alone. I once had a guy (no he did not make it past the first date) ask me what my date to get married was. When in confusion I asked what he meant. He said that all girls have an “I need to be married by {Insert Date or Age}”. I responded with I do not have an expiration date. If I meet the right person and we decide it is right for us, we will get married. If I do not meet the right person, I do not get married. He seemed astounded by my reply.

I find that I do not get more desperate the longer I am single. It seems to have the reverse affect on me. Instead of lowering my standards, the longer I am alone, the higher my standards get. In the absence of a serious relationship, which requires spending time getting to now a person, I have had a lot of time to get to know myself. As a result, I know what I want out of life (or at least have a pretty good idea) and I enjoy my “me” time. It allows me to pursue various interests and inclinations, such as jewelry making, learning how to knit, crocheting, refinishing furniture, watching whatever I want on tv, spending an entire weekend reading numerous books, making plans at the drop of the hat, whatever I want.

The truth is that I am not going to waste my time and energies trying to impress a guy just so I am not alone. I would rather be alone and true to myself then married for the sake of being married.

However, there still seems to be this lingering stigmata of being single, but I think the stigmata is only lingering because we women perpetuate it by thinking poorly of single women or by settling so we can be in a relationship. Unfortunately, being single women, I can attest to this. Just to clarify, the unfortunate part is not that I am single; it is that I have seen first hand evidence of women and even men perpetuating this stigmata.

I understand that when you are in a relationship you want to do things with your SO and be around other couples, but I have a real problem with people who want to turn everything into a couples’ event. Its one thing to say you are welcome to bring your SO to the event. It is another thing entirely to make the event couples only. What kind of message is that suppose to send?

In summary, it is wrong to assume that everyone who is single is desperate or has some serious character flaw.

This has turned into a bit of a ramble as a result of A) a series of train wreck dating experiences (I might have to blog a bit more about those later) B) Anger about a series of incidences where people kept mentioning oh we should have a “couples this” and a “couples that”. Ummm, thanks guys, guess you do not really want me to be there.

I feel like in view of this ramble, I should also mention that I have been fortunate to find a group of friends who are all happily settled in relationships, but do not feel the need to ostracize me from events due to my single status. More importantly, they do not make me feel like a 3rd or 5th wheel when I go out with them. While I am extremely lucky in that sense, these women (and the men they are with) are in my experience the exception, not the rule. Because I have been so lucky in finding these friends, it is much easier to weed out the friends who would exclude me from events they deem for couples and whether intentional or not make me feel like I was lacking as a person simply because I am lacking a man in my life.

I am who I am. And I will not settle for anything that requires me to be anything less than true to myself. Me, myself and I, have had a lot of time to get to know each other and what I have discovered is that I like who I am and I am not about to change it just to become a we.