What is love?

I have a sinking feeling that what I’ve been looking for all along, in my search for true love, is not real love at all.

Like any good girl who grew up in the 80s, I lived on a diet of John Hughes rom-coms like Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink. I clearly remember falling “in love” with Jake Ryan, the tall, dark and handsome Senior in Sixteen Candles. Dorky Sophomore Samantha, played by Molly Ringwald, crushes on him and they end up together in the end. Jake actually ditches his popular prom-queen girlfriend for the awkward redhead and their love is consummated with a kiss over the glowing candles of her birthday cake.

To me, that was true love.

But in reality, this never would have happened. Samantha would have ended up with the over-eager Anthony Michael Hall and Jake would have continued dating cheerleaders.

My romantic vision of love has always been something like this: the handsome, cool guy who I fawn over but doesn’t give me much in return, finally realizes how much he loves me, how important I am in his life and how he can’t live without me. He proposes, we get married, have three beautiful children and Bob’s your uncle.

But the scenario usually goes a bit more like this: the handsome, cool guy who I fawn over continues to be cool towards me and the relationship, I end up heartbroken and he quickly moves on to the next girl in line.

I’ve turned down the Duckys and the Anthony Michael Halls in favour of the one who keeps me at arms length and who, in my fantasies, eventually shows up on my doorstep with a sparkly ring and a declaration of his undying love.

I’m old enough to know better yet I still get sucked in to this fantasy.

An article in the the Star today by Oakland Ross delves into the meaning of the word “love” as well as the meaning of love itself.

Ross points out that what we think of as “romantic love” is usually something more akin to infatuation. Love, says Toronto psychotherapist Lesli Musicar, is something that “evolves.”

“Rarely do we fall in love at the beginning,” Musicar says. “We don’t know the other person that well.”

Love is something that grows over time and is based on a level of commitment and intimacy.

Ross goes on to tell a story about a woman, who after being dumped by her boyfriend, moves to a new part of town to mend her heartbreak.

Her new neighbour asks her on a date, and although she’s not so interested, she agrees to go and continues to date him even though she’s not “in love” with him; she figures she’s got nothing better to do while she’s waiting for The One to come along.

They eventually move in together, years pass and one morning she wakes up early, stretches and looks over at her former neighbour lying in the bed next to her. For the first time, it dawns on her that he is actually The One that she’s been waiting for all along.

“Love doesn’t happen so much as it emerges,” Ross concludes in the article.

Point taken.

I think it’s time for this old broad to re-evaluate my idea of love and stop waiting for Jake Ryan to come along. He was pretty cute and had a cool car, but if the movie had continued I bet he would have dumped Samantha after the kissing-over-the-cake scene only to return to his lush-of-a-prom-queen girlfriend or the next flavour of the week.

Maybe what I’ve been hoping for and hanging on to all along, is not really love at all; maybe it’s time to kick my John Hughes fantasies to the curb for once and for all.

(No disrespect to the late director intended; I’ll always love those flicks and it’s probably good to awaken a dash of fantasy now and again!)

V-day doesn't have to be D-day

So friends, another Valentine’s Day approaches.

The one day of the year that it’s maybe not so cool to be single, but I’ve done my research and come up with a plan to get me through that is in line with my 5 goals:

1.       Be okay with being single- Instead of thinking about a partner this V-day, I have only myself to think about, so I will celebrate! My plan is that I’ll eat a lot of chocolate, because it makes me happy. I’m looking into where I can get a decently priced massage in the city, because I love a good massag. Maybe I’ll rent a favourite movie (Serendipity anyone?) and of course, make a favourite meal, how about a lobster tail or good cut of steak!

2.       Do more stuff- I don’t always want to put the pressure on myself to do more stuff. So maybe this V-day I will do less stuff. I want to focus on being good to myself and doing what I want to do. This means that I will have a relaxing day, thinking of things that I like to do and doing those things without feeling guilty. Most importantly, I will do less thinking about the fact that I’m single and more stuff to take care of myself and not worry about what else is going on around me.

3.       Work on my relationship skills- Well, I don’t know if much will get done in this department on V-day. But I do know, as far as anyone’s ever told me, that you can’t love someone else until you love yourself. So I guess in that way, if I’m working on loving myself, then I am in fact working on my relationship skills!

4.       Let it go- To be honest, last year at this time I was in a relationship, and it wasn’t such a great V-day anyway. It was a lot of effort on my part, without much effort or appreciation in return. At least in making the effort towards myself, I know that it will be appreciated. So I’m going to try to let go of any negative feelings or thoughts and also let go of the past and focus on the present. A good friend of mine always tells me that things work out the way they’re supposed to. When a relationship doesn’t work out, she reiterates the statement: “It worked out!” because that’s the way it was supposed to work out. So it all worked out.  Does that work out to make any sense at all?

5.       Spread the love- This is the most important goal this Valentine’s Day. It’s a time for love, whether it’s the romantic kind or family kind or anything in-between. I plan to focus on spreading the love. I’ve already sent off Valentine’s cards to my family (which I wouldn’t normally do!) just because I want to spread the love. Why not spread the love to family and friends this Valentine’s Day? There’s no sense in getting all grumpy and miserable about being single, I’ve got the time right now to spread the love to others in my life so that’s what I plan to do.

That’s all I have to say on the topic.

  

Happy Valentine’s Day friends.

Peace Out.

Five Goals

As I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve been trying to come up with some goals since I have named it the singleness “project”, and every project needs goals!

So I’ve tried to narrow down my goals to just five; more than that gets a little overwhelming and would make them impossible to accomplish. 

  Here they are:

1.       Be okay with being single.

2.       Do more stuff.

3.       Work on my relationship skills.

4.       Let it go.

5.       Spread the love.

Now I’ll explain.

1.   It’s actually quite difficult to be okay with being single. As much as my ‘trying to be funny’ posts denote how great it is to be single, it’s not always great. In fact, sometimes it’s a drag. It can get lonely, you wonder what’s wrong with you and you also wonder ‘why me?’.  I decided on the goal of being okay with it because I want to reframe my thinking about it. Partly because wandering around being miserable and desperate about being single, is sure to keep things that way! So I figured, why not enjoy it? A married friend of mine gave me some good advice recently saying that things won’t be like this forever (even though it seems like it to a single sometimes!) so enjoy it while you can. She’s right.

2.    Sometimes I can tend toward my introverted side and avoid getting out there and “doing stuff”. So while I’ve got the chance, and the time, I’d like to get out there and do more stuff. Getting out in the world helps anyone feel less lonely and I’m sure that trying new things and meeting new people  will only serve to enhance my life. I’ve started by joining a meditation class and going at least once a week to a new yoga studio. A friend and I are talking about joining the Toronto Outdoors Club which organizes outdoor activities for peeps in the city. And another group, called MeetMarketAdventures (although I’m not sure I love the name!), organizes some great activities for singles such as skiing, hiking, pizza-making and beer nights and wine tasting courses. Finally, I like to run, but I’ve never trained for any sort of running event. I’m thinking that when the ground starts to thaw, I’ll look into training for a 10K or half marathon. It’s good to have a focus when “doing more stuff”.

3.   Number three is a tricky and sensitive one. But I’m pretty sure that I haven’t made it to this age being single without missing something in the relationship department. Sometimes I feel like there must have been a memo sent out in high school that I never got. I always seem to be doing something wrong, from picking the wrong person to asking the wrong questions on date #4! So I’m thinking, just for fun and a little bit of guidance, I might try going to a relationship coach. Maybe they can at least help me try and sort out what I’m looking for and give me a few tips on how to approach things differently. We’ve all got patterns and they’re hard to break out of! Just for interest’s sake, here’s an article I wrote about a relationship coach a few years back.

4.   Let it go includes not dwelling on the past. As a single, it’s hard not to dwell on past mistakes, regrets or wishing things had turned out differently. But I’m learning through my meditation course, which is all about mindfulness and paying attention to now, that really now is all we have, so make the best of it! A book I’m reading by Jon Kabat-Zinn called Full Catastrophe Living points out that “we have only moments to live”. Which is true if you think about it. The  past is over, the future hasn’t happened yet, and all we have are the moments right in front of us. I know it’s cheesy and you’ve heard it all before, but it’s important to make each of those moments count.

5.   Finally, spread the love. As a single it’s hard sometimes not to fall victim to being a victim. That’s something I have to work on! So spread the love is a reminder to put as much love out there, on a daily basis, as possible. Whether you’re feeling it or not. They say that if you put love out there, it will come back to you, and we all know it’s true. I intend to start by spreading some love this coming Valentine’s Day! Instead of focusing on my singleness, I’m going to try to send out as much love as I can to friends and family. Valentine’s Day is all about spreading the love anyway, it doesn’t have to be about roses or expensive dinners or heart-shaped chocolate boxes. Look out people, love is coming your way!

Phew! That’s it for now friends. Let me know if you have any further ideas for my singleness project goals. Any tidbits of wisdom or ideas for how to “Let it go”, “Spread the love” , “Do more stuff” or “Be okay with being single”, are always welcome!

I hope you have a fabulous day and enjoy every moment.

(The idea to have project goals and also some of the goal ideas, re-interpreted for my singleness project, have been inspired by The Happiness Project. Thank you Gretchen Rubin!)

Single is the new black

(Married friends....please take this with a dose of irony. It's all just in jest! You know I think you're beautiful, wonderful and perfect already :)

Fellow singles, it’s time to fight back.

It seems society is cutting us down at every turn: Life as a single is already more expensive having no one to share the milk or toilet paper with, but singles also lose out on a bunch of breaks afforded to doubles.

For example, there are no singles’ tax breaks like the ones marrieds get to enjoy; we don’t get to plan fancy events where we collect money or expensive gifts like new blenders and gold-rimmed dishes; and, if that weren’t enough, if we ever want to go anywhere, we actually have to pay more because we’re by ourselves. Talk about insult to injury!

So team, since there’s not much we can do about any of that, I guess our only choice is to fight back with creative weaponry.

It’s time for us to have more fun, be smarter, better looking, more fit and do more interesting things.

It’s time to make them jealous of us people!

What we miss most about being single - Love - Canadian Living

The having more fun part will be easy; it’s a no-brainer really. The fact of the matter is, we can do whatever we want whenever we want, so fun is at our finger tips, at any moment of the day.

For example, I ate a big, fat grilled cheese sandwich for dinner on Friday night. I didn’t even add any vegetables or a salad, just grilled cheese and a whole lot of ketchup……… because I felt like it. 

Is that fun or what?

In terms of being smarter, being single allows us ample time for reading books, magazines, newspapers, websites etc., and taking classes to nourish our noggins. Hit the libraries my friends!

Better looking and more fit sound simple enough. Clearly, we have more time to go to the gym, get mani/pedis, get our hairs did, shop for the latest fashions and keep up with our waxing, or at least tell people that we are (who will ever know?).

Look at Jennifer Aniston, she really couldn’t be any hotter. But do you think she’d have time to straighten her hair, go to the bronzing parlour, yogasize, run, whiten her teeth and do all those sit ups if she had a family to worry about? Let’s be honest, she does tend to look a bit more polished than Angelina most of the time, like at least she’s brushed her hair that week. But who can blame Angelina, with her brood of seven, she’s lucky she finds the time to throw some lip stain on those big pillows for the Golden Globes. Fortunately for her she’s naturally gorge.

Finally, do more interesting things comes with the territory of being single. Isn’t it funny that while in a relationship, we’ll stick to the same, routine gym workouts and Saturday night entertainment choices, but suddenly, as a single, we’ve joined a trapeze club and spend Saturday nights learning how to cross-country-ski or indoor rock climb after our knitting club and flower-arranging class.

What we miss about being single: 5-10 - Love - Canadian Living

So there you go doubles. You may have more money than us, nicer stuff and get to go on better trips, because it costs you less, but I’ll be damned if we’re not going to be smarter, better looking, more fit, and do more fun and interesting things.

We may cry our lonely selves to sleep at night, but whatevs! At least we look good in the morning. 

Single is the new black.

I'm a loser, and I like it

It’s ugly but it’s the truth: I like spending Friday nights alone.

I know I shouldn’t, or at least I feel like I shouldn’t. But the problem is, almost every time I agree to a plan or try making a plan for a Friday night, I feel like I’d rather be curled up on my couch.

Now granted, it’s not surprising because I am probably mostly an introvert, with a few extroverted tendencies, but I find Friday nights taxing and would have more fun with a book or bowl of popcorn and a DVD.

As a single, this has its advantages and disadvantages.

The good side is that I don’t have a partner pushing me into Friday night Karaoke or dinner with the in-laws. I can curl up on my couch with a good book or movie every Friday night if I so desire.

Unfortunately however, as a single, you feel like a bit of a loser on a Friday night if you’re not out and about. It’s bad for the self esteem.

As part of a couple you can come home and do the exact same thing, but if someone else is there, even if they’re not participating in the same activities, it’s a little less hermit-y and somehow more acceptable.

As a single you feel the pressure to ‘get out there’ and ‘try new things’ enjoying ‘all that life has to offer’! Or at least this is what everyone says in their online dating profile.

Sometimes I wish I had a kid and a husband just so I could come home on a Friday night, go to bed at 8 and not feel weird about it.

There are just so many good things to do by yourself on a Friday night:

-A great book or movie, as I’ve mentioned

-A nice glass of wine as you cook your favourite meal

- Friday night yoga, bubble bath, and bed

- Trashy TV paired with chips and dip

- Pedicure and a stack of gossip mags

- Ordering take-out and getting all three of your favourite dishes, then eating as much as you want from each, not having to split the spring rolls in half or share the little baggie of shrimp chips

I’m a loser, I admit it. But Friday nights to me are for relaxation and regeneration. Easing into the weekend like this seems to make the rest of it even that much better.

And with age I’ve discovered that a happy Saturday morning is even more rewarding than a debaucherous Friday night.

For some more fun things to do on your own, check out this week's Eye Weekly and the Loner's Guide to Toronto. Although a few of the suggestions I wouldn't endorse like wolfing back a bucket of chicken wings at the Real Sports Bar and Grill by myself.............. some of them I could totally get behind like brunch for one, photography classes, and the satisfaction of going to Tim Horton's for a coffee and a single timbit!

There's nothing wrong with me........or you

Researching for my blog, I spent some time at Indigo the other day looking for books on the topic of being single.

After half-an-hour I wanted to cry and run out of the store.

Naively, I thought that in this day and age there might be a section with titles like “Single and Loving it!” or “Happy on my own”- something of this nature.

Sadly, there were not.

 I may have missed them and not researched quite thoroughly enough but there certainly wasn’t a section like this, let alone even one title that I could find.

In amongst the self-help and relationship books sat titles like “Lonely”, “Shattered” and “How to find the Love you want”.  They focused on helping someone through the painful end of a relationship so that they could dust themselves off and get into new one. The others contained chapters full of ‘rules’ that women should follow to get a man, any man, to commit.

For example, here’s a good one that all of us singles know and love: Play hard to get.

“A man is intrigued by a woman who is not always ‘available’; it will make him want you more if you are a little mysterious. Try giving some affection and attention, and then taking it away! He will come chasing after you because you’ve given him a taste of what he wants and this makes him want more.”

This is why I’m single. I don’t know how to be coy and play these bulls—t games.  I’ve never had a friend who became my friend because I called them once and then ignored the rest of their calls for a week, only to text them soon after to say, “What up?”.

Here’s another one:

According to Yahoo! this morning, a surprising trait that men find attractive is insecurity.

Evidently, women who are more insecure are more desirable and better at dating.

The authors of whatever study from whateverville U.S.A, found that women who are insecure try harder to be interesting whereas confident women come off as arrogant.

But  thankfully, Cosmopolitan’s savvy editors disagree: “Uh, are we the only ones who think it's way better to actually be interesting rather than to just ‘appear interesting’?” they posted in response.

One of the comments from a reader of my last post was about how she was so tired of feeling like “something is wrong with her” because she’s still single.

It’s true, it’s difficult being a “one” in a world that caters to “twos”.  You tend to feel like a bit of a leper.
Why are we taught that being single is bad?
Is it such a terrible thing to be single that we should consider trading in our personalities or changing our behaviour, simply to become part of a couple?

I've tried that and I don't think it's worth it.

So for the time being, I remain, singlefully yours!

Being single ain't so bad..........

As a single gal in my mid-thirties, it would be easy for me to come up with reams and reams of reasons why it’s a terrible state of affairs. But for this particular project, I’m going to take on the challenge of doing the opposite.

One of the things I’ve come to understand recently, through meditation practice, reading, therapy, etc. is that there are often two ways of viewing a situation: one is helpful, and the other is not so much. So why not choose the helpful one? Once you start to focus on and pay attention to your thoughts, you realize that you have control over them and you can actually choose your thoughts! Why not choose the ones that make you feel better?!

I have a favourite magnet on my fridge that says: “Don’t believe everything you think.”

Words to live by I say.

The point I’m trying to get to with this rambling introduction is that, believe it or not, there are some good things about being single.

Do you know that I wake up almost every single Saturday morning and think to myself: “Hmmmm, what am I going to do today?” Most of the time, I make myself some coffee, listen to music and have a leisurely read of the Saturday paper. Then maybe I’ll go for a run, meet some friends for brunch, do a little shopping, and be home in time for a mid-afternoon nap.  In the evenings I’ll meet friends for dinner or a drink, go to a movie, go to some sort of event or gathering, or even just stay home, cuddle up with my two cats, and read a good book or watch a good flick.

I know for a lot of my thirty-something friends, with toddlers and even ‘tweens milling about, this seems like a dream come true.

One of my best friends from University, a stay-at-home mom living in the ‘burbs, with three kids aged 7, 5 and 3, now comes to visit me in the city for a fun night out and to get away from all of her responsibilities.

There was a time a few years back, when being the single one, I would be the one traveling around the region, visiting all of my friends with their newborns and listening politely to their tales of midnight feedings and diaper explosions.

But I’m finding that the tables are starting to turn. My friends are at an age where the novelty of getting married, buying houses, getting pregnant and having babies is starting to wear off.

Real life has officially set in.

I can see this in their relationships which aren’t quite as rosy and romantic as they used to be. In fact at least one good friend has been having marriage difficulties and split from her husband for a time over the past summer.

Not that I wish failed marriages on anyone, least of all my friends, but a good buddy reminded me recently, as I moaned a little bit about being single, that being in a relationship or being married doesn’t solve all of your problems. It doesn’t necessarily make you happier, he pointed out. Lots of married people are now, or are soon to be divorced he said, adding, “So you’re ahead of the game!”

Anyway, I digress.

I really don’t wish divorce and misery on anyone, but in an attempt to make myself feel better as a single, it’s helpful to remind myself that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.

I know that a good, fulfilling and satisfying relationship can bring a lot of joy and happiness to one’s life, but in the meantime, while I’m waiting for Mr. Right to come along, I can’t just sit around and mope.

So why not enjoy the wonderful parts of being alone?

For example, I have a big, cozy and comfortable bed that I don’t have to share with anyone! I’m not woken up by snoring, or the stealing of covers, or requests for late-night romps. When I go to bed, (which can be as early as 8 p.m. or as late as 3 in the morning if I want!) I am out for the night. I may have to go pee at least once, but otherwise I’m in snoozeyland until the alarm goes off.

And I can stretch out and take up as much of the bed as I please, wrapping my body around as many pillows as I want.

So there.

Being single ain’t so bad!