Sober on singlehood
hi friends, my first ever stand up special is NOW AVAILABLE on a bunch of streaming services. You can find more info here, I really hope you’ll check it out xox. i’m also doing a different hour in NYC tuesday for FREE. and pls subscribe to premium. ok that’s ok
There are a few times in my life when I’ve noticed a permanent shift in my way of being. The rare moment when I’ve known, for sure, that the way I existed would never again be the same. That I now moved through the world differently. That I had a new identity.
After each permanent shift, my body felt the same. As though everything I consumed was leaving a mark. I would eat fries and feel the cholesterol in my veins. I felt a sense of frailty that wasn’t wholly problematic; if I felt that way all the time, I’d eat much better, for example. But was a real fear that something had changed and I couldn’t go back to my factory settings. It happened when I started doing stand up comedy. When I quit drinking. When I learned how to drive. And most recently, when I got engaged.
I’m 33, so obviously, yes, I’m a little young to get engaged. What is this, Game of Thrones? So, I was worried. But before I got engaged, I asked a married friend who she knew it was time to get engaged. She told me that I’ll know it’s time to get engaged when I love my partner more and more every day. I told her I hadn’t been tracking.
But her math-fixation aside, I made the right choice. Getting engaged was wonderful. I can’t recommend it, though, because my favorite part is that I now get to marry my particular fiance, which wouldn’t necessarily be an option for you. But still. 10/10, would get engaged again.
It’s also thrown me. Just a little bit. Being “single” has been part of my identity for so long. In the same way I consider myself a New Yorker because I spent my childhood there, I consider myself “single” because that’s the way I was born.
More to the point, that’s the way I presented myself to the world. I began my writing career as a single stand up comedian, and I soon fell into sex and dating jokes. I don’t subscribe to the idea that it’s hacky or cheap to do dating jokes: it’s relatable, and I tend to think those complaints are laced with misogynistic undertones. Everyone dates, everyone hates it, everyone deletes and redownloads Hinge 14 times a week. Everyone. Everyone.
My jokes about dating turned into essays about dating, and books about dating, and a brief stint as a full-time sex and dating writer. Dating became part of my identity, which meant being single became part of my identity, regardless of my exact relationship status (before I met my fiance, they are all short-lived and tumultuous). It was how I related to the world. And now, I have a piece of jewelry that asserts I am no longer single.
Content aside, dating wasn’t a – what should we call it? – positive experience for me. I’d be curious to meet someone who spent the better part of ten years on dating apps and loved it. But that doesn’t engagement wasn’t scary. Everyone knows it’s frightening to think about forever. That very fear, I believe, is what compels people not to recycle.
There was some sort of protective cocoon that got stripped away, and I didn’t realize what it was until months later. My “single” identity went beyond existing in the state of singlehood, because of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with singlehood. It was about identifying as a person who couldn’t have what they wanted. So to accept that I had what I wanted—that there was nothing so wrong with me, after all, that would keep me from those things— well, it’s dramatic to say it “shook” me. But it certainly rattled me! Because if I’m not a single woman who can’t find love, who am I?
I have some experience with struggling to give up something that’s bad for me. I’m a recovering alcoholic, and it had broken my heart time and time again, never more so than when I quit it entirely.
Is it fair to compare alcohol abuse to dating apps? No, dating apps are much worse. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t making a permanent change. And that didn’t mean I didn’t suffer the same feelings of frailty.
The problem with permanent choices is that impermanence is relaxing. If I’m worried about a decision, I tell myself that I can always quit, or move, or leave. That there’s no
But perhaps the problem isn’t believing those specific moments – the moment I got engaged, the moment I stopped drinking – represent permanent changes. Perhaps that problem is I wasn’t acknowledging how many other permanent changes I’d made. I make them every day. I’ve permanently closed myself off to any number of worlds simply by not moving towards them. I’ve permanently shut off millions and millions of options—every year, my potential dwindles.
It’s not sad, really, it’s just life. It’s freeing to close doors. I wouldn’t know this, though, if I’d never stopped drinking. As an American, I was doused in our cultural illness from a young age: the belief that independence and freedom are paramount. But that worldview ignores the benefits of dependence and limitation. It’s joyful to eliminate something that was ruining your life. It’s joyful to not have every option. It’s joyful, to truly depend on someone. It’s joyful to know they’re going to be there every day, forever. It’s just really nice.
Beautiful - and congratulations!