Hola mi gente!!
What a gorgeous weekend we had! I went to a wedding on Friday night, a birthday party Saturday night and to the beach and over a friend’s house on Sunday. It was one of the best weekend’s I’d had in a long time.
At the wedding, I danced with a fun guy who was in the wedding party. The top if his head came to my breasts, so he got to dance with the girls all night. The entire night he kept asking me where my man was. Each time I told him I didn’t have one, he’d ask, “why are you single?” I just turned my back to him as EU’s “Doin’ the Butt” played and I made him sweat.
When I wasn’t dancing, people would come up to me and say, “What a great wedding! When are you getting married?” My answer? “Let me get back to you on that one.”
Fast forward to Saturday night – the birthday party. A nice guy named Shawn buys me a drink and proceeds to tell me how great my smile is. He’s sweet, funny and touches my hand for emphasis when he speaks every chance he gets.
“So, are you a Washington?” he asks.
“Excuse me?”
“A Washington...single...?”
Never heard that one before.
“Yes, I am,” I reply.
“You can’t be…why are you single?”
I never know how to answer that question – and it always sounds silly to me, no matter how it's asked.
"Why are you single?"
"Why are you single?"
"Why are you single?"
I only have one snappy comeback that I borrowed from Cher - "The trouble with some women is they get all excited about nothing—and then they marry him."
That gets a chuckle, until it sinks in.
Maybe instead of thinking of snappy comebacks, I should list the top 10 advantages of being single - for ME anyway. Being in a relationship is great; and this is in no way to suggest that being single is better than being coupled up...but for me, being single means…
1. I can do whatever the hell I want, whenever the hell I want, as much as I want to. And can’t nobody say boo about it. The remote is all mine. I can drink right out of the orange juice carton if I feel like it without looking over my shoulder to see if someone’s looking at me sideways. And I can sleep in all damn day if I want to.
2. I can splurge on an expensive handbag and not have to explain myself or justify the expense. I bought it cuz I felt like it, don’t worry about how much it costs :-)
3. I only need to keep track of one schedule – MINE. “You wanna go to a game tonight?’ Yep. “Wanna grab some dinner after work, say…8?” Absolutely. “I scored tickets to a play for next Thursday, wanna check it out with me?” Hell yes! “Do you have to check with anyone about that first?” Nope. When you’re single, your schedule is yours and yours alone. My needs are primary right now, so I make the most of my freedom.
4. And I can invite whomever I like! Sure, couples can take comfort in knowing they always have a date for a wedding, birthday party or other social event. But there’s a lot to be said for being able to pick from a pool of friends and dates depending on the function. There’s no dragging around a boyfriend to events they don’t want to go to making sure he’s not annoyed or bored, and there’s no stress about my current boo flipping out on me cuz I’d rather go see Jay-Z with my girls than with him. I have mad partners-in-crime to pick from, guilt-free!
5. I can revel in the sound of silence - read a book, take a nap, watch a movie…do whatever I want and just enjoy my own company. No one is asking me where I’m going, what I’m doing or when I’ll be back.
6. I’m more likely to be spontaneous when I only have me to think about. I decided at the last minute to go to the Dominican Republic by myself and had a blast! The “you-only-live-once” mentality tends to work better on one person at a time since there’s, well, just one person to worry about and one schedule to wrangle. Whoever’s down for an adventure can come along – let’s go!
7. My life is full of passion—and possibility. Let’s be honest: The cliché about sex getting dull after awhile with the same person is a cliché because it’s true; and my married friends talk about boring sex or lack of sex to me all the time. If you have kids, okay…I get it. But if you don’t and you don’t have a demanding job that requires you to fly around the world, then you have no excuse. I don’t get this “sex stopping after you get married” crap. If that inevitably happens, then I’ll take my time getting married, thank you. Don’t take this to mean that I’ll have random, casual sex with just anyone just because I’m single (even though I can if I want to), but it means I can spend my whole night flirting like crazy with every dude I see if I get the urge. It means I can still get weak in the knees when I kiss a date for the very first time. And it means I can have a marathon night of sex full of excitement and surprises simply cuz it’s new – the kind that old married couples don’t seem to have anymore…IF I wanted to ;-)
8. What I also find fun is that my coupled up friends seem to live vicariously through me, even though I wouldn’t say my life is THAT exciting. But they are very entertained by my dating stories…the good, the bad and the ugly. They laugh when I tell them about the wack ass HERB I went on a date with, or they “oooh’ and “ahhhh” when I describe this hot guy I went out with and how he could kiss his ass off! I say all this to say that I sometimes realize what a crazy, silly, exciting and adventurous time I’m having while I’m single - and that I should appreciate it.
9. I can spend quality time with my friends and family. I don’t have to negotiate what I’m doing on a particular weekend or whose family I’m spending the holidays with. A lot of my coupled friends mark up calendars with “his Mom” and “her Dad” days blocked out, and spending a lot of their other time stressing about traveling between the two. But me? I get to spend my time during the holidays and weekends with the family and friends I choose. Whether it’s Thanksgiving dinner or a quiet day chillin with one of my girls, it’s all up to me to decide who I’m gonna share my happy self with!
10. And last but not least, a benefit to being single is nobody ever hogs my side of the bed, steals my covers, wakes me up by snoring or cuts me with ice-cold scissor toenails. And every single night, I nod off knowing that I’m sleeping with someone who I know truly loves me for me. Me.
My answer to why am I single?
“...why aren’t you?”
-b
