Single

Allow me to start by being candid about my dating history; or at least as candid as one can be without truly “kissing and telling”. I have gone steady with a grand total of five women in my entire life. I use the vaguely outmoded term going steady because, in my mind, it is far more accurate in describing the activity. “Dating” seems too casual, as if just meeting for coffee were sufficient and “girlfriend” feels far too official – the kind of thing that you could change your Facebook status to. (I do sometimes miss the term “going out” that was popular when I was in junior/senior high school, but taken literally doesn't make sense and only imparts some sense when you understand the colloquial use.) Of those five women, I dated no single one for longer than five months, and three of them were during high school. The last one ended in March 2014. Excluding that relationship, I have gone a grand total of five dates in the last five years, none of which were second dates. (As I said, I'm going to be candid, which will likely not be charming or uplifting.)

What is the point of this depression dredging material, you ask? I'm not looking for pity, and I'm also in no way boasting about my single life. In order for me to speak frankly about being as single as I am, you need to understand just how single I am. (Answer: very.)

Being single in college is fine; the vast majority of people you meet are also single, engaged in a massive game of musical chairs wherein the music only stops in certain sections of the circle at any one time. When you meet someone who is in a relationship, you're usually assured of its brevity; those in long-term (>1 year) or “serious” relationships are extremely uncommon – the unicorns of the university. This is, for the most part, fine. You likely have a fairly large circle of friends in a similar situation, and you can always have someone to a) commiserate with and/or b) pine with. The change happens very slowly however from one crystalline state to the other. One day, your usual going out/game/movie/whatever night is different and Sean has a date. At first, this doesn't seem unusual because your friends are always going on occasional dates here and there, so it will only be with hindsight after a few months that you realize this is “serious dating” and that you will start to see your friend a lot less.

I feel like I should stop here and point out that this is not a missive against women or men violating a “bro code” or placing “hos before bros”. I am authentically happy anytime one of my friends settled down and with exceedingly few exceptions the counterparts they have selected have been wonderful. I'm just trying to tell the narrative.

Even the loss of one of your friends will likely not raise a red flag, because you still have the rest of your friends. You're not alone, yet. This process will continue to repeat however, and the next thing you know, you're the only single friend you really know. Or, possibly even worse, there is one other single friend and you two are forced to hang out as the only ones who can. If you're lucky, you'll like this person. (Though god forbid they are a member of the opposite sex (or same sex, depending on how you swing) because there will be no end to attempts at unifying Germany, so to speak. This process seems to happen so seamlessly, so silently, like a background computer program that it is quite a while before you realize the music stopped on the musical chairs game a long time ago and every single one of your friends is in a long-term committed relationship.

Why is this bad, you ask? So many websites, Tumblr feeds, books, and memes constantly extol the virtues of being single (Do what you want! Have more money! Live free! the pamphlets would say). There are two primary problems: being single is lonely and being single is a threat to your friends.

First, that being single is lonely seems like a no-brainer. But I'm going to paint a picture. It's Saturday night, and I've just done an improv show with a bunch of my friends. All of their significant others need not be present for this to work. If you're lucky, you all go out to the bar for post-show frivolity and drinks; if you're unlucky, only a few of you will actually be able to participate in the ever evaporating team-bonding. You have drinks, you talk about the show or movies or whatever, and slowly your paired friends depart either with or to join their partners at home. Being the only person left, you pay your tab, get a burrito at the late night place next door, and return home to watch Hulu until you fall asleep. (And, scene.) This is quite nearly all of my going out experiences. Being single in a group of paired friends is a detriment, because you get forgotten. Our world is geared to couples – tables have an even number of chairs. Everything about being an adult is built for “double occupancy” and your coupled friends will throw parties that you will only find out about when the pictures appear on Facebook the following morning because the phrase “odd man out” exists for a reason.

This leads to your being a detriment to your friends, and it should be pointed out that this is actually very altruistic. Your friends want you to be happy and to join them in a world of “everyone plus significant others are invited.” I realized this one night when I was at a birthday party, when a friend's girlfriend pulled me aside to inquire why I was single. I looked around the party to realize that I was the only single person in a room of 20 people. I had become a social pariah. Being unattached and alone in a room full of people who are happy is a potential threat to social order – an unpleasant reminder.

“Why are you single? You're such a catch.” she said to me. Believe me, it wasn't a choice. But that line right at the end about being a “catch” is the exact problem. On paper, I appear very appealing: smart, educated, healthy, good family, employed, and funny. I am in some ways, better on paper than some of my friends. But people do not choose to date other people based on a character sheet. It doesn't matter how appealing I make my profile – there must obviously be something wrong with me that potential dates can see but that can't be named. Available partners are without fail uninterested in me; people either “like” you or they don't.

All the women I meet fall into one of three categories: already committed, homosexual, or uninterested in me. Without exception. One of my friends casually said at a party about me “Oh, he never dates anyone”, which believe me is not by choice. I have been turned down more times than I can count, and the number of empty chairs is rapidly fleeting.

I dated someone last year who, when I told her about my dating background, said that “she would like to send me out into the world to get some experience and then come back in a few years”. I have reached the ultimate catch-22: too inexperienced to date, no dates to get experience. This is frustrating, to say the least.

People's advice is generally bullshit: “love will find you when you're not looking for it” would essentially describe all of my college and grad school years almost exactly and “put yourself out there” would describe 2008-present. The problem is that there is literally no way to “make” dating happen. You can't actually purchase it, you can't build it from scratch, and you can't will it into existence. It either happens, or it doesn't. And the problem becomes additive: girls don't want to date boys who are essentially “new” to dating. The older I've gotten, the harder it's become to get into a relationship. When you're 20 being awkward on a date is expected, and when you're 30 it's downright creepy.

I am okay being alone. At this point, I've had a lot of practice. But being truly alone – that is when your friends ostracize you because you can't get a date – is hard. You probably even have that friend who's never really in a relationship, but always has a date. He has someone to go home to at night. But the real problem is that your interests start to diverge from your friend's. And there's no fixing that. You are living a life that you can't alter and that makes you an oddity.

(This essay written one night over a burrito in lieu of watching Hulu.)