Just Stop Already

Whether you're twelve or twenty-four, if you're a single girl (and, especially, if your friends aren't) there's a cornucopia of advice, cliches, and comforts that people will sling at you. As you get older, they get more numerous. And more obnoxious. So, here's a few things you should just stop saying to those single girls in your life.

1. "Have you tried..." Have you tried online dating? Have you tried joining a club? Have you tried, just, talking to people at the grocery store? Have you considered joining a single's group? Honestly, unless you're going to follow that up with something really off the wall (like: "Have you considered cryogenically freezing yourself and thawing out in a couple of decades to see if you've finally come into style?") we've probably already heard your advice. From someone else, a magazine, stupid romantic comedies, or our own obnoxious internal monologues. Not only that, but we've probably heard the contrary advice as well. Have you tried wearing more makeup? Less makeup? Different makeup?
2. "You just need to put yourself out there." Oh, the proverbial "there." That shelf where you just need to be put in order to find unending love and happiness. The problem is, unless we're Shirley Temple's grumpy grandfather in Heidi, we probably are out there. Assuming "out there" is that world where we live, work, go to class, get coffee, shop, go to shows, play laser tag, walk our dogs, take dance, or do whatever it is that we do. Yes, sure, there are varying degrees to which people interact with the world around them. But, even your shyest introvert is going to be engaged to some degree. 
3. "It'll happen eventually." What's obnoxious about this little piece of placation is... you don't know that that's true. Look, I get it. You're coming from this totally genuine and kind hearted place. You probably really, really think that this person will eventually fall in love. You probably think that because you probably think that this person is swell and deserving of love and joy and what not. But, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes really great people never fall in love. Sometimes it just isn't in the cards or the plan or the whatever. What you mean is: it probably will happen eventually. But, and this is important, if it doesn't that person should get to know that that's okay, too. 
4. "Love will find you as soon as you stop looking for it!" This bit of advice is usually couched in a personal story. Somebody who had been searching for love to no avail. They were somewhere between stressed and depressed. Then, they said to themselves, "You know what? Enough is enough. I'm okay." And then BOOM! the very next day they met a handsome man at a pretzel stand, fell madly in love, got married, and that was all she wrote. I take a whole slew of issues with this bit of advice. First? It's a catch 22. If I stop looking for love in hopes that I will find it by ceasing to look for it, doesn't that, kind of inherently, mean that I'm still actually looking for it? Second: it's contrary to the advice that I'll inevitably get a week later which will be some form of "put yourself out there." Likewise, it's contrary to the cultural narrative which says: work for what you want. And, most importantly, the personal anecdotes you used as evidence really don't have anything to do with my life. They're entirely, and exclusively, related to the individuals' lives who are in the personal anecdote. 
5. Speaking of: "I had a ____________ who was _____ years old before they fell in love, but now they've been married for ______ years and they're super happy!" Of all things that make me cringe, this story might top my list. It's usually the anecdote that accompanies #4. The message is supposed to be a comfort: even if it takes a long ass time, sometime, you'll eventually fall in love. But, just because you're second cousin, Virginia, fell in love at 47, doesn't mean that I will. Furthermore: how is that a comfort? "You might be lonely for another two decades. But, like, don't give up or anything." And, most importantly, while I'm totally happy for your best friend, your great aunt, that girl you went to high school with, and the secretary at your work: your story isn't actually relevant to my life. 
6. "I think guys are just intimidated by you." I'm sorry, who am I? Sidney Bristow? Did I just miss the part where I learned another six languages and started roundhouse kicking people in the chin? Who in their right mind would be intimidated by me? I have literally cried during Parks and Rec, I have to psych myself up before making phone calls, I like woodland creature prints, and for many of my formative years my closest friend was a guinea pig. I've met more intimidating lamp shades. The "you're intimidating" bit usually comes from a friend and what it really means is: "You're a really cool person and I have no clue why you're still single." But, unfortunately, it reads a lot like: "You're a megabitch. So, despite the fact that you're smart and funny and can bake a killer pie, you'll probably be alone forever." 
7. "You're so lucky..." You're so lucky to have your free time to yourself. You're so lucky to not be dating the jerk that just mistreated me. You're so lucky to be able to play the field. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So, true: there's almost always an upside to a given situation. And sometimes, when people aren't living out the American Dream, it's our instinct to point out the benefits to their current situation. It totally has merit, too. At least... when it's approached... well. But, when it's approached like: "As someone who has the thing that you don't have, let me just say, you don't really want the thing that you think that you want..." it's a little less helpful and a little more patronizing. So, in addition to "you're so lucky," some of the other obnoxious things you might be saying to the single women in your life include: "Just be glad" and "You don't have a boyfriend? Well, you don't want one." 
8. "Well, guys like..." This is followed up with one of two things: the shudder-inducingly cliched "self acceptance" speech, or the stupid and inane "change yourself" advice. Sometimes, there's option "C": the border-line insane hodgepodge of the two. The first one starts like, "Guys like confidence." It's usually packed full of helpful cliches like, "Just be yourself!" and kind of makes you want to tear out your hair one strand at a time. The core of the speech is the thing that's true: the right person will like you for you. But that's the thing that we all already know, which makes it a little unnecessary to actually vocalize to somebody. The latter can include... well, basically anything. "Guys like blonde hair." "Guys like soccer players." "Guys like pianists." "Guys like girls from Abercrombie and Fitch." Or "Guys think it's fly when girls stop by for the summer. (for the summer.)" The fun thing about this list is that it's totally true. But also totally false. Because what "guys like" really just boils down whatever preferences a given guy has. 

All right, look. You're a fantastic person with a nice golden heart, so you probably don't intend to push the single women in your life to the proverbial brink. The next time you speak to your niece or college roommate or sister-in-law or granddaughter, you're probably going to get the urge to comfort them about their singledom all over again. And that's totally sweet of you. But... all we ask, is that you think before you do. Some girls, are perfectly happy being single and your attempts at comforting them risk making them feel awkward or like there's something wrong with their life. There are other girls who want to be in relationships, who feel lonely or embarrassed or whatever else about being single, and there's a chance that your advice just makes them feel worse about it. The rest of us bounce between the two: happy and content to lonely to embarrassed to whatever else to happy and content all over again. (We don't really want the advice, either.) 

And the thing about whatever it is that you want to say: at the core, it's probably good, honest, and true. But the way that you present it is the problem. So, you want to tell all the single ladies out there that everything will turn out all right? Repeat after me: "I think you're awesome. So, if you want a relationship, I imagine you'll find one. But if you don't: that's okay, too. You're awesome either way." 

Say "awesome" a lot. It's one of those words that exists at the crux of amusing and disarming. That's not even advice on how to advise people on perpetual singledom. It's just regular life advice. Other good words to use: rad, groovy, super cool, supa kewl, mad-rad-bad, awesomesauce, and "like totally awesome." 

The Fly Carcass in my Water Glass

I see him there, bobbing around with the ice cubes, as cool liquid pours in between my lips. He's so small, it takes a moment to process what it is. A clump of dust. The torn off corner of a magazine page. A fleck of leaf. But there he is: wings, abdomen, little limbs. Floating. Falling apart.

I wonder how long he's been there. I've refilled this water glass several times throughout the past few days, never washing it, just rationalizing, "Only water and my lips." And, apparently, a tiny insect carcass. It would make death so indecent. Invisible walls, invisible liquid. Trapped on all sides as water filled his tiny insect lungs. Then, more water poured over his limp and soaking body and then sipped up from around him, and, later, doused once again.

Maybe, though, he's a recent development. Perhaps his lifeless corpse had fallen from the faucet the last time the glass was filled. Or maybe he dove in and drowned somewhere in the six steps from the kitchen sink to my bedroom. There's a selfish comfort to that thought: perhaps I haven't been drink dead-gnat infused water for the past three days.

But there's no comfort where he's concerned. Even if his death hadn't been ignored and neglected for that long, his body would be disposed of the same way: washed down a drain. No proper acknowledgement of his existence. No fire or burial or chance to let his energy be absorbed by an amphibian foe.

Even this obituary of sorts is an acknowledgment of death and discovery; not of life or accomplishment. And isn't that just the way? Think of the hundreds of thousands and tens of millions of people who once were faces and names and favorite colors and first kisses and weird party tricks and whispers and laughs but now live only as numbers in textbooks or sad statistics in the news paper.

Maybe it's the liberal beat of my bleeding heart but I can't help but mourn for this little monster, submerged and suffocated. Maybe it's the familiarity I feel, remembering the times that I've seen the world where I feel valued and supported turn hostile, indifferent, and duplicitous. Surely, this has happened to us all. Safe, secure, and in the midst of the pleasure that is flight our air becomes water, our wings immersed and unusable, our lungs slowly filling.

I don't say any words as I wash the fly, the water, and the melting ice down the drain in the kitchen. He probably deserved more. This creature.

Created, after all.