Even Quirkyalones get the blues

I had a conversation with an acquaintance recently about my perpetual state of singlehood, during which I explained the concept of the "Quirkyalone" to him. His argument had been, up until that point, that I didn't have to be alone, if only I'd relax a few of my "stringent" standards and requirements (which, if you know me, include such outrageous requirements as an education, a brain, and absence of offspring). After passionately explaining to him that it would be better to be alone than to back down on things that I hold important, I think it finally dawned on him that there are single women in this world who would actually prefer to be single over being coupled for the sake of being so.

The Quirkyalone, for those of you who are not familiar, is explained best by the Quirkyalone.net website:

Quirkyalones are people who enjoy being single (but are not opposed to being in a relationship) and prefer being single to dating for the sake of being in a relationship. It’s also a mindset. It’s about being present to both the wonders and possibilities in being deeply single or deeply in partnership. It’s also a mindset that recognizes the power and value of significant others, plural: our friends.

Quirkyalone is not anti-love. It is pro-love. It is not anti-dating. It is anti-compulsory dating. We tend to be romantics. We prefer to be single rather than settle. In fact, the core of quirkyalone is the inability to settle. We spend a signficant chunk of our lives single because we hold relationships to a high standard.

Are quirkyalones loners? Not necessarily. Quirkyalones often value friendship very highly. We’re often very social people. But we do value occasional solitude. Quirkyalones are often creative and need time alone to allow thoughts to fully form.

Fundamentally, quirkyalone isn’t so much about being alone as it is about connection: with yourself and others. It’s about liberating yourself from the expected road maps to discover your own. It’s about developing comfort with aloneness and recognizing that comfort is crucial to being with someone else.

The quirky in quirkyalone is really about authenticity. It’s about accepting yourself in all your quirky glory, and being fully yourself, whether you’re single or in a relationship.

The alone part is about willing to stand out from the crowd, to go to a wedding alone rather than go with a date, for example, out of social obligation. It’s about resisting the tyranny of coupledom, the prevailing notion that you must be in a relationship at all times in order to be happy.

It’s about preserving solitude in an era of hyperconnectivity so that you can be comfortable and full alone, and therefore fully present with another human being.

That said, I will confess to having periodic bouts of melancholy, wistful sadness when it comes to being alone. Today being the 8th wedding anniversary of my sister and her husband, and realizing that I've not been in a "real" relationship in that entire time...well, it kind of makes me wonder what the fuck I'm doing. I guess I've always thought that if I live my life the way I want to live it, that someone special will come along and fit right in. Well, it's been eight years since my last relationship (I don't really count James, because he was a long-distance thing, and, well, it was never really a committed thing, at least not on his end) and I'm starting to think that there really is no lid for my pot.

This, dear blogwatchers, is what's got me down today.

That, and I make a mean sundae pie, and sometimes I wish I had someone to make one for. I can't make one for myself; I'll eat the whole damn thing, and then I'll just feel worse. So does anyone want one? Name yer flavor. :-)