Serial Singles

Universal common knowledge has it that the month of June might as well be thirty April Fool’s Day in a row. I’m a romantic therefore I shall call it Four Weeks Of Unadulterated Masochism, in consideration of the fact that on this particular month insanity is on an all-time high. I am of course talking about weddings.

Early on today I got rattled off an erratic sleep by shrill blasts of my phone announcing ill-timed text messages. It read:

Yound girl praying: Please God, let me marry an intelligent Man…
God replied: That’s impossible! Intelligent men don’t get married!!!

Comical had it reached me on a sober time.

I groaned, rolled my eyeballs and darted my vision towards the clock: six forty five a.m! Who in fuck’s sake wakes up at six to send dopey messages?! Apparently my demented friends, who are usually given to take liberty in disrupting my daily constitutionals with dorky messages or impertinent calls whenever they feel like it. Crankiness started to creep up my throbbing head as wobbly recollections of last night’s intoxicated clubbing fracas at Embassy start to tidy itself in my consciousness.

It appears that the friend in question is also getting married, and is officially announcing the engagement through SMS. One word flashed in before my eyes:

Goner.

This announcement led me into a dreaded evaluation - a slowly dawning grasp of my unrelenting and glaring choice to remain single.

Single. A seemingly innocuous word. It connotes a civil status synonymous to the euphoria of unrestricted advantages.

Long Ago I wrote: Undeniably singlehood has its fair share of necessary liabilities. This is painfully apparent when inasmuch as I want to roll over and find another snugly sleeping body rising and falling with the modulation of unhurried, steady breathing, I'd reach out only to find dissatisfactory substitutes consisting of lumpy pillows.

As someone who naively believes that there is an element of romanticism in waking up next to a certain fondness, I always somehow manage to be a living proof of contradictions: I am one of those far-out breed who is brutally vigilant in kicking flourishing possibilities towards the One-Way-No-U-Turn freeway.

Casual encounters do not count because there is an implicit contract that requires each party to recognize if the (temporarily extended) welcome is overstayed. It simply is: a mutual barter of pleasures, not to be regarded otherwise. Random sex scarcely ends up in joint breakfasts. Breakfasts, no matter how innocent, are suspect. It should be inscribed in stone somewhere that they are the inflammatory prerequisite of unanticipated combustion: the carcinogenic intimacy methane — therefore must be regarded as mildly alarming panic gong for relationship phobics everywhere.

Single people, with much enthusiasm, would freely rattle off the innumerable rewards of remaining unencumbered; of not being beholden to the demands of maintaining a marriage or a prolonged relationship. This is basically to remind married individuals (and those bound to steady attachments) of things they have consciously denied themselves in exchange of domestic bliss. However it is not probed deeper whether this tendency of the so-called self-respecting, crowing single person is nothing but want coated with hedonistic cynicism.

Sure single people can dismiss joint warm breakfasts; or the tenderness of wasting time in bed together on Sunday mornings (with light bossa nova softly croaking from the overhead stereo); of scoffing at the thought of rainy days shared watching TV reruns over hot mallow-topped chocolate. Mention of such seemingly negligible intimacies would induce single people to produce vomiting sounds, feign horror, groan in disbelief, rolling of eyeballs or summon a face of utter confusion. The argument being: How can anyone give up the pleasures of remaining unattached? This is frequently punctuated with smart-alecky comments and snide (if not slightly jealous) remarks which segue into litanies of privileges of inhabiting Singletown.

While, at the back of his head, he's already brewing mental images of helping fold laundered clothes with an imaginary beloved--silently getting drunk in crisp clean aroma of down and detergent that censor remaining scents of gentle but sweaty sex from last night's beddings.
Singlehood is also another word for denial.