Not long after I was divorced, people started asking me the most astounding question. "So, are you seeing anyone new?" The implication was that my divorced state was a only temporary glitch in the otherwise expected state of being part of a couple.
Hearing this question so often made me realize that my new status a single woman was assumed to be a highly undesirable, even unnatural state. Dangerous to the social order, perhaps, and to be remedied as quickly as possible. "Oh, you'll find someone really nice, you'll see," well-meaning relatives and acquaintances assured me.
Once I might have agreed. But in the months and the years after my divorce, I had slowly arrived at a startling realization. I discovered how intensely pleasurable, rewarding, and invigorating it could be to live a life without a partner to worry about having to please. Which led me to wonder: why this universal assumption that I'm supposed to want to find the next man? Where is it written?
Well, all right, so it is actually written in the Old Testament. As God ponders fashioning a companion for Adam, the lines read, "And God thought, it is not good for man to be alone." But it doesn't take a Ph.D. in theology to figure out that this was clearly written by a male. Of course Adam needed a helpmate, particularly since he had quite a lot of work to do to populate the planet. But did anyone ask Eve how she felt about it? Notice God never said anything about Eve needing a partner.
I can't argue with the need to perpetuate the human species. Admittedly,this requires the collaboration of sperm and ovum. And I'll grant that when one has young offspring to raise, having a second parent around is awfully useful. Sharing expenses come in handy too. But for anyone either without children, or whose children have reached a certain level of independence, it can be hard to imagine why anyone would willingly give up the immensely pleasant experience of going through life strictly according to one's own dictates.
What's to love about being single and independent? Let me count the ways...
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