When you are young and single…and you aren’t exactly a shrinking violet, the No. 1 thing you do is go to a very SOCIAL situation that usually has booze. And by social situation I mean bar.

The bar is the main locale for: engagement parties, birthdays, receptions, etc. It’s hard to avoid. But when you are me, (no longer drinking) these social scenes become hard. Seems like when I drank, everything seemed fun. Now if I spend an hour sober somewhere booze-infused, I’m pretty bored. In that hour I realize people aren’t talking about anything that interests me. And I notice that people do some pretty hilarious stuff they won’t remember the next day.

It’s like watching a mirror you don’t really own anymore. You know what you are looking at but now it’s like, I don’t know, no longer your view. This makes it tough to be youngish and single when even your married friends (when they can finally break free) want to hit a happy hour.

Also, if you are not looking to stay single, people who hit on you in these situations are kind of a drag. You are  left wondering: Hum, do they want my mind or are they wearing beer goggles or their heart in their pants? So you leave an hour later. And then you sit on your back porch or deck and ponder. Or maybe that’s just me.

When you work as much as I do, now almost five years at the same company while working to grow my photography biz, you don’t have time for the more meaningful connections as much as you would like. Happy hours and weekend gatherings surrounded by alcohol are pretty much your mainstay options if you want to stay in the loop.

So this is where I ask you the question: What do you do when you are single and sober?

So it’s been a very long time.

A lot of things have happened since I started this blog and I’m not really sure where to start.

Just a few things that are of note:

1.) Rediscovered my spirituality. I recommend it.

2.) Got involved with a few non-profits, hosting a benefit.

3.) Decided to bury the hatchet and go ahead and accept the friend request my recent ex sent me on Facebook.

4.) Re-focused efforts on my photography and Web site.

5.) Work, work, work…

If you are ever sitting there and find yourself afraid of being alone…

If you ever feel like you can’t live a full life without another person in it…

Figure out what makes you shine. And do it.

Mainly about how you aren’t really dating anymore.

Maryann James

I think I ran into Maryann James’ “BaltAmour” blog over at the Baltimore Sun about a year ago. She was refreshing to read. And at times she actually gave me a few shout-outs and mentioned a few of my posts. Some of my readers  even read her stuff. In fact I remember Greg over at Dissonance saying Maryann had a great name for her blog — BaltAmour. Quite clever.

But I’m sad to say that I read today that Maryann is leaving her blog and in fact no one will be replacing her.  Having a lot more to do these days at the Sun ( in these crazy media times of uncertainty, I bet she does), Maryann has left the building. And having found love herself, I can only imagine that this exit is a little bittersweet.

Read her farewell here. I hope it stays up a while longer.

I wish her all the best…

I wasn’t there for it.
Actually it was really a Justice of the Peace thing and she plans to have a real ceremony sometime later in the year. I really hope she does because I feel like a rite of passage has now come and gone without my witnessing it. The day we both thought I would see first — marriage. It’s a rite of passage not because of her being a new bride but because the two of us, now in our third decade of life, had a pact to be there for one another for things such as this.

I wanted to be there for her. But I couldn’t. She lives a few states away and our schedules are impossible. It’s weird considering her a wife now. It was also weird at first seeing her as a mother but when she had her son I saw she was born to be one. Now that she has added wife to her title, that’s one that will take some adjusting. I remember all our talks about marriage, dating…how men “just didn’t get it.”

Now she’s wed. And she is the last of my close friends to take this leap. I wish her well but wonder how long it will take before it might just bother me — being the last. Maybe it already does? Maybe it doesn’t matter. I can keep up the most brave face I can possibly muster, and convince myself that I’m still OK with being single. But I waver. I am also just human.

No matter how hard I try to fight it, I’m approaching 31 as of 49 days from now, give or take some hours. And the fact remains, to be over 30 and not ever married makes you a marked woman. When men approach this age and are never married, we tend to just shrug it off as a guy who is still “sewing his oats” or got so career-minded he seemed to have forgot to find a great gal and marry her. When women get to this point, we tend to shake our head, label her and decide she must be damaged goods. You may be sitting there  in absolute disagreement but don’t deny it. Women in there 30s still single, never married, seems to be an oddity in concept but surely increasing in numbers.

Being a photographer, I know find myself always surrounded in weddings. I love to shoot them. They are beautiful and the girly-girl in me gets kind of goofy in all the flutter and tulle. But for some reason, while I’m shooting, I don’t really get emotional about the vows and the rings and the words…words…words…That’s all they are until you get home and spend about seven years with the person. Then I wonder do people remember those words they said in front of family, friends, random plus ones and our God of many names.

So far I’m pretty much the last of my old-school friends who isn’t married, engaged or practically married and I will admit it feels kind of weird. I’m not sure what I really see in a marriage other than the fact that two people can coexist with each other, support each other and keep a 50/50 playing field. I always imagined a marriage for myself as one where the two of us play hard, work hard and if we go to bed angry, we wake up having the makeup. That’s probably very unrealistic because it’s so simple and nothing is simple.

Self-discovery isn’t overrated. I feel we all need time alone to even know what the hell we want or even who in the world we are. Sometimes that takes a while. And sometimes when you find all of that, your life can hit a reset button and you start all over again. The question is, do we do alone?

I’ve always been an open-minded girl. A lot of people say that, and don’t really mean it. But I’m not a lot of people. I can safely say I’ve dated (or otherwise fill-in-the-blank-ed) every race, religion, color and creed. I have been a walking United Colors of Benetton ad for about 20 years.

That said, I can’t help but feel a little bit hopeful (pun intended) about my dating options with president-elect Barack Obama in office. I mean, if we finally became “brave” enough and open enough to get a black man in the White House, can’t we say the same of our old ideas of dating? This may be kind of a stretch, but humor me a little: What we thought we would never see, now is and as voters, everyone seemed to set aside racial issues (for the most part) and voted their conscious. Why was that so hard? Honestly, this isn’t a post about my political views. In fact, I didn’t really know WHO I wanted to vote for until the very day I pushed the red button to send my choice (early voter…).

Even though Obama is a reflection of how two people can see pass race and/or religion, I’ve always felt being here in the South, that the general standard of acceptance are couples who are only white with white, black with black, Asian with Asian. You get the point. I will always remember in college when one of my exes broke up with me basically because his very Southern, closed-minded parents would have never accepted me. No matter my future or education.

Will that all change now? Will we finally officially take down the barriers we so often put up when it comes to our dating pool? I for one have noticed a slight difference. Of course, some of that could be because I just went shopping and hired a personal trainer. But you never know.
Change may be about more than just our political history. It may be about our bedrooms too…

Or maybe not…Proposition 8, anyone?

A few weeks back I paid a visit to my ear, nose and throat doctor. It is Texas after all and I am always bound to have some kind of ailment. While I was in the freezing waiting room, I began to dose. Every so often I would pop open one eye and kind of look around to see who may have caught me jolting myself awake on occasion when I went too far into sleep. I noticed something as I did this little ritual — I was the only person in the room without a kid on my hip, on my lap or in a seat next to me acting up and hating life in the waiting room while throwing random toys around. First instinct: thank goodness. Second instinct:Why are there so many damn kids in here?

I found myself double checking where I was being that I had only seen this doctor one other time. Does he specialize in pediatrics or am I just not on the “birthin’ babies bandwagon.” Realizing that it must be the latter, I was quite fine not having a slobber machine with me. Don’t get me wrong, I love children. In fact I’m pretty great with kids. The place was filled with cute bundles of joy. And it was filled with the other kind — the ones that grow up and throw ADD fits in a corner while mom is saying, “You aren’t going to get to see Jimmy at tonight’s game if you don’t act right and finish your homework!”

I left the office after my appointment feeling free but weird at the same time. I’m 30. Am I supposed to have already been knocked up? Recently I had a conversation with a married friend. He is always saying, “Oh you say that now” when I say I don’t want children. I always want to say back to him, “No, I say it always.  I don’t.”

And because I am so good with rug rats, I’m often asked, “Why don’t you want any?! You are so good with them.” I’m so good with them because at the end of the day, I don’t have to raise them. You do.

What a year. I’ve reedited my About Me for the last time (minus the possible change of times, dates, past tense). The fact that I’ve done so more than once this year is quite telling of my journey of singledom and acceptance. If you are new here, read it. If you are a kind of regular reader, get more acquainted with it and get back to me. Did you notice anything different?

I have been slacking on this blog. But not so much when it comes to commenting on previous posts here, namely the ones about today’s negative belief in women. Just look at the most popular posts on the right of the page and you will see they have to do with Tom Leykis. But not really just about him –  this new (ish) view of marriage, women and feminism. It’s all very stimulating and I find the male responses to be more than a little insightful –  it’s very exciting in a sad/interesting/enlightening way. And the more that I read into what these men are saying, the more I keep asking myself: Is being alone all that bad?

When did all of this relationship stuff get so damn complicated? When did we become enemies of ourselves and of each other’s sex? What happens to a world filled with people who pretty much say, “I can do bad all by myself” or “I’m much better off alone”? I’ve become one of those people — reluctantly I guess. I realize now that I will probably be alone but I don’t cry about it. Ask me 10 years ago and I would have thought it was the end of the world. Instead I see it as another hurdle I need to face, overcome and move on — mainly because I see even more now that men in general don’t seem to see/want the same things I do. And if they do, nine times out of ten they are married. And they may only seem to go my direction because they are looking for some diversity and I don’t mean race/culture. I mean distractions from reality — their own private Idaho they don’t always want to come home to.

Being that I’m not the type to go after a married man, but tend to be apathetic at the wrong times, this just means I get to let them vent. I’m always left wondering, “How did THEY get there?” I have yet to see what the big deal about marriage is! So far all I’ve learned from other people’s marriages is that freedom is sweet. And that I’m lucky not to have to worry about kids because nine times out of ten an unhappy marriage stays together for the kids’ sake. How sad! Who wants to live like that?

Ultimately, or usually, people who date long-term turn to each other after an average of about three years and ask, “Now what?” Planning that wedding becomes the answer and believe me, I’ve been guilty of that. I’ve been engaged twice. And I guess I’ve always just figured I failed. But maybe I escaped? Maybe I’m just free to live the life I should and would have never had if I was shackled and knocked up.

So: Is being along all that bad? And is it just a reflection of our bitterness toward each other as human beings? OK: Woman got too independent. Men stop needing us for anything more than sex. These are statements I’ve ACTUALLY heard. What do you think?