So, I checked out Dowd's book with the above title. Never something I really contemplated before now. In it, the author writes how self-sufficient(educated, career) women really do not need men. When it comes down to the wire, technology has the solution to our need for reproduction. I have some friends who are in a same sex relationship awaiting sextuplets. Moral dilemma! This will be their second birth experience. I am happy for them as I know they wanted another child together. I do not envy the situation which they now face.
Is life better with or without men? I believe I always fall for the "grass is always greener" mentality. Often it comes back to bite me in the ass. When you are single, you live with the hope of someday making a permanent connection to another soul. If it hasn't occurred by the time you hit the late twenties, you begin to wonder if it was meant to happen. The older you get, the less likely it is to happen. It is also around this time that you realize some of the girls who were hitched right out of high school are often splitting from their mates. I've been the awkward single girl who makes the married women feel threatened. I have also played the Fag Hag. At least there, I found friendship and acceptance regardless of coupledom. Now, I live the semi-conventional wife routine.
I don't have an exact answer. The single life, for me, will always conjure memories of desiring a confidante, soul mate, and partner. The married life is bittersweet: often filled with closeness, reliability, love. It is still peppered with a need for independence, adventure and escape. I am grateful that I have the choice to live in either situation. When I think of cultures where men suppress sexuality or families arrange marriages, I am thankful to be capable of forming my own journey. To young women I give this advice, "do not go charging full fledged toward matrimony. Use this time to explore, travel, and experience life." I have no regrets about hitching at 29. I know some family members were relieved to see me tie the knot. There will always be someone interested in you. Linger until you are ready to commit.
To my left are the best neighbors a girl could ask for. They are outnumbered by their cars two to one. They live in one of the oldest homes on our street (1903). The original owners sold the land for my house and the she devil's next door. She's a librarian also and he is a rural route carrier. Their son lives with them and has his own library on the third floor. It sits on a double lot with one of those lovely hedges that has an arched opening. There is a rock wall with ivy cascading over the front. We share a driveway and a backyard. He is always outside working on the house or the yard or a car. There is a Porsche 944 in their garage bocked in by a yellow Mongoose bicycle. He's a vegetarian and prefers to carry spiders outside rather than to stomp them.The neighbor on the right, drives a Caddy with a customized plate. She rarely comes outside, preferring to have workmen accomplish her tasks for her. Like the day I found my shrubs all slaughtered on their backsides. She also complained to us on the weekend after closing on the house that "my niece and nephew looked at it but it needed way too much work for that price" along with "I don't know why the previous owners didn't take care of it" "Look, that window needs to be scraped, the paint is peeling, and here is a wire." Never mind that I had just signed a bank note two days prior on the place. I just dropped my little weeding project right then and there and returned to the other side of my house. Away from her. The forty-something retiree who has more plumbers, gardeners, HVAC, and Merry Maids than one can shake a stick at. Forked out $150 for a survey just to remind her that she didn't own 1/4th of my yard like she thought and that her garage and driveway are also on my land. Needless to say, we don't talk and the windows have yet to be scraped. A wall is definitely in order.
