How to Be Single

by Liz Tuccillo

  We went to one of Freddie’s places, wittily called “Freddie’s World.” It was a cavernous space with a huge circular bar in the middle and throngs of people mingling about. And there seemed to be no man drought here.

  “You fan out to our right, I’ll go left. We’ll meet up by the archway up ahead.”

  I went right, my eyes peeled for any woman with light lines on her forehead and creases stretching from the bottom of her nose to the corners of her mouth. All I saw were baby-faced cuties, with under-thirty radiant skin. I got to the archway as Alice came up.

  “I went up to two women who I thought might be over thirty-five. They told me they were twenty-seven. One of them almost punched me and the other one left to go cry in the bathroom.” Alice looked around again. “Otherwise, I came up with nothing.”

  “Let’s go to one of his restaurants,” I said. “I mean, women over thirty-five still have to eat, don’t they?”

  We walked a few blocks and found Freddie’s Fish, a very trendy sushi restaurant that wrapped around the whole corner, with high windows to show all the beautiful people eating rice and raw fish inside. Luckily, we were seated at a table in the middle of things. The table next to us was empty, but by the time our sake had arrived, four women, all of whom had forehead creases and expensive handbags, sat down next to us. Jackpot.

  After they ordered, we tried to look at them and smile every once in a while, to appear friendly. Alice hid our low-sodium soy sauce in her bag so she could ask, in her thickest Staten Island accent, to borrow theirs. They took the bait.

  “Are you from New York?”

  “Yes. Yes, we are,” Alice said. “My friend Julie is writing a book about being single all over the world. Sort of a self-help book with a world view.”

  The women were interested. One of them asked, “So, you’ve come to Sydney to do research?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “What have you found?” asked another.

  “Well, I haven’t learned anything yet, but I have some questions,” I said, shyly.

  The four women leaned toward Alice and me. They were all very pretty. One of them smiled and said, “Okay. Shoot.”

  Alice jumped in. “Where do you women go out to meet men? Bars?”

  “No, no,” said one. “I never go to bars.”

  “Never,” said another one.

  The third one said, “I go out sometimes with a few of my other friends and it’s usually pretty depressing.”

  “The men our age, they act like we’re invisible.”

  Alice banged her fist on the table. “I knew it! Do you go to any of Freddie Wells’s clubs?”

  “It’s hard to avoid them,” the fourth one said. “But I’ve pretty much stopped. I’m thirty-seven and I started feeling completely over-the-hill.”

  Everyone else agreed. “Now we just go out to dinner.”

  “Or if it’s a function for work.”

  “Otherwise, I just stay home.”

  Maybe Freddie was right after all. Maybe this was the Town of Lost Women, where ladies over a certain age are forced to stay home and watch television. I looked at these beautiful, vital, stylish women talking as if they were ready to play shuffleboard and get cataract surgery.

  I had to ask: “Do you ever think about moving? Somewhere where there are more men?”

  “Or where they have bars for people over twenty-five?” Alice added.

  One of them said, “I was thinking of moving to Rome.”

  “Yes, Europe. There I think the men will fuck you when you’re fifty,” another one said, hopefully.

  The other women seemed heartened by this concept. I thought this might be correct. Maybe that could be another bestselling self-help book: Places Where Men Will Fuck You When You’re Fifty.

  “But really. How could we? Just pack up and leave our home because our love lives are so bad? That seems ridiculous,” one of the women said.

  As we sat eating our edamame and drinking our sake, I thought about me and my friends. Our love lives could be considered disasters. But I would never dream of suggesting any of us leave New York to find a man. Or would I? Shouldn’t we all be taking these statistics a little more seriously? We finished our sushi, and being appropriate women in our late thirties in Sydney, we went home and went to bed.

  Back in the States

  Georgia’s week was filled with two quick, witty emails from Sam, a brief phone conversation, and even a text saying “gr8t talking to u!” The text struck Georgia as a bit out of character for the sweetly unhip Sam she met a week ago, but she didn’t give it more than a passing thought. She was just relieved that she had a romantic prospect—no matter how far-flung. This thin strand of hope can get you through a lot of days of making your children’s lunches alone, and going to bed alone and imagining your husband having sex with a young, nubile dancer with sinewy thighs. Georgia had a prospect, and even when Sam emailed her, asking if they could push back their date a couple of days because something “came up,” she didn’t even notice. All she cared about was that he didn’t cancel on her, that he was still a prospect.

  They met at a bar in Brooklyn. Sam suggested it since it was close to his apartment. Georgia didn’t mind. Why shouldn’t she be the one to travel? Living in Brooklyn, he must be on the subway all the time. He had to wake up in the morning for work, and had had to travel farther the last time they met. It only seemed fair. But when Georgia walked in, she was surprised at how young the crowd seemed; it felt like your standard college pub.

  And the minute she saw Sam, Georgia could tell something was different. He looked literally flush with…something. Confidence. That’s what it was. He seemed much more confident than just a week and a half ago. She let that observation pass and kept focused on the task at hand: being delightful.

  “You don’t mind if we just sit at the bar, do you?” Sam asked, casually, confidently.

  “No, no, of course not, that’s fine.”

  Sam pointed toward one lone stool at the corner of the bar. “Here, why don’t you sit there?”

  Georgia was a little confused. “Oh. Okay, well…don’t you want to…?”

  “No. I’ve been sitting all day; it’ll be good for me to stand for a bit.” Georgia sat down dutifully on the stool and looked at Sam as he leaned against the bar.

  “What can I get you? They have great Guinness here.”

  Georgia couldn’t help but notice the demotion: from restaurant to bar, banquette to stool, wine to beer.

  “That would be great,” Georgia said. Sam gave the bartender their order and turned back to Georgia, smiling. The smile that last week was sheepish and tentative was now radiant. He was wearing the same kind of clothes, but they looked different on him now. Trendy. They chatted pleasantly, he standing, while Georgia sat. Georgia had not been dating enough to know why this felt incredibly awkward. Why shouldn’t he stand if he wanted to? It’s a free country.

  “So, how have you been since we last saw each other?” Georgia asked, casually, sipping at her Guinness.

  “Great. Really great.”

  “That’s wonderful. So what’s been going on that’s so ‘really great’?”

  “You know. I’m just getting out there, you know. Meeting people, finding out who I am without Claire. Spreading my wings. It’s exhilarating.”

  “Exhilarating. Wow. That’s great. Exhilarating. Well, you can’t beat exhilarating, can you?”

  “No. You can’t beat exhilarating!” Georgia thought about her life since getting a divorce from Dale. Well, she did sleep with a Brazilian prostitute. She guessed that could be considered exhilarating.

  Sam took a big gulp of beer and wiped his lips with his sleeve. Georgia looked at him, not knowing if she wanted to know more, but unable to stop herself.

  “So. What makes things so exhilarating?”

  “Well, it’s really fascinating, actually. I’ve been meeting all these women, you know?”

  Georgia raised her eyebrows. Sam explained himself.


  “Well, both of us, we’re going out, we’re meeting people, you know? We’re getting back in the game, seeing where we fit in the whole scheme of things, right?”

  Georgia nodded politely. “Yes. Exactly.”

  “So I’ll admit. I’ve been doing some online dating this week. Like every night of the week. I just decided to just jump in headfirst. Whoosh!” Sam made a big diving motion and then a big splash with his hands.

  “Whoosh!” Georgia mimicked, agreeably.

  “And it’s amazing what I learned. I mean, my wife didn’t sleep with me for years. So I guess I assumed it was because I was actually physically repellent. But now I’ve been dating, and women want to see me again. They don’t mind that I have two kids or only make sixty thousand bucks a year. They want to see me again!”

  Georgia gave him the response he wanted. “That’s great, Sam! Good for you!”

  Sam leaned in and grabbed Georgia’s arm. “The truth is, all my life, I never got the girls. I was the nice guy who all the girls said they just ‘liked as a friend.’ And then they would go out with the assholes. Well, guess what? Those girls are now unmarried women in their thirties and forties and me, the nice guy with a decent job? I might as well be Jesus Christ himself.”

  Georgia felt her stomach turn. A complete flip-flop as the words “Jesus Christ himself” came out of Sam’s mouth. She leaned against the bar, trying to remain calm. She knew that this was probably the truth, but so far no one had spelled it out so unrepentantly. In New York, in terms of dating, nice guys over forty do in fact finish first. They are as miraculous as loaves and fishes falling out of the sky. Georgia felt herself flushing, with tears forming at the rims of her eyes. “You know, I’m not feeling very well.”

  Sam immediately became concerned. “What? Really? I’m so sorry. Can I get you anything? Water?”

  The thing was, Sam really was a nice guy—which is exactly why he was such a deadly dating agent in New York.

  “No, that’s okay. I think I’m just going to get a cab and go home, if you don’t mind. I’m so sorry.” But in fact, Georgia wasn’t that sorry. Sam had so many dates lined up he probably would be relieved to have a night off. She now understood the whole standing-up-at-the-bar thing. He had been dating so much his ass hurt. Or maybe he knew he was going to have to dash to his next date that evening and didn’t want a stool to slow him down. Georgia got up. Sam helped her put on her jacket, walked her outside, and waved down a cab.

  “Will you be okay?”

  Georgia looked at him, a dull pain filling up her entire body. “Don’t you worry. I’m fine. I think I ate something bad at lunch. It’s been bothering me all day.”

  Sam opened the cab door and Georgia climbed in. “Okay, I’ll call you in twenty minutes to make sure you got home safe. Is that all right?”

  “Yes, of course. Thanks,” Georgia mumbled. She turned her head so he wouldn’t see that she was now crying, her sadness washing over her. Georgia had just learned another important lesson about being single. You might be out there dating to meet the love of your life, but the other person might be just wanting to eat a nice steak on a Saturday night—or just trying to “dive in.” She felt humiliated. How could she have thought it was going to be so simple? A nice guy meeting her, liking her, and wanting to be with her. This was New York, and she felt the statistics were now spitting in her face.

  Being true to his word, Sam did call exactly twenty minutes later to see how she was. He really was nice. What an asshole.

  Two hours into her first shift as an animal shelter volunteer, Ruby watched as they took three dogs to their deaths. They didn’t necessarily say that was what was happening, but she could tell. A man in a white coat would take the dog out of the cage and leave the room with it. The dog would never come back. Ruby was horrified. She knew that was what they did here, that was their policy, but she had no idea that it happened so often. It felt so random, so cruel. As the third dog was being taken out of its cage, Ruby stopped the young man.

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  The young man looked up at Ruby, with the door opened.

  “Could you please tell me—how do you choose?”

  The young man closed the cage door, almost as if he didn’t want the dog to hear.

  “You mean, who we…take?”

  Ruby nodded.

  This was obviously an uncomfortable subject. He cleared his voice. “We decide by their adoptability, so we take into account their age, their health—and their temperament.”

  Ruby shook her head. “Temperament?”

  The young man nodded.

  “So, the crankier the dog, the more chance that he’ll get put down?”

  The man nodded. He clearly wasn’t happy about it, either. He smiled at Ruby politely, and then opened the cage door again. He took out Tucker, a German shepherd mix. He didn’t make a peep, but he did look skinny; sickly. Ruby was now fighting back tears.

  “May I hold Tucker, please? Just for a moment?”

  The young man looked at Ruby. He studied her face and ascertained that he didn’t have a nutcase on his hands. He led Tucker out of the cage and walked him over to Ruby. Ruby kneeled down and gave Tucker a big hug. She petted him and whispered in his ear how much she loved him. She didn’t cry, she didn’t make a scene. She just eventually stood up and let him go.

  As she did, the strangest thought came across her mind, a thought she wasn’t necessarily proud to have: She was glad that she decided to volunteer at this shelter. And not because she felt she could do good here; not because she felt the animals needed her. No. If I can do this and not lose my shit, she thought to herself, I’ll be able to do anything—and that includes dating again.

  Eventually, this became the routine. Ruby became the Sister Mary Prejean of the animal shelter. She would make sure that the last face they saw before they met their maker was a face of love. So whenever Ruby worked, which was once a week, on Thursday evenings, if there was a dog that was about to be put down, that young man, Bennett, would walk the dog over to Ruby. She would then administer his or her last rites, which was a big, big hug and lots of long, whispered affection. Then they were walked into the room, where they were given their injections and put to sleep.

  Meanwhile, Serena was meeting her man everywhere: in broom closets, pantry rooms, and even in the ladies’ room of Integral Foods on Thirteenth Street.

  The one thing they never risked doing was meeting in one of their rooms. That’s the first place one looks for you if they need you, and there was no good way she could explain sneaking out of Swami Swaroop’s closed bedroom. But every other enclosed space was fair game. If the purpose of becoming a swami was to help her feel a powerful, all-encompassing love that made her tap into God’s transcendent spirit, then those crazy sannyasin vows completely did the trick.

  While she sat meditating on this particular morning, after already having a brief tête-à-tête with Swami Swaroop in the basement bathroom, her thoughts replayed the whole scenario: her ass on the sink, he in front of her, then both of them on the closed toilet seat, then them against the wall. These were definitely “extraneous thoughts” that the meditation leader would be wanting her to clear from her mind. But as hard as she tried, Serena couldn’t. Because she was in love. And because this was her first time, she was struck by how perfectly apt those words were: in love. Serena loved this man so much that she felt as if she were floating in a bubble. A bubble of love. That she was existing, every moment of every hour, in love. And it was, ironically, the most spiritual experience she’d ever had. No yoga class, no meditation course, no ten-day juice fast had ever gotten her as close to the exultation she felt as this brand-spanking-new sensation of being in love.

  During this meditation, she let herself say all the things she wanted to say to herself. “This is what everyone has been talking about. All the love songs and the poems and the films. This is what life is all about. Being in love. Loving someone. Having someone love you.” And as
she let her breath go in and out, slowly, she went even a step further. “I had no understanding of what it meant to be alive. Without love in your life, it is meaningless.” There. She said it. And she meant it. How could she ever, ever, go back to living in the world without this feeling? This is everything, this is life, this is truth, this is God. Luckily, she didn’t have to live without it. Because Swami Swaroop wasn’t going anywhere. Oddly, she still called him Swami Swaroop. At their most intimate moments, she might say, “Oh, Swamiji,” but that’s as civilian as it ever got. And Mr. Oh Swamiji seemed to be existing in the same bubble of love, always wanting to be with her, touch her, talk to her. Sneaking a glance, a smile, a touch. He even gave her a gift, a secret sign that she was his: a tiny black string. He tied it around her ankle and told her that every time he saw it, he would know that they were bound together. To Serena, this proved that he was in love as well, and she was content to let things float on as they were.

  The only thing that slightly diminished the joy of this cosmic commingling of souls was the fact that she had not yet expressed the enormity of her emotions to anyone. With my traveling, we kept trading phone calls, and she hadn’t spoken to Ruby, Georgia, or Alice in a while. She certainly hadn’t said any of this to Swami Swaroop. And it was starting to get to her. This joy was lodged inside her, warming her, uplifting her, but it also needed to be let out. It needed to be put into the world, as a truth, as a reality, so she could soar even higher than she already was. So that the love had a place to go, out of her heart, and into the world.

  It was her turn to teach the first yoga class of the day. It was early, at seven thirty, and made up of just six very dedicated women and one man. She was guiding them through their Pranayama, their breathing exercises, telling them to inhale through the right nostril, pinch the other one closed with their left thumb, and reverse the process. As they moved through this chakra-stimulating process, Serena made a decision. She was going to tell Swami Swaroopananda how she felt. Serena felt it was disrespectful to the universe, to God, not to acknowledge the blessing that had been bestowed upon her.