Happily Single?

It never ceases to amaze me how a potential partner can be so picture perfect on paper and yet so irreconcilably wrong in the real world. My qualifications or expertise in making this statement is my lifetime membership in every single matchmaking online singles dating site known to womankind. I should have an honorary degree in dating by now; instead I have another 6 month free membership to continue walking the purgatory known as singledom in your 40's. You know you are getting jaded when you look over your latest wink, nod or kiss with the focused objective of trying to figure out if the man who just winked at you might have possibly spent time in prison, is running a scam or has actually buried his last wife in the desert somewhere. It's difficult to remain open-minded at this point! But, open-minded one must be or else all is lost and you might as well hang up your vacation spot in purgatory for a little cottage in hell.

But, I tell myself that studies have been done, dissertations have been written and now it seems that the American woman is more than happy to never have walked the aisle of matrimony, that she is finally liberated from the inbred honing mechanism that leads us to the words "till death do us part". We, are now, supposed to be HAPPY in our single lives, happy that we never met prince charming or having met him and found that he really does revert back to the toad after a few years, are glad to escort him back to the pond scum we found him in. Somehow I have an uneasy feeling about all these studies, or maybe it's just me, maybe on top of still being single at 45 I am also not evolved enough to actually want to remain single. So, now not only am I single, 45 and dating but I am also unhappily single, which is to admit that I am not progressive, I am not a strong, successful, liberated, happily, single woman. I really would like to find prince charming and fall in love and live happily ever after. I feel as if I should be in an AA meeting admitting my inability to find happiness as a successful single woman and maybe if I admit it then I will begin my first step on my journey to overcoming my discontent and therefore evolve into a happily married 40 something year old woman.

Nevertheless, I trudge on in the hopes of finding that pot of gold, that silver lining or just another middle-aged soul searching the world for his mate.

That's not to say that singledom doesn't have it's advantages. I don't have to put up with loud snoring every single night, I can sleep with my dog if I want to and I don't ever have to consult someone regarding major purchases. Yes, there are advantages, I'm just not certain that the advantages outweigh the perks. For now, I will continue to tell myself how happy I am that I'm single and maybe in the near future I'll actually start to believe it.