This post about dating has been brewing for a while, and I didn’t know how to start it. With what the osteopath told me today, I figured that ready or not, it’s time to write it.

(Yeah, I went to see an osteopath for my sore back. No, I don’t know what an osteopath really is either. Anyway).

I don’t think I’ve ever realized until recently how much society has a hard time dealing with the strange creature that is a single woman. A happy single woman.

To most people I meet, it seems my singleness is some transient, not-really-real state that I somehow need to “heal”; a temporary limbo between the real life that is coupledom. My guitar teacher often talks about setting me up. My art director nuances his “I’m sorry I can’t stay late because of my kids” with a heartfelt “…not to add to your pain [at my relative barrenness]”. I’ve given neither indication that I’m unhappy. I’m just… well, almost expected to be.

At an all-girl game developers party a couple of weeks ago, a very wise single woman put it perfectly when she said: “There’s just no paradigm for a single woman, other than she has to find a mate”. That is her role, her script, the one thing she’s supposed to want.

And you know, for a while I was following that very paradigm, going on this date and that, wondering why none of these perfect-on-paper guys ever tempted me to want the committed state. Then someone made me ask myself what I was looking for, and I couldn’t answer. So that was my answer. I’m content. I have access to intimate conversations, the deep understanding that comes from long-term relationships, inside jokes, sex if required (allô maman!), and yes, even great love. Do they all have to come from one person? And most importantly to me, do I have to commit to anyone, label myself girlfriend to have any of it? No.

So from this standpoint I don’t see what I could gain from entering the constraints of coupledom. But hey, as another really smart single woman put it, if something along the way changes my mind, I won’t resist it. But do I have to feel unhappy and in limbo until that happens? IF it happens? Hell no.

Plus, if I do enter couplehood, it will be out of true fancy, not desperation.

There. Case closed. Problem solved.

Then the osteopath says my resolve to be happy in this state isn’t true satisfaction, it’s courage. And that the tension from it is causing my back to ache.

I say it’s all the treadmill runs.