Pretenders

I'm gonna find myself a girl

Who can show me what laughter means

And we'll fill in the missing colors

to our paint by number dreams

Then we'll put our dark glasses on

and make love until our strength is gone.
And when the morning light comes streaming in
We'll get up and do it again.

-Jackson Browne

The interwebs

A few months ago, my friend Dustin said to me “Angela.  You don’t need a boyfriend.  It would interfere too much with your relationship with Facebook.”  Huh.  Thanks, Jerk.  But in hindsight, he had a point.  I live by myself and if I didn’t have an outlet, the voices in my head would probably get too loud and I’d have to go out and make friends or something.  And let’s be honest.  That’s a lot of work.  Sitting here, behind a keyboard is much easier than looking someone in the face when you tell them that they are a dumbass.  Not that I wouldn’t say that to someone while I look them in the eye, it’s just easier here.  It’s not just that, though.  A lot of things are easier when you don’t have to make eye contact.  It’s a lot easier to tell people you are lonely.  Or that you need attention.  Or that you don’t agree with their point of view.  It’s also easier to put up a front about how amazing your life is (or is not).  It’s a very convenient outlet to allow you to post images of your perfect husband and your perfect children and your perfect cooking and your perfect life.  In some cases, social media is the perfect place to reinvent yourself, in others, it’s the perfect place to pretend.  Even though social media is full of fallacies and half truths, sometimes, somebody has something interesting to say.  That’s when social media becomes more than narcissism and facade.  When somebody says something important or thought-provoking, and a conversation ensues.  That’s pretty cool.  That someone can express their feelings and others, from across the country, or the globe, for that matter, can engage in conversation.

Conversation

So, why all of this talk about social media?  Well, yesterday morning, one of my girlfriends, a woman I have known almost longer than anyone else on the planet, like elementary school long, posted on Facebook that she was happy to be single.  That she was satisfied with her life without a husband.  She said she was glad that she could live without being bound to someone else, to someone else’s expectations, to someone else’s ego.  And I got my pom poms out and I was like “YEAH!!!!  Me too!!!”  Surprisingly, Deanna took a lot of heat for that statement.  But, as Deanna does, she handled it with dignity.  When someone said “well, these have been the seven happiest years of my life.”  She responded with “You have a beautiful family.”  When someone said “There’s nothing wrong with being married.  My life is better because of it.”  D said “You all are perfect together!”  A lot of people tried to prove her wrong.  But she never tried to defend her argument, nor did she try to degrade anyone for their lifestyle.  She was just making a statement about how she prefers to live her life.  Deanna wasn’t being hateful when she said that she was happy being single.  She wasn’t attacking married people.  She was making a statement about how she’s learned to be happy by herself.  It was really surprising to me how many people felt they had to defend themselves to her.  In a public forum.  Even though she was challenged by MANY people, she never felt the need to explain her position any further.  She said what she had to say, and she encouraged the discussion that followed. 

Independence

So, this morning, I called and asked Deanna if I could discuss her post.  Her response was “Of!! Course!!! Two sarcastic broads.   That sounds like fun, huh!”  And that was that.  We also made some talk of how we are actually happy without partners and now that we’ve said it out loud, Karma will certainly not think this is funny and we’ll both end up in loveless marriages, AGAIN, and we will be forced to defend them to the outside world with every fiber of our beings, all because we taunted those who were committed to the sanctity of the institution.  And we laughed.  A lot.  Then we laughed nervously.  Because as everyone knows, you don't challenge Karma.  She's a spiteful bitch and she's easily offended.

Pretenders

Then, iTunes played a horrible joke on me.  Love songs.  All.  Morning.  Long.  Come to my Window.  In Your Eyes.  In Love with the Girl.  If I Could Turn Back Time.  Something in the Way She Moves.  Loving You Tonight.  Then I got real…emotional???  I think emotional is the word.  I started thinking about all of these love songs.   They are all so beautiful and hopeful and meaningful.  They all make you want to be in love.  They all evoke a feeling of optimism.  They make it real easy for you to believe in love. 

So, there I was, torn between this powerful sensation of independence and an overwhelming desire to live one of those songs.  Finally, I thought to myself  “You’re too old for that shit.”  So, I responded to myself “Yep.  Yer too old for that shit. It’s not real.”  Then, as if to validate my thoughts, iTunes played The Pretender.  I’ve always loved Jackson Browne, even though I’ve wondered how someone so dismally predisposed to sadness has survived as long as he has.  Anyway, The Pretender.  As many times as I have listened to that song, it caught me off guard this morning.  I started to wonder who the pretenders really were.  Is it me? Is it Deanna?  As we live our lives, in an uninhibited fashion, being able to call our own plays, determining our own futures?  Or are the pretenders the people who are perpetually reminding us that we still have something to look forward to.  That just because we are single in our 30s, doesn’t mean that  there’s no hope for us.  That maybe, if we’re lucky and pray a lot, somebody will love us, eventually. 

Well, this is the thing.  I can’t speak for Deanna, but I’m pretty sure she’s onboard with this.  We are FINE alone.  Because we are never alone.  We have plenty of people who love us and encourage us.  Just because we may go to bed alone most nights, that does not mean that we are lonely.  It means that we are comfortable by ourselves.  AND!!!  It means we can have sex with whoever we want, whenever we want.  (Most times, it’s better by ourselves anyway.) 

As Deanna said, “I’m not trying to judge anyone else’s relationship.  I’m just talking about what’s right for me, right now” 

-Inner Peas