How to Be Single (25 page)

I have to admit, my mood was not very good. It's one thing to read the lousy statistics, it's another to watch them played out with above-the-head-staring men, women who feel over the hill at thirty-five, and young men who are dividing by two and adding four. In New York, there's not much difference between the way a twenty-five-year-old behaves and a thirty-five-year-old. In New York, if you're pushing forty, you can be so busy having a good time it doesn't even faze you when you get an invitation to your twentieth high school reunion. But in Sydney, my bubble of self-delusion officially burst. For the first time in my life, I felt old.

We met at a harborside Irish pub with a long wooden bar and a giant sign that said “Fishmonger.”

As soon as we walked in, we heard, “Now these must be my New York girls!” A woman walked toward us with her arms outstretched and a big smile on her face. She was exactly as I imagined, with a round, open face and pale Britishy skin. She had thin, light brown hair that was pulled back in a ponytail. She was absolutely pleasant to look at—appealing, innocuous, and a bit bland. She looked us over. “Why you're absolutely gorgeous!” I immediately felt guilty for thinking she looked bland. She ushered us to the bar. “Come on now, if you're here in Hobart, you're going to have to have a pint. Have you tried the James Boag's?”

“No,” I said. “I don't really drink beer.”

“Me neither,” Alice said.

“But you must try just a bit. You're at the docks. We can't have you sipping wine down here, now can we?” Both Alice and I were thinking,
Why yes, yes you can,
when Fiona went to the bar and ordered beers for us. She waited until they came, paid for them, and gave them to us.

“Now tell me, do you think I'm an absolute idiot for the things I write? Are you here to tell me off? Come on, let's have it then.” She was so warm and open, I didn't have the heart to get all combative with her.

“I didn't come here to yell at you, it's just…”

“I seem too much all sunshine and lollies, is that it?”

“It's just that you telling women to love themselves and they'll find love seems, I don't know…”

“Like a lie,” Alice jumped in to say. “It's statistically impossible. Even if we all started marrying gay men, the numbers still wouldn't work out.”

Fiona took the criticism in stride. “The statistics are very compelling. Did you hear that someone suggested we give our blokes tax incentives just to stay in Australia? What kind of rubbish is that? They already think they're God's gifts, the men here.” Fiona waved at some women walking into the bar. “Katie! Jane! We're over here!” She looked back at Alice and me. “Just try and get a man to take you out on a proper date; it's like trying to make a koala run.” Katie and Jane came over and Fiona kissed them both on the cheeks and introduced us all.

“I'm just telling them dating in Tasmania doesn't exist.”

Jane and Katie nodded knowingly.

“Well, what do you do instead?” Alice asked, curious.

Fiona took a gulp of beer and laughed. “Well, we go down to the pub, get drunk, fall on top of each other, and hope for the best. It's a frightful situation, really.”

We all laughed. Fiona kept waving and kissing people hello. She greeted each person with something flattering, and with each person she really seemed to mean it.

I realized that we were in the presence of one of those people God has blessed with an abundance of serotonin and a joyful disposition. You know. A happy person.

“And it's true. I do tell my readers that if you just love your life and are filled with that, then you're going to be irresistible—and the men are just going to come out of the woodwork.”

I couldn't help but become insistent. “But that's simply not true. I know dozens of single women who are fantastic and ready and charming and shining and they can't find boyfriends.”

“And they're not too picky. They don't have unrealistic expectations,” Alice chimed in. She knew a loophole when she saw one.

It was starting to get crowded and the music was up loud, so Fiona practically shouted at us. “Yet!”

“What?” I asked.

“They haven't found boyfriends
yet.
It's not over for them, is it?”

“No. But, that's their reality now.”

“And tomorrow everything could change. That's what I think about. Tomorrow everything could change!” As if on cue, a guy in a t-shirt and long cargo shorts walked over to Fiona and said hello to her. She greeted him warmly and kissed him on the cheek. “This is Errol. We fell on each other last summer and were together for three whole weeks, isn't that right?” Errol smiled sheepishly. She playfully pinched his ear. “He was a real wanker to me. Weren't you, Errol?”

“I was an asshole. It's true.” Then he walked away.

“So tell me, Julie. What do you think I should tell people? What do you think we should believe?” Fiona asked, good-naturedly.

There it is, that question again. What do I believe in? I looked around the bar. It was a sea of men and women, predominantly women. And the women looked as if they were trying a lot harder than the men.

“That maybe life isn't fair,” I said. “That just as not everyone is guaranteed to win the lottery or have perfect health or get along with their family, not everyone is guaranteed to have someone love them.” I was on a roll now. “Maybe then we can start a new way to think about life. One that doesn't make it so tragic if love happens to be the thing you end up not getting.”

Fiona thought about it for a moment. “I'm sorry, ladies. If I told my readers that, I'd be responsible for the first mass suicide in the history of Australia. There would be hundreds of girls floating facedown in the Tasman Sea.”

Alice and I looked at each other. It did sound pretty dark, even to us. “Besides, I think it goes against human nature,” Fiona said. “We all want to love and be loved. That's just the way it is.”

“Is that human nature, or is that Hollywood?” Alice asked.

A band started to play on a tiny stage set up in the back of the room. They were a lively Irish band, and soon the dance floor was full of drunken white people jumping up and down.

I thought out loud. “Maybe our true human nature is to be in a community. That's the only thing that seems to endure. Much more than marriage, that's for sure.”

Fiona got very serious. She stood up and placed a hand on each of our shoulders, looking squarely at us. “I have to say this, and I really mean it from the bottom of my heart. You both are gorgeous women. You are smart and funny and hot. To think that you would end up with no love in your lives is absolutely bullcrap. It's just not possible. You two are goddesses. I know you don't want to believe me, but it's true. Beautiful, sexy goddesses. And you shouldn't consider, even for a moment, that you won't have as much happiness in your life as you can possibly stand.” With that, Fiona turned to get another beer.

My eyes started to water up. Alice turned to me, her eyes a little teary as well. She was good, this one.

The music and the dancing became even more raucous and Alice grabbed my hand and dragged me onto the dance floor to jump up and down. Fiona came with us, along with about ten of her closest girlfriends. I watched her, laughing and twirling and singing along to some lyrics I couldn't understand. No matter what I say, no matter how smart I am, I could clearly see that Fiona was happier than me. She had inoculated herself against the poison of the statistics that had weighed me down all week. As I watched the sweat start forming on her cheeks, and her face lit up with laughter, I had to admit it. She was one of those people that everyone wants to be around, and at the end of the day, people who are positive and optimistic are simply more attractive than people who are negative and pessimistic. Alice put her arm around me and pretended to sing a song that we couldn't understand the words to. “Fly into my flah flah baby baba ba…yeah.” Fiona was dancing with Errol and Jane and Katie, making them laugh by trying to do a hip-hop step. Alice said loudly into my ear, “I like her. She's cool.”

A handsome, rugged-looking guy then walked onto the dance floor, making his way through the crowd and right toward Fiona. When she saw him, she threw her arms around him and he gave her a big kiss on the lips. They spoke for a few moments together, their arms wrapped around each other. He went up to the bar, and Fiona saw the curious expressions on our faces and came up to us to explain.

“We just met a few weeks ago. His name is George. I'm absolutely mad about him. He's lived in Hobart his entire life, but we'd never laid eyes on each other till last month. Isn't that the strangest thing?”

Alice and I just looked at her, confused. “Were you not going to tell us about him?” I asked, amused.

Fiona just shrugged, laughing. “Don't you hate those women who think they know everything just because they managed to meet a nice guy? I'd rather die than have you think I was her!”

I looked at Fiona, impressed. She had the ultimate weapon in her arsenal, and she didn't use it. She purposely chose not to play the “well, look how well it worked for me” card. She wanted to make sure I didn't feel that my point of view was any less valid than hers just because she had a boyfriend and I didn't. This truly made her a goddess, and taught me another important rule:
When you finally do fall in love, don't you dare be smug about it.

In our taxi back to the Hobart airport, I couldn't stop thinking about Fiona. It would be dishonest if I didn't admit that she had been right, in a sense. She shone her light so brightly that a man did actually appear out of the woodwork of Hobart for her. Did that mean I believed that that would happen to everyone who behaved like her? No. Did I suddenly think everyone is guaranteed love in this life? No. Did it make me think that you should ignore the statistics and just make sure you're absolutely adorable? No.

But here's what I did learn from Fiona and Australia about statistics and being single:
One hundred percent of all human beings need hope to get by. And if any statistic takes that away from you, then it's not worth knowing.

And take trips as often as possible to places where you know there will be lots of men.

Hey, there's nothing wrong with trying to help your odds.

It was time for Alice to get back to New York. In our hotel room in Sydney, as I watched Alice pack, I became filled with homesickness. I missed my bed, my friends, my city. Also, Sydney had rattled me. The farther I got from Fiona and her glow, the less hopeful and optimistic I became. I made a decision.

“I'm going home. I'm going to go home and back to my job and work off my advance and be done with this. I can't do this anymore.”

Alice sat on the bed, deciding what she should say.

“I'm sorry you're feeling this way. But I think this has been good for you. You've always been so responsible, you've always had a desk job. It's good for you to not know what's going to happen next.”

To me, it was excruciating. I felt unbearably lonely.

“I feel just so…frightened.”

Alice nodded. “Me, too. But I don't think it's time for you to go home. I just don't.”

As I walked Alice to her cab, she asked, “Why don't you go to India? Everyone seems to have some kind of spiritual awakening there.”

“Serena said the same thing. I'll think about it.”

As the cab pulled away, Alice called out, “Keep going, Julie! You're not done yet!”

I watched her drive away, and was again filled with an unbearable loneliness.
Why was I putting myself through this? And why hadn't Thomas ever called me?
Now this wasn't a new thought; I had thought it every day since Italy, because as I might have mentioned before, I am a pathetic creature and when we women have a connection with someone, geez, it's hard to let it go. The good news is, I never called him. Thank God. Thank God. Because here's a rule I've learned about how to be single, a rule I learned the hard way and didn't have to travel around the world to find:
Don't call him, don't call him, don't call him.
And then, just when you think you have the perfect excuse to call him,
don't call him.
Right now, I was seriously considering calling him.

Just then, the phone rang. I answered it and a man with a French accent was speaking to me.

“Is this Julie?” he asked.

“Yes, it is,” I said, not believing what I thought I was hearing.

“It is Thomas.” My heart immediately began racing.

“Oh. Wow. Thomas. Wow. How are you?”

“I am well. Where are you? Singapore? Timbuktu?”

“I'm in Sydney.”

“Australia? That's perfect. Bali is very close.”

“Bali?” I repeated, shifting my weight from one foot to the other nervously.

“Yes. I have some business I need to do there. Why don't you meet me?”