Illustration by Annie Wilkinson
Stag party!
Issue #27
Venus readers rise above the spinster cat lady stigma to reclaim the beauty of single living
By Venus Zine Staff
Published: March 1st, 2006 | 12:00am
SLEEPING BEAUTY
At 8 years old, I recall looking into my mirror, brushing my honey-colored hair and thinking, “I feel more people should be astonished by my beauty.” That healthy conceit was shattered at age 14 by bad hair, braces, and a below-the-knee amputation that resulted in rides to school on the infamous short bus. Scribbling in my unicorn journal, I would write about how being single was a given for a girl like me. At 19, I discovered women’s studies and that I was queer. With the rediscovery of my self-esteem, I was in a sea of relationship possibilities. I dated a string of women and was never without some soulmate or another. Then I dated a woman who was ready to buy a house, a dog, and one whole carat if I wanted. I tried to convince myself that this was it — the end of a journey of being alone — but wait a fucking minute. I had never really been alone before. Now, a year later, I share my bed with piles of clean clothes, unpacked luggage, knitting needles, and a vibrator on its last leg, so to speak. I have never been happier, or more astonished, at my own beauty. — Gwen Goos, Madison, Wisconsin
I’M OK, YOU’RE OK
I wake up every morning in the dead center of my queen-size bed — a warm body snuggled next to me with a small, wet nose. No one complains that my dog sleeps in the bed, under the covers. The toilet seat is down when I get up for a 2 a.m. bathroom trip, and I never close the door to it. Barkley doesn’t have a strange fetish for watching me relieve myself. I wear granny panties, summer skirts, and leg warmers to bed. The thermostat is always set for me. I fall asleep on the couch and snore to all-night marathons of COPS. My iPod can be on shuffle without embarrassment. I sing at full volume to melancholic teen-angst music. I only attend my own office parties. I watch Lifetime movies and cry the day before my period. — Marni Schindelman
INDEPENDENCE DAY
I’ve always been an overachiever and was married and divorced before 30. I was young and naive, swept up and away into a cyclone of a three-year fiasco known as an unhappily abusive marriage. Tip for the ladies: That’s how batterers nab you — so fast that you don’t have time for second thoughts. Getting there in a shotgun wedding was the easy part, but finding my way back was something else. It took cops, the law, courage, a super support system, and a lot of therapy.
Three years after my divorce, I’m ecstatically happy and free. I wake up every morning, lounging smack-dab in the middle of my comfy king-size bed, and I giggle at the way life has taken a turn for the better with me in the driver’s seat. From the journey, I learned how much I stood to lose when I gave my power to someone who wanted to squash me. With independence came magical changes — new town, new pals, new work, new boyfriends, and things keep getting better. I’ve learned that no heartache is worse than losing me. Best to hold out for a good cookie and savor my own sweetness for the time being. — Tamara Warren
AND GUEST
I love my friends for giving me far too much credit for the hopping love life I don’t have. Because they know the person I am, they naturally expect that I would be flocked with gentleman callers. Much to their surprise, they aren’t exactly beating down the doors.
This is why it is always a slight shock when I receive those thick, cream-colored envelopes — my name in elegant lettering with “and guest” attached. Fortunately for me, I am quite independent and don’t need a guest. My guest will come along in due time. For now, I’d rather not bring just anyone along and have to spend my evening entertaining that person. Been there. Done that. I’d much rather devote my time and energy being the social butterfly that I am and float from friend to friend. — Krista Purnell
HOME ALONE
To paraphrase Tolstoy, every unhappy breakup is unhappy in its own way. I'll spare you the details of my last one, because everyone who thinks her woeful story is unique is only wallpapering over the fact that it's all too common. Hell felt like Club Med compared to the fire of my fury toward the jerk who jilted me. You would, too, if you'd been dumped via Friendster.
Eight months after the split, I have mostly stopped missing the cad and have also ceased plotting my delicious vengeance plans (they involved both ripe cat dung and singing-telegram strippers, sometimes at the same time). Yet I have very little interest in finding a new paramour. It may seem that it's "too soon" or that I'm a flatulent wildebeast who can't land a lad. Really, though, I have discovered how much I love being alone.
You'll note that I say alone rather than single. Alone gets a bad rap. It isn't a bad word; in fact, it's one of the best there is. As much as we'd like to believe that any partnership means we're saved from solitude, we are essentially always alone with ourselves. So I believe there's no reason to seek someone else unless you're very happy with your own company.
Convention dictates that I give an impassioned cheer about how Mr. Right will stroll into my life, and I'll be so glad that I waited for him and how all my time alone made me ready for him. That is horseshit. My aloneness is not the first step of some quasi-spiritual man-landing plan; it is the plan, and it is a comfortable one that I'm settling into like the softest of blankets. — anonymous
SERIAL LADY KILLER
Having just removed myself from my most oppressive relationship to date, I am loving the single life. As one of those serial monogamists, bouncing from one year-and-a-half nightmare to the next, I’ve pulled the plug. I’m doing something different. I’m dating.
So my first date was with a woman I’ve been friends with for six years. We had the best sex of my life, and I fell in love. Damn. Undaunted, I made myself ask out this highly attractive but decidedly stiff and boring computer programmer. She was a good kisser, a lousy fuck, and left me feeling like a bad person for having the bad judgment to disrobe on her couch. Whoops.
My next experiment was with another friend, this one of eight years, which involved a mutual, agonizingly prolonged attraction. When she found out that I wasn’t looking for a happily-ever-after just yet, she cancelled her trip from Boston and left us to try to do some damage control on our friendship.
Then there was the 21-year-old Chicagoan whom I met online. She freaked every time I mentioned meeting in person and had a boyfriend in Canada. Whatever.
So I’ve been dating for precisely one month and already I am missing the comfort of monogamy. Sort of. I’m also mostly having a great time, having some interesting experiences, and learning that putting myself and my friends first is the only way to go. — Shana Scudder
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