On the Joy of Being Single

Before we move headlong into the high holy day of love, which of course is meaningful to your Love Goddess (mostly because my son, Cupid, is such a pivotal figure in it), I want to put on the breaks for a moment in honor of living single. I want to stress the joy of it, not only because there are now 90 million singles in your country—an unprecedented number—but because many of those 90 million are dating….but emphatically NOT in love. They will NOT have chocolates and baubles on Valentine’s Day. They will NOT feel Cupid’s dart urging them into love and commitment. And they will, some of them, feel bereft because the day has become such a huge celebration of love.

They mustn’t feel left out.

I’ve spent centuries trying to be free; trying not to be controlled. I’m a huge fan of women’s independence and hate seeing women panic because love, romantic love, is eluding them. (I once married the god of fire—not even remotely cute, that god—just so I wouldn’t be controlled!) To you independents I say, take the whole day—yes, Valentine’s Day—to celebrate the fact that you are free to write your own script; free of having to follow the narrative of any other woman; free to fall in love tomorrow– or not to fall in love ever.

This isn’t a booby prize, my lovely friends. Freedom is more and more important as you go along in life. And did you know that, despite the hype about happily ever after,  single women are far happier than most married women? In fact, the only other cohort as happy as single women is married men…..for, as you know, men thrive in marriage more than women do, and suffer more outside it, too. This isn’t to say you can’t feel free in a committed relationship, or in a marriage, but it’s vastly different.

So revel in these single days. Respect them and feel the entitlement to fun and exploration they afford you….the material, sexual, gustatory and sartorial freedom that you can only have when you’re autonomous, and which is a glorious state to be in in this particular culture. (As opposed to, say, Mumbai.)  Just think what your great-great grandmother would have given to be able to improvise her life rather than follow the script that was already written for her! Yes,  the love-and-marriage script is safe and often wonderful; but nowhere else on the planet can an unmarried woman be the narrator of her own deeply satisfying story as you down there in America can.

So write that story for yourself. It’s your life! And on Valentine’s Day? Celebrate with your buddies. Or your mom. Or just go out to a restaurant and order your favorite food and drink, all by yourself. And think of me, your wildly autonomous Love Goddess, toasting you every step of the way.

CHEERS, singles!