“I want to be alone.”---Greta Garbo
Nearly one-third of all seniors in the United States live alone, a total of approximately 14 million and growing. Some like it, some don’t. Either way, the rest of us feel compelled to run around trying to find them partners, which can be in turn helpful, insulting, clumsy, clever, catastrophic, cathartic and lucky. Daniel Levine, a retired professor of art history who resides in the gentle principality of Savannah says, “Would I rather have a great partner? Sure. Would I rather have a mediocre partner? Not so much. I’ve accepted the fact I’ll be alone the rest of the way and that’s okay. I have a good life in a beautiful place with a lot of friends. I’m a little set in my ways. There are a lot of things I would be reluctant to give up. Finding the right partner is a little like taking a pick over to Marraketch and whaling away. You know there’s gold there and someone’s going to find it but the odds are long that it will be you.”
There are those who envy the Danny Levines of the world. People like Arthur King, aspiring writer, self-made millionaire industrialist and Last Tango attendee, who remains unhappily married to an aloof and disinterested wife purely due to what he calls “momentum.” “We haven’t slept together in seven years, have no common interests and a good day is one in which we don’t bump into one another walking through the house.”
Marriage counseling? Of course. “The man told us we should never have been married, it was a hopeless match, but my wife has no desire to change anything. She has her friends, plenty of money and I am probably her only impediment to a perfect life.”
For weeks after the euphoric weekend of the Last Tango, Arthur mulled over hitting the road and letting the dollars fall where they may. “But the financial hit would be massive. Also I’m seventy years old and not thrilled with the idea of starting all over again. Most of the women I know are tired and unimaginative. But the Last Tango was a revelation, it made me reassess my situation. I saw a ton of older people who were happy and enthusiastic about life. I wondered if I could make the break, be a part of all this.”
He hasn’t. The status quo rules for Arthur King as it does for so many others in similar situations. But not everybody.
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| Queen Elizabeth I |
Maybelline
“Maybellene, why can’t you be true? You done started back doing the things you used to do.”---Chuck Berry
Sometimes, things aren’t awful. Nobody is getting tossed into the refrigerator, verbally assaulted or made the recipient of fits of jealousy. Life is mundane but predictable, aging lowers expectations in many. But not in Stephanie O’Leary, ex Girl Scout. “I’m still the explorer,” she says. Unfortunately, my husband is not. A good day for him is one where his stocks don’t fall. You’ve heard the expression at divorce trials---‘we were just two people going in different directions’---that’s us.”
Stephanie and her husband talked it out, looked for compromise, still loved each other. But while some people accept limitations due to aging, O’Leary focused on the time she had left and decided she didn’t want to spend it on the front porch swing. Stephanie is out the door, sad but also elated. “Maybe I’m making a big mistake but I feel great getting up each day with no restrictions. Sure, there are the usual financial ones, but those are there either way. Sometimes I feel selfish but most of the time I feel like I’m saving my life.”
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| Albert Einstein |
The Exit Trifecta Of Dissatisfied Women
Author Naomi Wolf has interviewed hundreds of women to try to learn why they would walk away from what seem like perfectly stable marriages, good relationships and supportive men. Although their individual situations and personal descriptions vary, the sentiment is often the same: women leave because the relationship is boring. A woman feels unfulfilled, unchallenged, some say “dead inside.” So she gets on the bus, Gus. Finds a new plan, Stan. And sets herself free. Here are the three reasons most cited for liftoff.
1. Lack of intellectual or emotional connection
Emotional disconnection in a marriage or relationship stems from a lack of intellectual connection. If you can’t really talk to your partner, you’re not emotionally attached. This leads to less physical connection and intimacy. Here’s what Wolf says about the men left behind: “They were incredibly nice but they had stopped relating intellectually to the women in their lives. There was no growth or adventure, no excitement or challenge.”
2. Feeling unappreciated or taken for granted
“The men had stopped bringing seduction and drama into the marital bed,” writes Wolf. “The men had stopped seeing the women in their lives as people who needed excitement and drama within the relationship and were not to be taken for granted.” Wolf’s women apparently need more of what she calls drama to stay interested in their men. If all this seems somewhat childish to you, maybe Naomi just needs a better noun than “drama.”
3. Feeling out of touch with themselves, or even like they’re dying inside
Several women talked about cheating on their partners because they felt as if they would die if they didn’t. They were bored in their good, safe, nice, predictable marriages. They weren’t proud of their transgressions, but it was all about survival. “By becoming so changeless, so predictable, many husbands lock themselves into the staid, less sexy, provider role in women’s psyches, and they abandon the provocateur role, leaving nothing to fire the imagination when a woman craves adventure, excitement, the dance,” writes Wolf.
You can argue, stomp your feet, jump up and down or write a letter to the editor, but these are the things hundreds of departing women told their interviewer. Read ‘em and weep. Or if it applies, wise up.
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| Vincent van Gogh |
The Other Side Of The Street
Here’s a good one: men leave a relationship with good women because life has become boring. Seems like we’ve heard that one before. Children’s relationships with Christmas change when they realize there is no Santa Claus. Adults, who should know better, are disappointed when those early days of can’t-get-enough sex and sweetness evolve into humdrum 9-to-5 workdays and taking care of the kids. Here’s why men bolt from good women:
1. The relationship feels like an emotional burden
Relationships often develop into emotionally co-dependent traps when both partners unknowingly try to extract happiness from the relationship rather than bringing happiness into it. Many men feel or are led to believe the woman’s happiness is their responsibility and the job of constantly making that happen is sometimes a bridge too far.
2. The relationship is primarily negative
Everybody expects to go through some hard times. Men are generally willing to stick it out during adversity for the woman they love. Maybe she’s depressed or the kids are on her nerves or she resents giving up her career, all valid points. Could be it’s something more subtle. But the longer things stay negative and the longer it feels like a major effort just keeping things together, the more likely the weight will crush the partnership and the man will leave.
3. Long term relationship goals are no longer attainable
In a perfect world, each partner would be upfront about what he or she expects from the budding relationship in its early stages. Often, this doesn’t happen. One may want kids, the other not so much. She might want to live in the old home town, he may not. He’s a homebody, she wants to travel. She’d like them to retire by age 50, he wants a yacht. There might be one bone of contention of utmost importance to each partner which cannot be resolved. Breaking up seems to be the only solution. Ah, for the days of the single life, where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day.
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| Ludwig van Beethoven |
The Irony
The irony here is that for all its travail, for every one of the days of whines with no roses, as soon as a prisoner breaks free, he or she is often immediately on the prowl for another mate. What happened to those wildly anticipated days of freedom, of waking up each day ready to pencil in some reckless new fun on the etch-a-sketch board? Only a few can make the long swim from the island prison through murky, inhospitable waters to the unknown shores of Singledom. But if and when they do, the solitary life offers its own rewards.
All around the world, increasing numbers of people are living alone. Included in that demographic are untold numbers who have chosen that life because they love living alone and will do everything they can to maintain their singlehood. This includes couples who remain committed to one another but choose to live separately, a testament to the powerful appeal of a place of one’s own. If you live alone, everything is under your control. You sleep when you want, you eat when you want, you’re solely in charge of the thermostat and the TV remote. If you want to practice the banjo until the wee hours of the morning, no one will emerge from the bedroom with arms crossed and a sour look on the face. You can hang out at the bar and hustle an evening hookup. You can raise chickens or breed nutria for fun and profit. You can run around naked without fear of recrimination. You can plant a beanstalk and keep an old Packard in the backyard. You can hire Miss Akron to walk around the premises in a bikini, just to drive the gossipy neighbors crazy. It’s your life. No need to ask permission.
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| Isaac Newton |
Only The Lonely….
Way back in the 16th century, eight-year-old Queen Elizabeth I of England announced, “I will never marry.” And despite her share of ardent suitors, she didn’t. Isaac Newton, once abandoned by his mother, was a confirmed loner. Nikola Tesla not only decided not to marry, he opted to remain celibate, claiming celibacy helped him be more creative. Tesla did, however, have a close relationship with a pigeon, once saying “I loved that pigeon as a man loves a woman, and she loved me. As long as I had her, there was a purpose in my life.” To each his own, Nikola. A pigeon doesn’t mar your record.
Charles Schulz, creator of the popular Peanuts comic strip famously portrayed one of his characters, Linus, as saying “I love mankind….it’s people I can’t stand!” Schulz contends that many people who would be better off alone make terrible compromises to combat loneliness. “The most terrifying loneliness is not experienced by many and can only be understood by a few. I compare the panic in this kind of loneliness to the dog we see running frantically down the road pursuing the family car. He is not really being left behind because the family will be back, but for that moment in his limited understanding, he is being left alone forever and he has to run his legs off to survive. Like the dog, we sometimes make terrible choices in our lives to avoid loneliness.”
Choices that bark and wail and sometimes claw the skin off our hides. Choices that attack in the night and pull the bedcovers to the floor. Choices that turn us into quivering masses of jelly. Choices that turn out to be much, much worse than the alternative.
Henry Rollins said it best: “Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better.” Maybe he’s onto something.
That’s all, folks….
