Rebuilding a Single Self

It has been almost nine months since I broke off communication with my partner of twenty years and began building a life of my own. I've been doing a lot of rewarding and difficult work. I have joined a gym and a book group, started a writing critique group and have signed on for volunteer work around preserving lesbian history. I've attended all kinds of hiking meet-ups and social groups. There is so much more conscious effort involved in being single than being married. It revolves around scheduling and balancing appointments, emailing, texting and researching activities. Meeting new people requires a great deal of conversation as well. Fortunately, I enjoy this. Having done this before after a fifteen year relationship, I know things will change and change again. I can't help wondering who, among the new folks I am adding to my life, will be there a year from now.

If I had one question to ask my ex it would be are you happy now? But then I wonder, was I happy then? I was content to live with some level of discord in return for dinners together, sleepovers and watching Netflix. I'm the kind of person who never thinks of herself as truly happy, I'm too much of a realist for that. But I’d accepted my life with all its limitations. Now, I have the potential to create a more productive, enjoyable life with folks who genuinely appreciate and look forward to spending time with me. It's taking shape, but it is still a work in progress.

My ex wants to be my friend. I'm not opposed to that eventuality but I believe it's too soon. Do I want to hear about her new partner? To be fitted into a time slot in her new life? If she were also single I could probably do it. But when I think about going to a gathering with her and the one she gave up our relationship for, I can't see it happening. I guess only time will tell. 

I am meeting new women to hang out with to go to music and events. They are invariably single, although not necessarily potential lovers or partners. I am trying to form something more vital, a support system. I have lost friends to the break-up and I grieve for them too. Some chose my partner over me because she was the one they met first. Some try to walk a line between us both, not talking about one with the other. Some were couple friends who have no idea how to fit me in now. Am I a threat or just a hassle? Mostly, I assume that time is limited, and relationships take a lot of work. Genuine emotional intimacy between two couples or three people is nearly impossible. It's hard enough between two.

Now, I can choose to do things with people, or I can stay home alone and write again. For a while it was just too depressing to sit quietly in the space in front of a keyboard. Now, once again, I look forward to it. The time I feel the most lonely now is Sunday morning. I miss company over coffee and the New York Times.

I am starting to feel my age. Time is short and I have no idea where this journey will take me or when it will end. I'm glad for the opportunity to restructure something that wasn't working and to be singularly engaged in the world once more. I have a few pressing things to pull together in my life before that unknown moment when the umpire calls time. So I better hurry. I am finally experiencing the phrase, I'm on deadline, in its most literal sense.

Friends and Cohorts: Small Talk and Big

According to the Washington Post, the Inuit people have approximately 50 words for snow and the Sami people who live in Northern Scandinavia and Russia have over 1,000 words for reindeer. These language differences expose the relative importance of snow and reindeer in the lives of the speakers. Unfortunately, the English speaking world has a dearth of words for friendly relationships that are neither romantic nor sexual.

We are limited to the words acquaintance and friend. Friend implies a whole range of intimacy from catching a movie together, to the kind of genuine soul mate that can help make the world a less lonely, unforgiving place. I feel compelled to add another category, the label of cohort. Cohorts are important but not as intimate as friends. They are folks we have genuine connections with, often meeting in places like political organizations, classes or support groups, but they fall on a different level of intimacy than friends. You might call a cohort to help process an issue but you probably wouldn’t call her if you just found out really terrible or very wonderful personal news.

Cohorts have always been important in my life, but they are not the cogs it turns on. Those cogs are friends. Friend is a word that gets thrown around recklessly in our society. In the span of a lifetime, I have had few friends at any given moment but have cycled through many of them over periods of time. When paths diverge and interests shift many times friends are left behind, leaving deep memory traces and inevitable feelings of regret and nostalgia. Friends are precious. Cohorts are valuable. Acquaintances are nice. Folks who don’t care one way or another are numerous and enemies, well, I’m not even going to go there right now.

The division between cohorts and friends is often one of small talk versus big talk. Small talk is just filler in life, like popcorn it can be fun to consume but lacking in nutritional value. This fiber aids personality digestion, but is completely devoid of in protein. An acquired skill and a staple at larger parties and gatherings, it is often goes hand in hand with the word mingle.

Big talk goes beyond simple observation into connection. It reflects back into personal experience. Big talk can cause people at parties who are looking for more superficial interaction to recoil, make polite excuses and walk away. The new online initials for big talk can be TMI (too much information). To some, it is the exclusive domain of lovers and college students, a tacky tendency left behind in youth. But to weirdos like me it is the first step to making friends.

So, some folks find probing parlance threatening or just mildly irritating. Others find it interesting and ingratiating. I guess it all just depends on the perspective of the speaker and whether she wishes to become your acquaintance, cohort or friend.

Class Comfort Level Persists

My father was a salesman who worked on commission only, my mother temped as a secretary throughout my childhood. My sister and I would spend every weekend at our immigrant grandparent’s apartment because parenting was not on the to-do list of either of my folks. In both environments, the kids I hung out with were from what we all considered “regular” families but now recognize to have been mostly from the socio-economic class that lies between the poor and the middle class.

My mother was always quite vocal about my father’s irresponsible financial behavior which consisted mainsly of going deeply into debt in order to project a middle-class image. She often called him Willie Loman, in reference to Arthur Miller’s character in “Death of a Salesman.” Both of them were Jewish and college-educated so, in some ways, they were atypical of the "white" working-class. And, in those days, Jews were not really considered white, anyway. 

In spite of my parents' educational achievements, they fell far short of the material prosperity held out by their socio-economic aspirations. None of us possessed the mannerisms of that desirable group. Kids in my school seemed to know instinctively that I was not one of them and treated me accordingly. Was I too outgoing? Too open? I couldn't figure it out. But the friends I made then were all from similar class backgrounds. We just had so much in common that I never considered befriending one of the “rich kids.” Like the weather it was just a given, a reality too obvious to be questioned or discussed.

At Ohio State University, I was introduced to a broader vision of the world. Now, if I so desired, I could be friends with students who wouldn’t have had anything to do with me before. And, sometimes, I chose to pursue these very people. It was to prove my worth, as though their privilege might rub off on me and allow me to rewrite my past. Sometimes making them like me was simply a way to extract a sort of revenge.

But as college years faded into real life, my path diverged sharply from that of the factory-owners’ daughters and the trust-fund babies. Economic struggle is not just theoretical when there is no family safety net waiting to catch you if you fall.

To this day, I find myself gravitating instinctively toward people from similar circumstances. Instead of diminishing, this tendency seems to be increase with age. I can’t put my finger on the exact cues of this shared oppression but, considering my automatic selection process, the indicators must be quite blatant and obvious to all.

Evidently, the people who can best put up with me, are those who have made their way without a lot of financial and emotional support. It has nothing to do with concious intention or some form of reverse snobbery. It just happens.