You’ve
seen the ads. Match dot com has people around the corner just waiting for you
to meet so you can get married and your life will be fulfilled. At E-Harmony
dot com, fill out a 15 page report and they have the love of your life waiting
in the back room. They just need to go locate him. If you’re over 50, like me,
you can find the love of your life on Our Time dot com. If you’re a farm boy
and am tired of meeting high falutin chicks, sign up with Farmers Only dot com.
It’s all there. Yes YOU could be happy for the rest of your life, if only you
would sign up on a dating site.
But
my question is this: when did being single become a disease? Maybe the same ad
writers who are writing all the ads for all those medications we need now are
writing the copy for the singles dating scene, but every time I hear or see
one of the dating commercials, I feel inadequate. Because I like being single.
There,
I said it. It’s out in the open. I have a disease and it’s called singleitis.
I
would rather be single than married to some jerk who cheats on me. I would rather be single than married to a
creep who lies, who drinks himself silly each night, even though he gets up the
next day to go to work. (Please
reference my February 2016 blog)
I used to joke
that I got divorced before I was
married almost 30 years ago. This guy and I were both musicians,
singer/songwriters and met at a pub in downtown Sacramento during an open mic
night. I had just lost some weight and although I wasn’t smoking hot, I was
cute. We dated off and on for the next two years. The only time it would be off
would be if he found a cute chick he wanted to ask out and when she turned him
down, he was back to calling me. He was 11 years my senior, but that didn’t
matter. We were in love. Or so I thought.
About a week
before my 26th birthday, we had a talk. I told him that we had been
together for two years (the longest relationship I had ever had) and that it
was time we took the next step. See, I bought into the idea that someone can’t
be happy until they’re married. I wanted to get that part of my life done so I
could move on to the next project. I told Marshal that I was okay before I met
him and I would be okay if he decided to leave. I gave him the choice. The
following weekend (since he lived and worked in Sacramento and I lived in Davis
and worked in Vacaville, we didn’t see each other much during the week so I
spent the weekends at his place) we went out for my birthday dinner to a Moroccan
restaurant on Fulton Avenue in Sacramento and had a wonderful dinner. While we
waited for dessert, Marshal got down on one knee and proposed to me. I was
flabbergasted! I had been proposed to before by a guy who was 20 years my
senior and a drunk, but nothing this fancy. And in a public place, too! Marshal
was never one to make a scene, so this had to be hard for him. Of course I said
yes. We had dessert then went back to his place and enjoyed each other.
But
something wasn’t right in the land of the engaged. It’s as if that diamond ring
was a go ahead to argue and fight over the smallest minutiae. It was over
stupid stuff. So stupid I can’t remember. But I can remember him holding my
wrists down as a way to control me physically. I didn’t know then, but I realize
now, that was a form of abuse. After about two months of this constant arguing
and bickering, I had moved to Fairfield the week before to be closer to my job.
I was in an Improv group, RSVP, and we had a gig that night. On my way to
Sacramento, I stopped at my mom’s house and called Marshal to see what we were
going to do that weekend. That’s when the divorce happened. That’s when he told
me he couldn’t marry me because he was afraid I would get fat like my mom and
he can’t stand fat chicks.
I
was dumbfounded. All of the cruel schoolyard bullies who had ever called me
fatso, flooded my head with their taunts. Here I was, no longer fat, yet I’m
not good enough to get married because someday I might be? The tears came hard and fast as he told me to keep the
ring, that it was his issue and not mine. But that didn’t matter. I was this close to conquering the disease of
being single. This close. But I
couldn’t because of what someday might be.
So,
for the next 25 years, I ate. It didn’t matter what I ate or how much I ate
because no man is going to want a fat white woman in our culture. Fat Asian
women, fat black women, fat Latino women, they’re all acceptable, but not a fat
white woman. And when I began eating myself to death (I am currently morbidly
obese), I was going to be fat like my mom no matter what I did. The man I
accepted to spend the rest of my life with told me so. It must be true. I loved
him and people you love aren’t supposed to lie to you, right?
I
found out a lot about myself when I was homeless. Maybe that’s why I was homeless, so I could really get to
know Lynda. I finally realized, after gaining almost 200 pounds in 25 years
that what Marshal said all those years ago doesn’t mean a damned thing. I heard
through the grapevine he married some hippie chick and they had three kids.
What he said had zero effect on him,
yet I let it rule my life for 25 years. It no longer has sway over me.
Unfortunately, I’m left with the consequences of weighing 200 pounds more than
I should. That’s something I need to take care of because you know why when you
see 100 year old people on TV, they’re not fat? It’s because fat people don’t
live that long.
Back
to this ‘disease’ of being single. I love
my life. Yes, there are aspects I’d like to change, like working and not being
poor ever again. I allowed myself, after 25 years of a closed heart, to love again
last year, only to find out two weeks into the affair, that’s what it was – an affair - that he is married. I remember him asking me why I didn’t have a boyfriend and I
replied that men were assholes. His answer was that he wasn’t. For two weeks
anyway.
Who
knows? My future husband just might be reading this now and not giving a damn
that I’m old, fat and single.
