The Single Life in America
by Josh Knowles
November 21, 2000

I read today in a book that 25% of Americans live alone. The book was a picture book, more or less, with large color photographs of successful people who lived alone on one side of each page and a brief bio/personal-philosophy essay combo on the other. Candice Flogenbottom, for example, is a 33-year-old publicist for the Oprah Winfrey show in Chicago. Her parents were both only children, she feels living alone gives her the freedom to excel in her chosen field (publicizing?), she has friends she sees often, so she's not a recluse or anything, and -- yes -- she does have a long-term boyfriend. This I get from the five-paragraph essay. She lives in an apartment with perfectly clean cream-colored walls with cream-colored sofas and little decoration save a pair of posters advertising old exhibits at the Chicago Museum of Art. She's an angular brunette with a bony face and skinny legs, leaned up against an oak table beside the sofa, wearing a gray pant-suit with her arms crossed over her flat chest. Despite her big, uneven smile, what her face says to me is, "I have a horrible life."

Wasting time between lunch with Glenda and a two o'clock class, I found the book randomly in the library while looking for a collection of Robert Crumb comics that I knew the library had. Big, flat, with "Living Single: Inside the Private Lives of a New Class of Single Americans" in sleek gray lettering on white paper, it begged me to pick it up. Especially after talking with Glenda.

Glenda's not about to get married. She made that perfectly clear numerous times to our English class in high school (where I first met her) and she makes it perfectly clear nowadays whenever the word "marriage" comes into a conversation.

"Did you get the e-mail from Abe?" I asked during lunch.

"Yeah, he's getting married! I think it's so funny. I'll always think of him as little Abe from high school I used to pop on the top of the head and say 'Abe!' to." She laughed.

"It feels strange to have friends from high school who are already getting married. I don't know if I should be thinking about it or what."

"I'm never getting married. It'd be boring."

Glenda's got the effervescent personality, sleek body, and gorgeous shoulder-length blonde hair that attract more people (guys and girls, in my limited experience) to her than she knows what to do with. Of course she thinks permanently attaching herself to just one would be dull. It would be for her. She likes to flirt, go to elegant parties, get herself into odd social situations just to see what happens. She could live her life single and probably have enough skill and creativity to have a full, happy life and raise healthy kids -- if that's what she wanted.

I can't see anyone getting real excited about Candice, on the other hand. I envision her friends as people more-or-less like her -- gray, pale, angular, and really into non-threatening modern art. She's probably a hard worker, well organized, and intelligent (popular TV shows don't hire people who aren't, I imagine), but she doesn't give off the air of sex or spunk that are hallmarks, I think, of truly balanced individuals.

This is not to say that Glenda's perfect, but when she says she doesn't want to get married, I think she's being perfectly honest.

We hadn't had the marriage conversation in a long time. I knew my views have changed -- now that friends are doing it -- and I wondered if, at some deeper level, hers had as well.

"You don't think you ever might want to just be boring and comfortable?" I ask.

"I want to be comfortable, yeah, but not boring. Do you want to get married in your life?"

"I guess so. I'd assumed that I would."

"It's not like you have to do it."

I took a spoonful of miso. "I didn't have to go to college, either."

"But college has been so cool!"

"Did you know what college would be like before you actually got here?"

"I had an idea, yeah."

She had a year-long "thing" with a computer science undergrad during high school. She would never define the relationship as boyfriend-girlfriend or anything, but there it was.

"Maybe Abe will be able to give us the same sense of excitement about marriage."