Tag Archives: Being Single

Be Mine, Be Thine

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This is a series of posts about Italy, Malta, and Spain that starts here.

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On the heels of Valentine’s Day and the last story about my worst trip re-entry ever, and having arrived home late last night from a group trip to Central America, I’d like to wish you all a Happy Valentine’s Day.

The composition of the group tour was typical of other such trips I’ve taken.  There were 10 of us plus the guide.  It was two married couples, three married people whose spouses hate the outdoors so they had come solo, and three single women.  I used to spend a lot more time wondering, “Why are so-and-so married and I’m not?” or wondering if I would meet a guy on one of these trips.  It could happen.  But all I could think of by the fourth or fifth day was “I want to be alone!”

I’ll write more about this trip once I’ve covered Spain, but for now I just wanted to repeat the theme I’ve written about annually on Valentine’s Day.

According to all the standardized tests I’ve taken, I am an extrovert.  I am sure that I’m not.  I get along well with people, I think.  I like meeting new people.  I like spending long blocks of time with certain people.  But when I am exhausted or stressed or just need to recharge, I want to be alone.  I think that’s the definition of an introvert.  Maybe because I’ve always worked in communications and development, I’ve learned to be comfortable being “on.”  But come Saturday, all I want is to hang out home alone.

Society has names for introverts: Loner, recluse, hermit, withdrawn, antisocial, wallflower, solitary, shy.

I am struggling to come up with a list of similar negative words for extroverts. The ones that come to mind are neutral or positive: Larger than life.  Life of the party.  Outgoing. Sociable.  Genial. Affable.

Think about it: The police catch a serial killer. The TV news interviews his next door neighbor. What does she always say? “He kept to himself.” As if that explains why he murdered people.

I happened to catch a TV show about eccentric people in Minnesota.  Apparently we are number one in that regard. They were interviewing the sister of Frank Johnson, maker of the world’s largest twine ball. When asked what she thought motivated her brother to undertake such an endeavor, her answer was, “Well you know, he never did marry.”

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I never have married, but I’ve seen plenty of couples here and while traveling who look miserable together.  I just don’t buy society’s message that you have to be partnered to be fulfilled, happy, a valid person, whatever. It’s not that I’m opposed to it, I just don’t believe that being part of a couple fixes life’s problems. It’s like any other of life’s big choices—both being single and being partnered contain different trade offs.

I have often wondered if I could adjust to living with a partner.  I think I could; after all I’ve adjusted to living in other countries and had housemates and am in general an open-minded person who is comfortable with who I am.  I’m usually good at speaking up for what I want and don’t want, which seems like the basis of good communications.

Yadda yadda yadda.  Have a good Valentine’s Day with your sweetie, even if it’s your kid, or a friend, or your mom, or yourself.  Lord knows we can use all the love we can get in this angry world.

A Bumpy Landing

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This is a series of posts about Italy, Malta, and Spain that starts here.

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I decided to write one more post before I leave for Belize.

In my last post I noted that I have sometimes returned home in bad shape or to dicey situations.  This post is about that worst time ever.  There was that time I got bumped up to first class on a London to Minneapolis flight, was seated next to a handsome, single, and presumably rich man my age—but I had a terrible cold and I went through an entire box of Kleenex blowing my nose.  He expressed sympathy at the start of the flight, then faced away from me for eight hours.  I can’t say I blamed him.

This was worse.  I was dating a guy I’ll call Jed whose parents were Italian immigrants.  He had been to Italy many times.

Before I met him, Lynn and I had made plans to meet in Venice, and Jed was excited for me to see the country he loved so much.

By the time the trip happened, Jed and I had been dating for about two months.  By this point in a relationship, things have usually … erm, progressed … but not with Jed.  He made the trek from Minneapolis to St. Paul every Saturday night to pick me up, sometimes with flowers or a nice bottle of wine, Italian of course.  We would go out to dinner, have great conversations, maybe see a movie, then he would bring me home, kiss me good night, and leave.  There was no groping, no heavy breathing, no frustrated desires.

It kind of felt like a first date, every week.  It was all very nice, but there was no sizzle.  I thought that maybe if I was gone for a couple weeks, he would be dying to see me—and more.

So I went to Italy and Lynn and I had a great time as usual.  I bought a purple felt deco-style hat that Lynn said looked very “fetching” on me.

I had an early flight home from London, so I booked myself into a Yotel at Heathrow.  Yotels are cool little hotels in airports.  The rooms are tiny but mirrored all around to prevent claustrophobia.  For once, I was good and didn’t drink a bottle of wine the night before a long flight.  Instead, knowing Jed would be picking me up, I hydrated like crazy and went to bed early to get my beauty sleep.

I started feeling funny as soon as the plane landed.  I stopped in a bathroom to check my makeup before meeting Jed, and my face was ashen and gaunt.  The purple hat that had looked fetching the day before made me look like some sort of demented Dia del Muerte skeleton dancer.  Still, I had plane hair so I kept it on.

The look on Jed’s face told me I hadn’t just been hard on myself.  He asked if I wanted something to eat and I said yes, thinking if I got some chicken soup it might make me feel less queasy.  It didn’t.  It made me want to hurl, violently.

“I need to get home,” I said weakly.  But I couldn’t remember which ramp my car was parked in.  We drove around for a very long 15 minutes, me Trying Not to Throw Up in Jed’s SUV.

Finally, we found my car and I made a dash for it without even kissing Jed goodbye.  Thankfully he drove off so he didn’t have to witness me blowing chunks in the parking ramp.

Oh, did I mention it was the coldest night of the year, around -20F (-29C)?  Shaky, I managed to drive out of the airport before I pulled over, threw open the car door, and chundered on the side of the road.  This happened three or four times more before I reached home, where the heat was turned down to 55F (12C).  I cranked up the thermostat then started a bath of scalding hot water and lay in it shivering and shaking.  What a long night.

And Jed?  I broke with him a few weeks later after a couple more Groundhog Day-like dates.

Art and The Avocado

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This is a series of posts about Italy, Malta, and Spain that starts here.

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As I exited the Borghese Gallery at exactly 2:00 pm I wondered, Why Caravaggio?  Why Bernini? Why did they become famous, while hundreds of other artists who had created most of the art in the gallery remained nameless nobodies?  How do some artists “break out” from the pack? Is it talent, connections, luck, or what?

I could appreciate how difficult it must have been to carve fingers out of marble.  Were no other sculptors able to do that—is that why Bernini stands out?  I could see how Caravaggio’s paintings were darker than his peers.  Is that why he’s considered so much greater than other painters?  Was “darker” a breakthrough in the 16th Century, like cubism would be in the 20th?  Even the worst artist in the gallery—if there was one—was infinitely better than I could ever be.  I felt like a philistine and resolved, as usual, to read up on what I had seen when I returned home.

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I sat on a bench outside the gallery next to an elderly couple and pulled out my map so I could think about where to go next.  The man leaned over to me and asked where I was from.  He had never heard of Minnesota and his English was so-so, but that didn’t stop him from talking without interruption for 20 minutes straight.

He commandeered my map so I couldn’t walk away.  He was very nice but he made enough suggestions to keep me busy in Rome for a month.  “You must walk over to the other side of the river and see the Church of St. Celestine of the Bloody Hand,” he said enthusiastically.  “It’s like no other church you’ve ever seen!  It will only take you about a half hour to get there by taxi.”  I made up that church name, of course.

He paused, then sighed, “Ah, that’s-a-Roma.”

His wife leaned forward to peer around him at me with a look that said, “He always does this.”  She must have been 80 but she didn’t have a hair out of place and she was wearing a skirt and high heels.  He was wearing a black trench coat, open so I could see his tweed suit and silk tie.  They were both wearing boxy, trendy eyeglasses.

He said something that sounded like “I am an avocado.”  What?  “A lawyer—retired,” he said in English.  Ah, an avvocato—as in legal advocate— I nodded.

“You must see the Caravaggios in the Church of the Holy Martyrs of the Flagellation,” came next.  “Ah, that’s-a-Roma.”

“You are by yourself?” he asked.  “Alone?”  When I nodded he looked back at his wife and I couldn’t see their faces but I imagined they exchanged pitying glances.

Finally, I maintained eye contact and smiled while gently extracting my map from his hands, then walked off down the tree-lined lane.  They were such a sweet couple.  Why wasn’t I part of a sweet couple?  Why?  What had I done wrong?  Would I ever meet Mr. Right?  Why was I the Only One in the World who was alone?  Blah, blah, blah went my thoughts.  A few tears escaped, and I thought this would be a good time to sit on a bench, rest a bit, and gather my thoughts.  But counterintuitively, it’s often when I’m over tired that I have the urge to Press On No Matter What.  I was determined to find one of the things the old man had recommended—a church in the Piazza del Popolo which had two Caravaggios.

Despite it being close by, I got lost.  I consulted the map, then got lost again.   It was hot, I was hungry and tired.  The thoughts started again: What’s wrong with you?  You’re such an idiot.  No one else gets lost this much.  Finally I stumbled into the church and gazed at the Caravaggios.  Meh.  I think I had OD’d on art.  After three days of nonstop touring, I told myself I had nothing to prove.  I walked back to my hotel, polished off my complimentary prosecco, and slept for 12 hours.