How to Be Single

by Liz Tuccillo

  Alice and I got on the dance floor with these two men. Now, I don’t want to brag, but Alice and I know how to dance. We don’t go crazy on the dance floor, nothing embarrassing, mind you, we’re just two girls who have a little bit of rhythm. “Groove Is in the Heart” was playing, and who doesn’t love to dance to that? Alice and I were boogying away, shaking our hips and moving our feet, clapping our hands a bit, but the men were just shuffling their feet a little. Okay, they’re not dancers, that’s fine. But it immediately put a damper on the boogying vibe. I started to shake my hips a little less, move my feet a little slower. Alice, on the other hand, kept at it, dancing closer to the handsome guy, putting her hand on his hip for a moment, then taking it away and swirling around. She wasn’t making a fool of herself by any means. She was just out there having fun. But Handsome Guy didn’t seem to want to play along. I was still having fun because I love the song, but it was hard not to notice that Short-Stocky Guy was looking above my head as he danced with me, not making eye contact with me at all. Now, here’s what I love about dancing: it’s a time when you can feel free and sexy and flirty with someone you might not necessarily even be interested in. Like kissing in Rio, it’s a great way to rev up your sexy engine without having to actually sleep with someone you don’t want to.

  So I was looking at Short-Stocky Guy, smiling, trying to be friendly and flirty. He had very closely cropped hair and a big round, ruddy face. He smiled back at me, briefly, and he went back to sort of staring four feet over my head. It was pretty disconcerting. So when the song ended I was planning on just getting off the dance floor and away from Stocky Guy. But then “Hey Ya” by Outkast came on, and I really, really love to dance to that. So I kept dancing, not giving Stocky Guy a chance to slip away.

  As I was bouncing up and down, I made a moment of eye contact with Stocky Guy and smiled. He just sort of ignored me and again turned his attention to four feet above my head. In that split second I knew exactly what was going on: He did not find me even remotely sexually attractive. Of course I’ve felt that before, on dates, in conversations, but never on the dance floor doing my sexy moves. A wave of humiliation came over me.

  “You’re reading too much into it,” Alice said later as we waited for our Sammy’s at the bar. “He didn’t like to dance. I had the same experience with my guy. That’s why he just swayed back and forth to the music. You don’t see me taking it personally.”

  “Alice, he stared above my head the whole time. ABOVE MY HEAD.” I was practically shrieking.

  We drank our wine, which was delicious. The music was still really great for dancing.

  “Let’s go dance by ourselves,” Alice suggested. “Fuck these guys.”

  I looked around at all the beautiful people. This was my first night in Sydney and I was damned if I was going to have a bad time because of some Above-the-Head-Starer. We set our wine down and headed out to the dance floor.

  I was still on a roll. Yelling over the music, I said, “I’m telling you, if I was on fire, that guy wouldn’t have gone near me to put it out.”

  Alice yelled back, “I’m telling you, Julie. Some guys just don’t like to dance! It has nothing to do with you.”

  Just then, my eyes glanced past Alice. There was the short-stocky-above-my-head guy doing the cabbage patch with a twenty-two-year-old blond pixie. He was perspiring, he was dancing so hard. From the expression on my face, Alice turned around and saw him. She turned back to me, speechless. Then, at the same time, we looked to our left and saw Exceptionally Handsome Guy grinding a woman on the dance floor. He had his hands on her hips and his pelvis was thrust close into hers. He must have met her about three and a half minutes ago. His hands moved toward the side of her face and he kissed her. They stopped dancing and they just began making out on the dance floor. Alice saw this. And this is another reason why I love Alice. She knows when to admit defeat. She leaned in to me and said, “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  Back in the States

  The cutest thing about Georgia’s date was that he was nervous. Shy. This was Sam’s first date since his divorce four months ago and he seemed like a boy at his high school prom. They had been set up by Alice, who knew Sam from her days in Legal Aid. Now that she and Jim were “exclusive,” Alice had a lot of extra time and energy to dedicate to finding other people boyfriends.

  They were at an out-of-the-way little restaurant on a block Georgia had never heard of, Tudor Place, which was slightly elevated above the rest of the neighborhood. This allowed for a 360-degree view of New York at night, with one side featuring the United Nations building looming above like a giant. Georgia was entranced. The restaurant was all candles and drapery, which made the room feel as if you were in some sheik’s love tent. Sam took charge and ordered a bottle of wine for them, which impressed Georgia immediately. Dale knew a lot about wine and she had to admit, it was something she always liked about him. Actually, it was something she always liked about them. Before the kids, they would take wine-tasting classes at the local wine store and once even went to Sonoma for a wine-tasting vacation.

  Tonight Sam ordered a lovely Shiraz, and then he began his adorable, completely winning confession.

  “This is my first date since my divorce, and I’m really, really nervous. I tried on three different shirts before I left the house.” He was smiling, his eyes looking at his hands, which were drumming nervously on the table.

  Georgia liked him already. An honest, vulnerable man who knew about wine.

  “Well, you look perfect.”

  And he did. He was a tall beanpole of a man, with beautiful sleek brown hair, that came down just past his ears. He looked a little like James Taylor, if James Taylor still had hair.

  “Thank you.” Sam looked up at Georgia, and then back down at his hands.

  “Alice told me that you were really beautiful and smart, so I knew the pressure was on.” Sam now looked straight at Georgia. “I just didn’t know how beautiful you actually were going to be.” He nervously pushed his hair back away from his face. “Thanks for agreeing to have dinner with me. I really appreciate it.”

  Georgia laughed. “I’m not doing it as a favor. You sounded nice on the phone and Alice said you were great.”

  Sam laughed, embarrassed. “Right. I guess I shouldn’t sound so pathetic, right? It’s just, going through a divorce, and the unhappy years of a marriage, well, it kind of undermines your confidence, you know?”

  Georgia nodded slowly and said, “Oh yes. I know.”

  But what she was really thinking, while she looked at him, was, Guileless. He was completely without guile or pretense. He was a grown-up, openhearted man who told her she was beautiful and practically blushed. She wanted to dart him, cage him, and bring him back to her place, where she could keep him to herself, unspoiled by the outside world. As they ate their dinner, she learned that he was from the Midwest, which perhaps explained a lot. His manners were impeccable. He was kind to the waitress but he also had a dry sense of humor that amused Georgia to no end. Best of all, when he spoke of his ex-wife, it was clear that it pained him to say anything bad about her; it was well into the conversation before Georgia got out of him that his wife had cheated on him. Many times. They talked and talked, sharing their personal stories about their marriages and how they ended, and besides being completely smitten, Georgia was totally impressed. Somehow this man managed to make being a beleaguered, cuckolded, mistreated husband—hot. He was noble and kind and funny with just enough self-awareness of the absurdity of it all to be utterly charming about his disastrous wreck of a marriage and fifteen lost years. They finished dinner and ordered another bottle of wine. They drank that and were both officially a little drunk. He waited while Georgia got in her cab and kissed her good night. And then, with complete sincerity, Sam told her he had had a great time and would love to see her again. They made a date for exactly a week later, which seemed like a long time away to Georgia, but she knew he was new to this whole dating thing, so she
didn’t want to push. Georgia went upstairs to her apartment, paid the babysitter, and went to bed, happy. There was hope now and hope’s name was Sam.

  Back in Australia

  I got up early the next morning to search for more statistics. I couldn’t get enough of them. While I was surfing the Web for “man drought,” there was one writer whose articles kept coming up. Her name was Fiona Crenshaw from Tasmania (a small island off the coast of southern Australia) and she wrote articles for the single ladies of Australia. She did it with cheeky Australian humor, but was adamant that no matter how bad the drought, the ladies must remember that they’re Goddesses, that they mustn’t settle, and must stay positive. She gave one woman the earth-shattering advice that—get this—she has to love herself. Isn’t that novel? Apparently, as long as you love yourself the men are going to start lining up in droves.

  This irritated me immensely. I sat on my bed, listening to Alice purr, and felt furious. Here’s a woman who was reciting the statistics in her columns, but telling the ladies to love themselves and “stay positive” anyway. If there were a starving village, with no food in sight, no one in their right mind would tell the village that all they had to do was love themselves and think positively and food would show up. But love has a mystical quality about it that makes us feel we can ignore the cold hard facts—one of them being that there aren’t enough men out there.

  Luckily, I didn’t have to think about this for long, because our hostess, Rachel, called to brighten my day.

  “My friend, Will, wants to take you out on his boat today. Can you two make it? It seems like it’s going to be a super day for that.”

  “Really? He wants to take us out on his boat?”

  “Yes, he’s a businessman, so he loves doing all this networking rubbish.”

  “But he knows that Alice and I aren’t necessarily…”

  “Oh please, you’re writing a book about dating. Who doesn’t love that? He’s going to bring some of his mates on board so you can get the male perspective on it.”

  “Well, that’s awfully nice…” I wasn’t used to all this generosity. I’m a New Yorker and we’re all too busy to be that accommodating to anyone.

  “See you at two at the hotel. The boat will pick you up right there.” And she hung up.

  His boat was a Donzi—a speedboat that looked very expensive and went very fast. We were rocketing around the harbor, our skin getting pushed back on our faces as the wind hit us, our hair getting knotted and gnarled. Will showed us where Russell Crowe lived (good going, Russell) and he pointed out the building that Rupert Murdoch owned. He also had brought along two of his mates, John and Freddie. They were in their early thirties, handsome, and, from what I could gather, extremely rich. John was the first swarthy man I had seen in Sydney, looking almost Italian. Freddie was a member of the family that Rachel worked for. In his own right, Freddie owned or partly owned five or six restaurants or hotels in downtown Sydney alone. He reminded me a bit of Lance Armstrong: tall, slim, confident, and kind of an asshole. He had narrow eyes and the ability never to crack a smile or look at you directly. I took one look at these handsome, rich gentlemen who live in the middle of a man drought and saw them as one thing and one thing only: kids in a candy store.

  So that was the attitude I took when Will finally slowed the boat down and I was able to sit down for a chat with these blokes. Will poured us all champagne, and Rachel had brought some tiny “nibbles”—itsy-bitsy pieces of black bread with salmon and crème fraîche on top. They were delicious. I asked the men if any of them had girlfriends. They said they didn’t. I asked them if it was because there were too many options, and they all just laughed and shrugged. Well, Freddie didn’t laugh because he was too cool to laugh.

  “So that means yes,” I said.

  They all just shrugged again, sheepishly. But John tried to explain.

  “It’s not like that. I want to settle down, I do. To fall in love. But I just haven’t met the right girl yet.”

  “But don’t you think that you might be having a hard time meeting the right girl because you’re never quite sure if there’s another right girl coming right after her?”

  Will spoke up this time. “No, when you fall in love, it just hits you, doesn’t it? You just know. There could be five hundred supermodels and you wouldn’t give a toss.”

  The others agreed. I really had only one question that I had wanted answered. It was about the damn statistics.

  “What does it feel like? To not have to worry about finding someone to love?”

  John looked at me, surprised. “What do you mean? I worry. I’m not sure.”

  Will agreed. “I work all the time. When do I have time to meet anyone?”

  John added, “Just because there’s lots of women around doesn’t mean I’m guaranteed to meet someone I can fall in love with.”

  Will poured himself a little more champagne. “In fact, it can be more depressing really, meeting all these women, and none of them being ‘the one.’”

  There was no way Will was going to get me to feel bad for him because there were too many women. I pressed on. “So you’re saying it’s just as hard for you to find love here in Sydney as it is for the women?”

  The two men nodded. Freddie was just staring out into the ocean, stone-faced. I didn’t let it drop.

  “But wouldn’t you have to agree that the odds of you falling in love are better, simply because you’re meeting more people who might be ‘the one’ than the women are? Don’t you think that has to help your odds?”

  John said, “I don’t think it works that way.”

  Will said, “All it takes is one.”

  These men had an entirely different way of viewing the statistics than I did. Apparently, to these men it doesn’t matter if there are a lot of fish in the sea. Finding the one fish to love for the rest of your life is difficult no matter where you swim.

  Alice continued the interrogation.

  “So have any of you ever been in love?”

  They all nodded their heads. Will began. “When I was a teenager I was in love. I got my heart crushed. I had a girlfriend when I was nineteen who just trampled me.”

  John agreed. “I treated my girlfriends well when I was young. I brought them flowers, wrote them love poems.”

  Will laughed and John went on, embarrassed. “I couldn’t help it, I was a romantic! I had a girlfriend when I was twenty-one whom I would have married. I was head over heels for her. But she broke up with me because she said I was getting too serious.”

  I wondered where this woman was now. I hoped she wasn’t single and living in Sydney.

  Alice looked at Lance Armstrong. “So, Freddie. You’ve been awfully quiet.”

  Freddie just looked at Alice and shrugged. “It was the same for me. I got crushed when I was younger. But I figured it out. Until a woman is around thirty, thirty-two, she has all the power. We hit on them, we fight over them, we chase after them. Then, around thirty-two, thirty-three, it all shifts. We get the power and they’re the ones fighting and chasing after us. I think it’s just payback. For all the shit they put us through when we were younger.”

  The other men looked at Freddie, not really disagreeing, but not wanting to start trouble. Alice narrowed her eyes, shifted in her seat, and calmly took a sip of her champagne. I dove in.

  “Would any of you consider going out with an older woman? Someone in her late thirties or even forty?”

  “I prefer the strategy of ‘divide your age and add four,’ if you know what I mean,” Freddie said, not really joking. The other guys laughed.

  I did the math. That meant that they all wanted to date nineteen-or twenty-year-olds. I was considering jumping off the boat right then and there.

  Freddie added knowledgeably, “We don’t meet single older women when we’re out, because there aren’t any.”

  Alice quickly said, “Excuse me?”

  In a cool, slow tone, as if talking to two imbeciles, Freddie explained,
“There aren’t women that age out at my clubs and restaurants because they’re all married.”

  I had to step in now. “Are you telling me that you think all the women over, like, thirty-eight are married? That’s why they’re not at your clubs?”

  “Yeah. Of course.” The other guys agreed.

  Alice, confused, said, “You’re saying there are literally no single women in Sydney who are over, say, thirty-eight?”

  Freddie nodded his head confidently. “Yes.”

  I stared at him for a minute and then cleared my throat. “Do you realize that the statistics, with which I’m quite familiar, don’t support that at all?”

  Freddie shrugged. “I own half the bars and restaurants in this town. Who are you going to believe, the statistics or me?”

  I was unable to stop talking. “Do you think, Freddie, that the reason you think there aren’t any women over the age of thirty-eight who are single is perhaps that you’re just not noticing them? That they might be invisible to you?”

  Freddie just shrugged. “Maybe.” Alice and I looked at each other. This was the biggest confession we had gotten out of any of these blokes all day.

  “Well, you two don’t have anything to worry about for years, so what’s the fuss?” Will asked. “How old are you ladies? Thirty-one, thirty-two?”

  Even here, on this boat with these men, it made me feel good to hear that. Damn me to hell. This time, Alice didn’t feel the need to correct him.

  That night, Alice may have blow-dried her hair and put on her heels and mascara, but she might as well have been wearing khakis, hiking boots, a safari hat, and carrying a rifle. She was out to track down where all the women over thirty-five were.