I lead two lives.  One as a dad to two great girls, and the other as some guy.  It’s a weird time to be a single dad.   I went into marriage in the mid-2000s.  Sure, there was the Internet, but all you could really do was check sports scores, send email and watch porn. Now, I’ve stumbled out of the woods and the world has exploded.  I watched it all from the comfort of stable relationships, seeing texting, tweeting and posting as amateur activities, but when you’re single, you have to turn pro.  It’s work. It somehow matters more, defines you more.

Don’t get me wrong, there are good things about being single now:

  1. Dating is way easier. I can’t imagine dating in my 40s in my parents’ day. Building yourself up, going over to someone, doing the dance, making the pitch. I’ve done it, but it’s so much easier when you’re living with the momentum of youth.  Mustering that all up now, especially at my age seems like playing catch underwater.  There just has to be an easier way.
  2. It’s easier to meet new people. Whatever you’re into, there’s someone who’s also into it. There’s a group of people ready to do things and all you have to do is click a couple times and you’re connected. And people don’t seem to care about your back story or that you just popped out of the woods. The anonymity and connectivity of the internet especially in the new Backpage site has made everyone a possible friend.
  3. So many of your friends are single too. It’s like showing up at a party where you don’t think you’re going to know anyone and hey! I know a bunch of people. It’s not going to be so bad after all. You can get together and do things, like….drink in people’s townhouses, or golf…once in a while, or…..have weird, odd-numbered dinner parties for misfit middle-aged singles and their terrified married friends (“Never leave me. I don’t want to be like them.”)

Bad things about being single now:

  1. Dating is way harder. I know, I just said it was way easier, but I should have said getting a date is way easier, after that it’s like an Escher drawing of love. You have no idea which way is up or what path leads where. Maybe at 25 it’s a game and is fun, but at 40, when you’re just trying to leave the house without shaving cream on your face, maintaining a “personal brand” while appearing just non-committal enough to seem interesting is exhausting.  Throw kids, bills and a career on that and it’s feels like being smited by Steve Jobs.
  2. Everything’s expensive. Everything costs. Houses are crazy, paid parking is everywhere, a concert is a hundred bucks, food might as well contain gold. When you’re married, you can feel your soul dying as you fold laundry watching Netflix on a Saturday night. Sure your soul may be dying, but hey, you’re saving money for your kids’ piano lessons. When you’re single, you can go out and spend all that delicious cash and not give a crap about your kids because you don’t have any. But when you’re a single dad you get it all, kids and freedom, but then you have to be able to afford both.
  3. You’ve totally forgotten how to be single. When you’re in your 20s and your single, it’s great because you’re supposed to be and the world is designed for you. It’s like you’ve hand-picked the extras for the movie of your life, and they’re just like you! But when you get married and have kids you go into the cocoon. You think you’re going to turn into a butterfly, a beautiful, responsible, committed butterfly of love. But you end up as a moth instead. Because that’s the kind of caterpillar you were. You were born from moths, so what else are you going to be? So, you spend your life slamming yourself against the light bulb of success and responsibility, hoping that you’ll break through to some joyous Xanadu.  And then one day your marriage ends and you look at yourself and say, “I’m a moth?! I was supposed to be a butterfly.” So, then you try and figure out how half way through your life you’re going to turn yourself into one without painting your wings.

I know, I make it all sound bad, but it’s not. A lot of it was great.  I can’t tell if I miss being married.  I think I do. What I miss more than anything was being part of a family, being one side of that square. That I miss. I realize now that square doesn’t really exist without the connection between you and your partner.  Without that it’s just two triangles beside each other, which is what we are now.