July 24, 2016
There is nothing like spending time with extended family,
their spouses and children to drive home my singleness; the price of my
independent life.
This particular return trip East, as I dread returning to
my obligations, makes for the logical reach for Aziz Ansari’s Modern
Romance: a desperate grasp at understanding my perpetual singleness in age of
technology and endless opportunity.
So far some of my dating choices call into question any
rational decision making process I have. To be sure, I have dated some
wonderful guys and left them for some minutia I built into the Great Wall of
China of relationship roadblocks and found safety in singleness once again. But
others have been more questionable like dating a former cartel member. No, there
was not a Cadillac with tinted windows to warn me. Turns out those guys look
like everyone else and wear just as much hair gel. And then there was the psychiatry
attending while I was a medical student. Red flags galore, but I zoomed past
them at 100 miles per hour keeping pace with the warp speed romance because he
was hot, could ski and had a dog.
And Mr. Ansari relays a bon point with his apt analysis of
our generation: “we’re in a hallway with millions of doors. That’s a lot of
doors. It’s nice to have all those options. But – a hallway with millions of
doors? Is that better? Is it terrifying? . . . Today we want a bunch of doors
as options and we are very cautious about which one we open.” Yes, Mr. Ansari,
a million doors is terrifying.
People tell me I am fun to hang out with and I have friends.
I’m highly educated; well, perhaps more aptly, I have spent thousands of
dollars on learning, though I venture a guess the jury is still out on how
educated I actually am. In all those years spent at academic centers I took for
granted the hundreds of people with whom I rubbed shoulders, assuming at some
point I would simply run into “the one” and the rest would be history.
Now I spend free time reading journal articles in a
desperate attempt to fill knowledge gaps or trying to understand market trends
and finance for my obligations associated with my family’s foundation rather
than chase after my epic soul mate. Where does that leave me at the end of the
day? Too chicken to ask the adorable guy doing the crossword puzzle two seats
down from me on this plane for his phone number? Who does a crossword puzzle on
a Sunday plane ride across the country? My future husband, that’s who. Alas, we
will never meet as the last several years have taught me how to study hard and
say very little which now is a practice that seems counter productive.
As the plane touches down and I shuffle off to the next
connecting flight, 4 total in this cross country venture, I wonder who might be
on that one and what would I say if only this post-modern dating scene wasn’t
so terrifying or such a tease.
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