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Chapter One
A Fortress Unto Itself: The Single
You do not let someone else dictate your happiness. You come home whenever you damn well please. You have hobbies. You spend late nights at work without worry and haven't taken a vacation since 2003. You tell anyone who will listen that you're deliriously happy. You can't remember the last time you changed your sheets. The only person's birthday you have to remember is your mother's. You repeatedly make out with people whose last names you don't know and whose first names are equally iffy. When your confused and desperate friends ask you for dating advice, you make references to your last ex (you know, the one from three years ago). You go to the gym. You are the first to show up for parties. Heck, you even have time to think of witty RSVPs to the Evite. You are the go-to person when someone needs help moving into a new apartment or needs someone to post bail. You, dear reader, are the Single.
And you are miserable.
Better than the Chair
First thing first: It's important to remember that being single is not the death sentence that your mother makes it out to be. Sure, at your age, most of the good men and women are already snatched up by people more together than you, and you're not getting better—you're just getting older. But hope is not lost, miserable single person. Let's look at a few characteristics that define who you are and what's horribly, horribly wrong with you—and show you how to fix them.
He Says/ She Says
Should you hate yourself for being single?
She Says: No!
Somehow we've all been programmed to believe that if you haven't already gotten married on a Disney cruise, popped out two children by thirty, live in a subdivision, and plan all-inclusive vacations to Mexico, where the only exotic people you meet are from Idaho (you've never met anyone from Idaho before!), there is something wrong with you. Well, okay, so your mother probably thinks there is something wrong with you—but that doesn't mean you should. Why in the world are you supposed to hate yourself because someone with nothing better to do hasn't asked you to get married and live a boring life watching cable on your La-Z-Boy? No. You should love yourself because of this.
Single women have everything going for them—there is a world of possibility ahead of them. Every single man you encounter knows he can try to get into your pants without getting smacked down by a boyfriend/husband. But talking to these eager men about how you hate yourself because you're single means that you will always, always be single. They won't jump up and say, “You hate being single, too? Let's make babies together, hot stuff!” No, they will back away and talk to the confident single girl who seems like she might be fun to hang out with.
Sure, you want to share your life with someone. That's a nice thought. But hating yourself because that hasn't happened yet only leads to overeating, depression, and wearing sweatpants everywhere you go. And you can let that happen only once you're married. Being a downer means that other downers will want to be around you, and doubling that Prozac prescription is pricey.
He Says: Yes!
To be single is to hate yourself. Clearly, everyone else in the world hates you. If they didn't, you'd be dating someone already.
But as any self-help book written since the mid-'60s will you tell you, you need to avoid that kind of negative thinking, right? Wrong. Self-loathing is a great motivator for self-improvement.Tired of hearing you bitch and moan about your weight issues and abject loneliness, your friends will try to tell you that you're just fine. Don't listen to them. They're only saying that because they're deluding themselves. After all, if you suck, that means they, as the only people willing to spend time with you, suck by proxy. You are the only one who knows your own heart—and deep down, you know that it beats inside the body of a pathetic, unlovable loser.
But simply acknowledging your own shittiness is not enough. Life, dear reader, is like those ads in Archie comic books where a bully kicks sand in a dweeb's face, so the dweeb buys a home gym, buffs up, then kicks the bully's ass. You, self-hating single, have kicked sand in your own face—and it motivated you to go out and buy a home gym of the mind (this book). Now that you have the tools necessary to fix yourself, cling to that self-loathing until you're fixed. Use it to fuel the fires needed to get yourself in datable shape—new haircut, hot jeans, and some Proactiv Solution for that unsightly business happening on your left cheek. Soon, when you look in the mirror and see a fresh, fuckable you, you'll be glad you made yourself feel like ass.
Dating Makes You Want to Die
Excerpted from Dating Makes You Want to Die: But You Have to Do It Anyway by Daniel Holloway, Dorothy Robinson
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
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