Single State of the Union Single Women Speak Out on Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Happiness

by Mapes, Diane

• ISBN13: 9781580052023
• ISBN10: 1580052029
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-02-26
• Publisher: Seal Press

Summary

Are single women happy individualists? Neurotic man-hunters? Crazed cat ladies? Are they confused, or content? Bitter, or better off? No one seems to know. 

The popular media gives us shoe shopaholics, ditzy desperados, wannabe brides forever making cow eyes at The Bachelor. But what do single women have to say about their own lives? With sass, humor, and style, Single State of the Union paints a provocative, playful, and complex portrait of today's single woman, taking on such topics as:

• sex and the single girl
• single motherhood
• buying a house without a spouse
• faux boyfriends
• cohabitation hesitation
• single women in the media.

Written by an impressive roster of single (and some formerly single) women, this collection portrays single women as individuals whose lives extend well beyond Match.com and Manolo Blahniks. So listen up, Carrie. Attention, Bridget. It's time for the rest of us to be heard.

Author Biography

Diane Mapes is the author of How to Date in a Post-Dating World (Sasquatch, 2006), a funny journalistic take on the traditional dating manual. Her satire and reported essays on dating, singles’ rights, television, travel, freak magnets, naked sushi, swingers, and more have appeared in Bust, Christian Science Monitor, Health, Los Angeles Times, MSNBC.com, Seattle Magazine, Seattle Times, and the Washington Post. Happily single, she lives in Seattle.

Table of Contents

Introduction : greetings from spinster island
How come a nice girl like you isn't married?
Single-minded	p. 3
How I dodged a reality show bullet	p. 8
An open letter to mom, Deana, Mary, and the folks at work	p. 19
I am getting married	p. 24
You can't go home again	p. 27
Marriage can wait
Cohabitation hesitation	p. 41
Marriage ain't Prozac	p. 47
Can a single woman really be happy without a soulmate?	p. 57
Solitary refinement	p. 62
The single girl
Faux boyfriends	p. 69
The taming of the shrew	p. 74
What daughters do	p. 78
The straight and nappy	p. 84
The return on my investment has quadrupled	p. 93
The great cookie offering	p. 99
Gold shoes	p. 103
Sex and the single girl
Victoria's true secret	p. 111
The streak	p. 118
The wisdom of men-o-pause	p. 125
Thunder	p. 132
A work in progress : inside the mind (and bed) of a single sex columnist	p. 139
Next is now	p. 147
Sex Ed	p. 157
Unwed mothers
Me and I	p. 167
Doctor, donor, desperado	p. 175
Choosing single parenthood and a two-roof marriage	p. 181
Single scapegoat seeking	p. 189
I married adventure
Tangled up in wild blue	p. 199
Postcard from the edge	p. 205
Out of Africa, in Karen Blixen's footsteps	p. 212
Me make fire for Lynn	p. 217
Live alone and like it
The speech	p. 225
Home alone	p. 229
Single all the way	p. 235
Single blessedness	p. 246
House without a spouse	p. 252
Life after death	p. 260
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.