Single and the City

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Walking through sunny Central Park this past weekend, I was inundated by images of baby carriages, men and women curling up on a blanket and cuddling, hands being held by the young and old. As a single male coming up on his mid-twenties, the social inertia is beginning to metastasize. Like a plague or epidemic sweeping the city, once someone close to you succumbs to being a couple, it is only a matter of time until the next person is swept up in couple syndrome.  Recently, several close friends of mine have settled down, and some, dare I say it, have even gotten married. In a city of nine million people, home to countless single graduate students and young professionals the probability for settling down seem high. Yet, over a year of living in the city I am happily and voluntarily single.

As I mentioned, many of my friends have begun to settle down with friends of friends, mutual acquaintances, co-workers, or just one of the plethora of people to chose from in the city. For me this has surrounded me even more with regaling and heartwarming tales of the perfect date in all of their candlelit, fondue eating, wine drinking, sun-rising, sun-setting glory. As delightful as it is to see my friends happy with that dating-someone-glow, and witness couple banter, these are the moments that compel singles to become couples. Social coercion is a strong force. It has the potential to ignite the mere spark of romance into a full-fledged conflagration.

There have been many occasions where I have asked myself why I have not settled down. Seeing the seas of couples floundering in their own lovelorn worlds, while singles float remotely by has caused me to consider the benefits of “coupledom”. I have remained single in a city with so many opportunities, not because I have never longed to have a romantic candlelit dinner, to come home after a difficult day of failure and management snafus in my classroom to a comforting kiss and supporting smile, or to wake up with someone who has become my world physically, emotionally, and intellectually. The mere essence of my being single in the city has been due to the fact that I am unwilling to open my world entirely to anybody else at this point in my life.

As an English teacher, word association is just one skill that we practice in class. Context is also extremely important when considering a word. Single in the context of music may mean record, track, or song. Looking at the word in terms of sociability single could mean solitary, solo, only, on its own. Finally, in terms of the topic this is addressing, dating status conjures up unmarried, unattached, lone, and free. It is this last word, free, that is the most convincing reason why I remain single in a world of better halves.

For every loving relationship, there is one that falls apart for one reason or another. This is partially why today over one out of every two marriages ends in divorce. Some of my friends are ahead of the curve so to speak and on the verge of second marriages. For those around me who have recently started new relationships I have seen the drama that occupies the time between the dates, romance, and glimmers of love. One relationship is on the verge of collapse because after making a commitment to someone, a friend has found themselves in the precarious situation of being interested in someone else. Others are feeling the strain of the demands of spending time with friends, dedication to their jobs, and dating on a budget in the city. Several of my newly coupled friends’ relationships are flourishing or are still going strong because they have managed to find this balance between commitment to their partner, staying in touch with friends, living their life, and functioning in their jobs.

I have chosen to remain single because I am not yet prepared to shift my balance between myself and all of the commitments that accompany it, and someone else.  At this stage in my life, I am wedded to ambition. This has enabled me to centralize my attention somewhat egotistically and self-servingly on myself. Living my life has been my main focus thus far, and I am not willing to share that life with someone else by devoting the time necessary to a relationship. In my present list of priorities to my job of moving my sixth graders forward, my commitment to augmenting the organization I am affiliated with at Teach For America, my own personal goals of bettering my body and mind by going to the gym daily, reading whatever educational, motivational, or intellectual material I can get my hands on, and living my life enjoying the good times of being young and single in the greatest city in the world with family and friends  (as an English teacher, I am well are that this is a run-on), having a relationship falls somewhere towards the bottom. This is not to say it is not important, or something I aspire for, it is just something that I do not need in my life right now.

Couples bring to mind love, security, and domesticity. As a twenty four year old male in the city, my pendulum sways towards sports, beers, and good times with friends. In a relationship there are certain constraints that you must deal with and value judgments that must be made. Going out to dinner translates to, “Sorry guys, I won’t be joining you at the pub to watch football.” Having a quiet night in with the girlfriend means, “You guys will have to tell me stories from your night out on the town tomorrow,” or in your head, well I suppose I can miss a day or two at the gym and I guess I can go a few days without reading the Wall Street Journal, or New York times, or lesson planning for my class. Being involved in a relationship imposes trade-offs and value judgments and as an economics major, at this stage in my life I can get more utility elsewhere. In a sense, I am dating my friends, my job, my network, and myself because these are the things where my time is allocated to, and I am perfectly fine with that.

Not to look at this in business terms, which oftentimes negates the humanity, but any relationship is a high-risk, high-yield venture. As just one small fish in a huge ocean, settling down for the time being means you have met that sure thing, or are ready to take that leap of faith. With that accompanying risk comes the chance that the time invested in that person, and moments spent could result in a loss of productivity at work, limits the time spent with friends or that could be spent on self-improvement, and could end in emotional pain and frustration. On the other hand, relationships have the power to make you a better person, to look outside of yourself, to continue to learn, challenge, and better each other. They become a partnership, a merger of equals, an alliance that shares in each others’ failures and successes.

In my own limited experiences with relationships, I am aware of how the pendulum swings in order to maintain it. Friends become neglected, affiliations become obligations, and job performance becomes lackluster as the balance sways towards the engulfment that are relationships. As someone who has prioritized these things above being a couple, I know it would not be fair to anyone willing to date me, or my own notion of being involved with someone if I cannot do it right. Relationships require time, love and affection, and they require being the most venerated and treasured thing in your life in order to make them work. Although the bonds established in relationships are strong, couples are fragile as the surfeit of strains can implode the most valued thing in your life. If your relationship is not the most important thing in your life- if you find your mind constantly wandering to your job, your friends, yourself, or a prospective lover- than your relationship is already crumbling. For me, I would rather be prepared to build the foundation for a solid relationship with the proper time and best materials of love, affection, and commitment, rather than something cheap, shoddy, and secondary. To me, building that steady base rather than something on faulty premises and desires is something worth waiting for.

I invite and certainly welcome any new perspective or comments on what I have just written. My speculations and beliefs open me to a lot of questions that I would welcome answers to. Am I being niave or afriad to open up and take the plunge? Do you think I have trouble committing? Am I prioritizing the wrong things at the moment? If you have just entered a relationship recently, or even if you have been in a one for a long time what has been your secret and how did it come about?

–Evan Piekara

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