BACHELOR GIRL

(sigh)

A friend recently sent me the book Bachelor Girl by Betsy Israel, and I must admit it held my attention. This isn't a new book -- it's been around a good while -- so the fact that the stereotypes written about have continued to exist into the 21st century is intriguing. Ms. Israel makes a humorous but articulate case for presenting women's evolution from domestic slave to loose-living flapper to marriage-minded single to business woman.

Having recently been involuntarily thrust into the single world, I have found new credence in the outcomes of women's journey for social independence over the years. And while I was already married and on the mommy track during the bra-burning years, I had empathy for that movement. I knew a handful of young women who Ms. Israel refers to as "slacker spinsters" -- those who believe in love but not the possibility of surviving in the matrimonial niche. I had to laugh -- and laugh long -- at "The Rules" she annotates: Get happy (whether you feel like it or not); don't leave the house without makeup; grow your hair long because men like long hair; don't tell sarcastic jokes; don't be a loud, knee-slapping girl. Boy, am I doomed! I'm happy SOMETIMES; I wear very little make-up; I have short hair; I love a good risque joke. (sigh)

I understand the depression that can befall us on Valentine's Day (and other holidays) if we're single and alone. She mentions the romantic who proposes to his girl on Valentine's Day by gluing letters to a Scrabble board. Of course, his girl has a delicate Gumby body, designs petite evening bags for dogs and lives in a fashionable TriBeCa loft. In reality, the rest of us, she says, are like Lucille Ball on LSD.

I'm not sure the single world is the "swamp" it's made out to be, but there are definitely some marshy parts in Life Alone. All in all though, here's the essence of single life as quoted by Cynthia Heimel in a 1997 issue of Playboy:
"I am so lonely I could die. I wake, realize I don't have a boyfriend and put my head in the oven...I go to parties, night classes, museums, various clubs and mixers with my eyelashes curled hopefully and am wracked with disappointment to find only more hopeful women with curled eyelashes. I go to dinner parties and my throat seizes up with envy as I watch the happy couples, who are my friends. My nights are long with longing. Grief. Also, I have a large bridge in New York to sell you. Ho. Ho. Ho."

(LOL)