Being single

It’s the best thing in the world, this business of being single,” Craig, my former college classmate, announced to all of us gathered at a mini reunion. He — 45 years old, VP of a Silicon Valley-based computer and technology giant, smart, sensible and quite the looker — was recently divorced from a wife of 13 years, and dare I say that he has never looked better.

I had met his ex-wife once, many years ago, and she was everything we had expected her to be — or make that everything we had expected Craig to go for — tall, evenly tanned, slim, with long dark hair, whip-smart and as attractive and ambitious as he is. But perhaps everybody — including Craig himself — failed to factor in the most important thing crucial to the sustainability of any union: compatibility.

Craig, a former college varsity basketball player, is sporty and outdoorsy. His ex-wife is a gym rat all right, but more for personal aesthetic reasons than for leisure and enjoyment.  He lived to travel to exotic places; she loved the comfort of home. He worked an honest week and then transformed into a weekend warrior, venturing out of town and out of doors to scuba dive, skydive, snow and water ski, mountain climb and rappel, kayak and river raft — anything to taunt the limits of mortality, or feel that he is very much alive and in control. She, on the other hand, lived to enjoy the comforts of home, the warmth of a fireplace with wine glass in hand, and the entertainment that an old, black and white movie afforded the romantic and the sentimental.

Predictably, in time, their differences eroded whatever initial attraction had fueled them. Two children (ages six and 10) later, they found themselves estranged and clamoring for separate lives.

“Love is a decision, you know,” he told me, “not an emotion. To love someone in spite of everything is not humanly possible. It’s not only corny, it’s a load of crap, pardon me saying. If you hear of someone sticking it out with a spouse regardless of their innumerable differences, that’s because he has decided to, not because he loves her. There simply is no such thing.”

“In my country and my culture, the men tend to stay with their wives but maintain mistresses on the side just to keep things tolerable,” I pointed out to him. “We’re Catholic and all, you know. We don’t do no-fault divorces.” 

“Sure, I know that — I respect it, actually,” he said. “But I couldn’t live like that. Just couldn’t. Unimaginable. I like things legitimate, ironed out, clean. If I do find the right one and fall in love again — heaven forbid — I would make an honest woman out of her. I’m not going to do anything under the table, crouch around, go to empty, out-of-the-way restaurants and do stunts like that, or however else you guys do it — no offense. Life is much too complicated to engineer clandestine, overt couplings, you know what I mean?” he said, adding, “Best to cut clean and cut your losses. And then start over.

“You ask about my kids,” he continued. “They’re realists; I raised them to be. They’re resilient. I want them to live honest lives so it has to start with me. I need to be truthful.”

I mentioned to Craig that a good friend of mine — 40-something, Filipino, Catholic, and married with children — once told me that he who divorces his wife has no integrity because he has no staying power, no word of honor, and does not make his children’s welfare a priority. Craig immediately responded, “Does this friend have a mistress?” I didn’t answer. Craig looked at me in a funny way and volleyed back, “Now you tell me who has no integrity, he who divorces his wife to be true to himself or he who stays with her and keeps a mistress on the side?”

I sat tight, taking it all in — everything he said, word for word. And thought about all my married men friends and my single men friends and tried to decide which group was happier. I affectionately call my married friends “lifers.” Regardless of sex, regardless of their happiness index, they are all tied down — period. The only option they have left is to live out the rest of destiny, which their decision to get married in the first place, to whoever woman and under whatever circumstances, has predetermined for them. My single friends, on the other hand seem to be living the life: unattached and unaccountable to needling wives. But really, how much do I know about them to conclude that they are happier? Aren’t they forever on the look out for Ms. Right? Aren’t they forever going on first dates? Aren’t they forever going out, dining out, partying? No baggage, no worries, no drama? Okay, you’re right, maybe they’re the happier bunch based on those points.

But still, I find no answers in my head because in Filipino culture, once a man is past his 30s, he is automatically suspected of being gay if he remains single. Either that or he is a mama’s boy with major intimacy problems. I told Craig this and he was not surprised because his line of work has taken him to all corners of the globe. He said, in jest, “Better to be called something you’re not than to be unhappy for the rest of you’re life.  Nothing wrong at all about being gay but disastrous to be unhappy and handcuffed to its source all the way to your grave.”

To turn the mood a little lighter I told him something a single male friend once told me in all seriousness. “Craig, I have this friend, a bachelor and mighty proud of it, who told me what a fellow bachelor said to him once: ‘All women are bitches except for your mother and mine.’” He doubled over in laughter and said, “I am dying to agree with him except that I might not walk out of here alive considering how many women are present in this room.”

I looked around me and spotted a dozen women, easily, so I hailed a few over and repeated my remark about bitches and mothers. “And Craig here is reluctant to concur for fear of his life,” I announced. A chorus of cackling women erupted, “Come clean, Craig.  What do you say to that?” He raises his glass and says, “Since you asked for it, you’ll get it. I say that yes, according to her friend, all women are complicated bitches except for his mother and mine, and I drink to that.” No sooner had he uttered his last word than an avalanche of throw pillows, cocktail napkins, pieces of Melba toast and half-eaten olives descended on him. For the rest of the evening he puttered around the room smelling like an hors d’oeuvres plate.

But really, I’m curious. Who do you think has more integrity, he who remains single, he who divorces his wife for legitimate reasons, or he who honors his marriage vows but carries on extramarital affairs?

* * *

Thank you for your letters. You may reach me at cecilelilles@yahoo.com or visit my blog at www.fourtyfied.blogspot.com.