For the romantically challenged: The Curse of the Singles Table
September 18, 2005 | 12:00am
This Weeks Winner
Clarissa Estuar, 29, is a four-time Palanca awardee whos working as a scriptwriter for GMA-7. "I must admit, Im joining because the bookworm in me cant resist the idea of winning P5,000 worth of free books" and a shot at the P50,000 grand prize.
The Curse of the Singles Table features whole sections culled from my life. What was this Suzanne Schlosberg person thinking when she declared those experiences as part of her own true story? Theyre not just hers to tell. I, too, have crossed the threshold from "single to... still single," and I demand to be counted!
This phenomenon of being declared "still single" usually starts in ones late 20s. The author points out that you know youve reached that point when people stop asking, is she still single? in a hopeful tone and instead deliver that same question "in a tone reserved for questions like, Is it herpes?"
Now this isnt a book for someone whos scrounging around for a cute rejoinder to that awful, awkward question: why are you still not married? Often, the answers found in these pages are too long, too complicated and too honest for the casual observer. Sure theres a lot of humor sandwiched here and there, but if youve done some time in that limbo-esque state of being single when you already dont want to be, youll detect that strong undercurrent made out of sighs and silent nights spent alone.
Suzanne Schlosberg was, at the time of the books writing, 30-ish, Jewish and unmarried. In many cases, as in hers, this basically means that things are going well in the job front and shes content in other areas of her life, but she has started to feel the pressure to couple up. Most of this pressure comes from her close-knit family who likes to put their collective noses in her business under the guise of "being concerned." If they werent Caucasian and celebrated Hanukkah instead of Christmas, youd think they were Filipino. At the forefront of this group is her grandma whos come up with the ultimate guilt-inducing nag: "I hope you get married while Im still alive."
Its not as if Suzanne needs the extra push. She knows she wants to find someone, and for the right reasons, too. Suzanne is no romance novel-chomping dreamer. She has actually been out there and has had her share of relationships. Being in a relationship isnt just an abstract ideal that seems to be an attractive escape from her reality. She tried it both ways and feels she has squeezed all that she can from singlehood. She knows its time.
What she didnt anticipate was how hard it would be. The rules change when youre of a certain age apparently, so although shes not a shrinking violet and goes about trying to remedy her situation, she becomes stuck. There are blind dates from hell (one of which is so bad, she tells her date she has to hurry home to watch television, just to ditch him). A whole spell of attempts to harvest a half-decent man off the Internet. Try to top her stories with your own from the dating trenches, and chances are, you will fail. How many of us can claim to buy a fishless aquarium in the hope of fixing the feng shui in our bedrooms to attract love? At one point, she stops and realizes that shes gone almost 1,000 days without sex. Yes, 1,000 days.
For the less liberated out there, it can work on any level: 1,000 days without a kiss/ holding hands/ having a pwede-na-looking man look at you with interest because that tambay sa kanto with a patch over one eye just wont do.
Suzanne cant understand it. So she asks the question we all have in our heads but are too scared to say out loud: is something wrong with me?
Her "inner cabinet," as she fondly calls her group of advisers on anything personal, offers a wide variety of opinions on this matter. She breaks these up into several schools of thought (and weve all heard them before): youre too picky; youre too quick to judge; youre too aggressive, wait for the man to make the move; youre looking for love in all the wrong places.
Of course, these come with recommended remedies, the best of the lot from her friend Cristina: "Go hang out at the dump! A woman can really get a lot of attention there! Whenever I go unload my old canvases, guys are always fighting to help."
Curiously enough, Suzanne realizes that most of her critics are her coupled-up friends. Theyre genuinely stumped about why she has remained single. She theorizes: "When youve found another human being to stamp you with a seal of approval, all the insecurities that come with singleness quickly fade away. You become utterly convinced that if you could find somebody, then anybody can."
Perhaps this explains in part the roots behind that eternal battle not between good and evil, but between singletons and the coupled. Legions of single women have been baffled by the changes that sprout up when a friend finds a significant other. Suzanne counts them down for us. Girls nights out are restricted to when the SO is out of town. The newly-coupled friend now refers to herself as part of a "we," as in Were so burned out on California Pizza Kitchen or We love our new gymthe elliptical machine is our favorite! Suzanne echoes the thought weve all had when faced with this situation: "At what point did she stop having her own opinions?"
Of course, theres also the inevitable get-togethers with couples. As Suzanne points out, it usually is uncomfortable and weird, "although not as weird as when you receive birthday cards that say, Love, Cindy and Dan, even though youve met this Dan guy twice." In this situation, more than ever, you realize the chasm between you and your former companion in the dating front. Now, she and her SO "respond to your stories as if you were performing some sort of comedy routine. Granted, you may be going after the laughs, but still... it is your life."
And you see it all too clearly now. Youre on your own.
The good thing about reading Suzannes book is she puts herself in so many dating situations that youre bound to see yourself in a few of them. Turning the pages almost makes up for the fact that youve lost many of your girl friends to the other side. Its a chance to commiserate once again with someone who really knows how its like.
Going through this book also has the advantage of someone finally figuring out what one must do when you find yourself in a seemingly endless streak of singlehood: should you actively seek out a mate, or let the universe or destiny or kismet or whatnot take care of it? Most people offer a simplistic view: if you go out there, you risk looking too desperate, but if you stay put and wait like a lump, people berate you for not playing a more active part in actually making things happen. You cant win. Suzanne chooses to be a modern woman and uses her energies to look for a man, damn what everybody says. She goes through bad spells, but remains unscathed for the most part, because heck, she has something going for her: an essential belief in herself despite the little annoyances and setbacks thrown her way. Single women everywhere have a lot to learn from her approach.
Suzanne confesses to having her share of bad days, too, when she starts to buy into her well-meaning inner cabinets occasional insinuations that maybe shes the problem. For all she knows, theres just something essentially un-matchable about her. As she says, "If a baseball player struck out 39 times in 40 at-bats, wouldnt that suggest a flaw in his swing?"
But really, is there something wrong with looking for what you really want, and refusing to settle? Suzanne says, "Ive never believed there is just one perfect match out there for me there are probably dozens, if not hundreds. But why do they all seem to be in a witness protection program?"
Really, at the bare level, shes looking for a guy who can say the phrase "I feel" in a context other than "I feel like eating at Burger King." Many female voices will tell you that even this is hard to find. Even with all the jokes my friends and I throw around of just wanting to find a guy na may pulso, we actually want to work with something more substantial.
If you factor in that level of "sparkness" that one wants in a relationship, it gets even harder to find a match. But to follow Suzannes lead, one mustnt lose hope despite missteps and tongue-tied nights when you cant get a word out in front of an interesting enough prospect. In the meantime, Im sticking it out with my few remaining single friends. Who else can laugh with me during times such as when I find out that a married friends mother is demanding: "Si Clarissa, bakit hindi niyo ihanap ng pen pal o kaya phone pal?" Believe me, Tita, weve considered all the possibilities to no avail. But then, who knows, theres always Friendster.
Clarissa Estuar, 29, is a four-time Palanca awardee whos working as a scriptwriter for GMA-7. "I must admit, Im joining because the bookworm in me cant resist the idea of winning P5,000 worth of free books" and a shot at the P50,000 grand prize.
The Curse of the Singles Table features whole sections culled from my life. What was this Suzanne Schlosberg person thinking when she declared those experiences as part of her own true story? Theyre not just hers to tell. I, too, have crossed the threshold from "single to... still single," and I demand to be counted!
This phenomenon of being declared "still single" usually starts in ones late 20s. The author points out that you know youve reached that point when people stop asking, is she still single? in a hopeful tone and instead deliver that same question "in a tone reserved for questions like, Is it herpes?"
Now this isnt a book for someone whos scrounging around for a cute rejoinder to that awful, awkward question: why are you still not married? Often, the answers found in these pages are too long, too complicated and too honest for the casual observer. Sure theres a lot of humor sandwiched here and there, but if youve done some time in that limbo-esque state of being single when you already dont want to be, youll detect that strong undercurrent made out of sighs and silent nights spent alone.
Suzanne Schlosberg was, at the time of the books writing, 30-ish, Jewish and unmarried. In many cases, as in hers, this basically means that things are going well in the job front and shes content in other areas of her life, but she has started to feel the pressure to couple up. Most of this pressure comes from her close-knit family who likes to put their collective noses in her business under the guise of "being concerned." If they werent Caucasian and celebrated Hanukkah instead of Christmas, youd think they were Filipino. At the forefront of this group is her grandma whos come up with the ultimate guilt-inducing nag: "I hope you get married while Im still alive."
Its not as if Suzanne needs the extra push. She knows she wants to find someone, and for the right reasons, too. Suzanne is no romance novel-chomping dreamer. She has actually been out there and has had her share of relationships. Being in a relationship isnt just an abstract ideal that seems to be an attractive escape from her reality. She tried it both ways and feels she has squeezed all that she can from singlehood. She knows its time.
What she didnt anticipate was how hard it would be. The rules change when youre of a certain age apparently, so although shes not a shrinking violet and goes about trying to remedy her situation, she becomes stuck. There are blind dates from hell (one of which is so bad, she tells her date she has to hurry home to watch television, just to ditch him). A whole spell of attempts to harvest a half-decent man off the Internet. Try to top her stories with your own from the dating trenches, and chances are, you will fail. How many of us can claim to buy a fishless aquarium in the hope of fixing the feng shui in our bedrooms to attract love? At one point, she stops and realizes that shes gone almost 1,000 days without sex. Yes, 1,000 days.
For the less liberated out there, it can work on any level: 1,000 days without a kiss/ holding hands/ having a pwede-na-looking man look at you with interest because that tambay sa kanto with a patch over one eye just wont do.
Suzanne cant understand it. So she asks the question we all have in our heads but are too scared to say out loud: is something wrong with me?
Her "inner cabinet," as she fondly calls her group of advisers on anything personal, offers a wide variety of opinions on this matter. She breaks these up into several schools of thought (and weve all heard them before): youre too picky; youre too quick to judge; youre too aggressive, wait for the man to make the move; youre looking for love in all the wrong places.
Of course, these come with recommended remedies, the best of the lot from her friend Cristina: "Go hang out at the dump! A woman can really get a lot of attention there! Whenever I go unload my old canvases, guys are always fighting to help."
Curiously enough, Suzanne realizes that most of her critics are her coupled-up friends. Theyre genuinely stumped about why she has remained single. She theorizes: "When youve found another human being to stamp you with a seal of approval, all the insecurities that come with singleness quickly fade away. You become utterly convinced that if you could find somebody, then anybody can."
Perhaps this explains in part the roots behind that eternal battle not between good and evil, but between singletons and the coupled. Legions of single women have been baffled by the changes that sprout up when a friend finds a significant other. Suzanne counts them down for us. Girls nights out are restricted to when the SO is out of town. The newly-coupled friend now refers to herself as part of a "we," as in Were so burned out on California Pizza Kitchen or We love our new gymthe elliptical machine is our favorite! Suzanne echoes the thought weve all had when faced with this situation: "At what point did she stop having her own opinions?"
Of course, theres also the inevitable get-togethers with couples. As Suzanne points out, it usually is uncomfortable and weird, "although not as weird as when you receive birthday cards that say, Love, Cindy and Dan, even though youve met this Dan guy twice." In this situation, more than ever, you realize the chasm between you and your former companion in the dating front. Now, she and her SO "respond to your stories as if you were performing some sort of comedy routine. Granted, you may be going after the laughs, but still... it is your life."
And you see it all too clearly now. Youre on your own.
The good thing about reading Suzannes book is she puts herself in so many dating situations that youre bound to see yourself in a few of them. Turning the pages almost makes up for the fact that youve lost many of your girl friends to the other side. Its a chance to commiserate once again with someone who really knows how its like.
Going through this book also has the advantage of someone finally figuring out what one must do when you find yourself in a seemingly endless streak of singlehood: should you actively seek out a mate, or let the universe or destiny or kismet or whatnot take care of it? Most people offer a simplistic view: if you go out there, you risk looking too desperate, but if you stay put and wait like a lump, people berate you for not playing a more active part in actually making things happen. You cant win. Suzanne chooses to be a modern woman and uses her energies to look for a man, damn what everybody says. She goes through bad spells, but remains unscathed for the most part, because heck, she has something going for her: an essential belief in herself despite the little annoyances and setbacks thrown her way. Single women everywhere have a lot to learn from her approach.
Suzanne confesses to having her share of bad days, too, when she starts to buy into her well-meaning inner cabinets occasional insinuations that maybe shes the problem. For all she knows, theres just something essentially un-matchable about her. As she says, "If a baseball player struck out 39 times in 40 at-bats, wouldnt that suggest a flaw in his swing?"
But really, is there something wrong with looking for what you really want, and refusing to settle? Suzanne says, "Ive never believed there is just one perfect match out there for me there are probably dozens, if not hundreds. But why do they all seem to be in a witness protection program?"
Really, at the bare level, shes looking for a guy who can say the phrase "I feel" in a context other than "I feel like eating at Burger King." Many female voices will tell you that even this is hard to find. Even with all the jokes my friends and I throw around of just wanting to find a guy na may pulso, we actually want to work with something more substantial.
If you factor in that level of "sparkness" that one wants in a relationship, it gets even harder to find a match. But to follow Suzannes lead, one mustnt lose hope despite missteps and tongue-tied nights when you cant get a word out in front of an interesting enough prospect. In the meantime, Im sticking it out with my few remaining single friends. Who else can laugh with me during times such as when I find out that a married friends mother is demanding: "Si Clarissa, bakit hindi niyo ihanap ng pen pal o kaya phone pal?" Believe me, Tita, weve considered all the possibilities to no avail. But then, who knows, theres always Friendster.
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