I’ve long moved on from my divorce, and my memories of what it felt like to be so full of sorrow, to be brimming to the point that I stole a quick cry every time I bent down to tie my shoe or turned my back to stir my tea at the kitchen counter, are fading.

Before those memories disappear entirely, I want to root for those people one more time, out loud. Brand-new divorcees of the world, I’ve got seven things to say to you:

BE PROUD OF YOURSELF

You’re battling a bogeyman that some people would do anything to get away from, that a lot of miserable people decry with histrionic fervor. Right now, somewhere, a man or woman is tolerating treatment that erodes his or her humanity just to avoid the experience currently hitting you in the face with a sledgehammer.

These people, the ones who still need their lives to be a story that makes sense, say it loudly, so that the monster under the bed will hear: Divorce isn’t an option. Well, you’re making it an option. You’re making it an option like a fucking badass. Maybe you found yourself dumped into an arena against your will, facing that monster gladiator-style while the deadbolt slides into place behind you and you clutch whatever weapon you can find in terror. Or maybe you dragged that fucker out by his ankle and have tackled him out of sheer rage about everything that has happened in the last months or years, everything that made you feel broken, alone, or so bored you could scream. Either way, you are fighting, for yourself and often for your children, and that is hard.

You’re making your world from scratch, and that requires tirelessness and bravery. Be proud of yourself.

DON’T GET NOSTALGIC

I’ve said it before: Two happy people do not wake up one morning, get into a playful fight over the last bagel, and wind up in court. Something got you here, and I’m willing to bet it wasn’t “No, I love YOU more! No, YOU hang up!” Divorce isn’t a masked man who pops up out of the shrubbery and demands that you hand over your happy relationship. Divorce is your relationship, or at least what your relationship has become in this moment. Nothing has been done to either of you that doesn’t happen to couples all over the world. If you want to work it out, work it out — but with honesty and an extremely discriminating eye for eliminating the issues.

And before you moon over those wedding photos, remember that it’s easy to look happy when someone else has done your hair, your new mother-in-law has just given you a really nice rice cookier, and a photographer is waiting in the wings to Photoshop out the zit on your nose. It was easy to look happy when you were still in the youthful business of condensing your happier moments into something everyone could see.

Your life right now is no accident, and you can’t afford to lie to yourself about that. Don’t get nostalgic.

REMEMBER THAT THIS IS YOUR FIRST TIME

Maybe you miss your spouse. Maybe you miss your house or your children. There are a lot of very logical reasons for your distress, for the feeling that you don’t know what to think about or where to put your hands, but remember that unfamiliarity causes a great deal of distress on its own, regardless of context. You’ve never been in pain like this; you have no idea how long it’s going to last; your life experiences thus far have not yielded a map out of this dark maze. Remember your first breakup, how you thought you’d never heal, how you thought you’d ruined everything? Yeah, like that — except this time society agrees with you, because unlike other breakups, this is a breakup we’ve been taught to pretend will never happen, a breakup we aren’t allowed to accept as a standard part of learning and growing.

People have asked me if I’m afraid to get married again out of fear of having to go through divorce all over again someday, but I can’t imagine any divorce being as bad as the one I endured, because at least half of my misery came from the utterly false notion that I had permanently damaged myself and my life, that I was a ruined human being. If I ever get divorced again, I will have an enormous advantage over the last time: Experience will have taught me that I will be just fine.

You are nowhere that you’ve ever been. Remember that this is your first time.

DON’T MAKE ANY BIG, CRAZY DECISIONS

I know you’re going to anyway, but … I just … later you’ll … oh, well. Your hair will grow back, I guess. Just be aware that your opinions will oscillate wildly for the next year, or two. You’ll be so sure of something only to later realize that you were speaking out of pain, or fear, or anger. It’s okay to have those feelings, but try let them marinate for a while before deciding they’re worthy of action. Don’t make any big, crazy decisions.

IT’S OKAY TO BE SOMEONE ELSE NOW

Every day is going to make its mark on you no matter what, unless you’re okay with living a life devoid of personal growth. Every experience changes you — that’s just part of the process of becoming one of those badass senior citizens who fart anytime they want and are willing poke rude people in the sternum on the bus. You’re only stressed about the change now because you think that the new you is the unhappy version, but that’s not forever; grieving always sucks even when it’s time to move on and do just that.

But eventually, you will feel better, and you won’t mind your new perspective so much. In fact, if you’re like many people I know, you’ll struggle a lot less with fear than you have in the past, because you’ve seen firsthand how tough you can be, and you finally trust yourself to handle whatever comes your way.

You will never be the same, but that was never the deal. Every heaven or hell on earth you have ever set foot into has resulted in someone else walking out the other side. It’s okay to be someone else now.

LIFE IS NOT THE SUMMARY OF YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES

Life is not the summary of your circumstances. You can be more. Reach outward, just a little, even if it just means making a point of looking around you. You can be the observer of things that have nothing to do with you. You can be someone else’s good day. I know you don’t have a lot of energy, but even a small gesture, a glance upward, can make you feel better. I developed this practice of reaching outward during my divorce, and I’ve kept it, and it enhances my happiness still. Because I’ve looked around, I know a lot of little things, like the fact that the train I ride to work every day, in my new life, was manufactured when I was five years old.

I like to think of it being made while I went about my business in kindergarten, having no idea that commuter trains existed. I like to think of it shuttling people back and forth long before I got here, its doors opening and closing and people pouring in and out while I grew up and got married and got turned around and suffered the devastating loss of my marriage two thousand miles away. I find it deeply reassuring that reality is defined by so much more than what I feel like today, that it is not my sole responsibility to stand here and make this train real, that it doesn’t have to matter so much how I feel.

Look up. Learn something. Life is not the summary of your circumstances.

YOU REALLY ARE GOING TO BE FINE

You really are going to be fine. Look at the divorced people around you. Are they living in some urine-scented alley somewhere, drinking whiskey for breakfast and spending the rest of the day sitting on the sidewalk with their backs against the wall, staring into the middle distance with bloodshot eyes while they hold up a sign that says WILL WORK FOR LESSONS ON HOW TO CHANGE THE FILTER IN THE FURNACE BECAUSE MY HUSBAND ALWAYS DID IT SO I DIDN’T KNOW HOW AND NOW I’M HOMELESS? If you don’t know any divorced people, consider me your token divorced person; feel free to refer to me that way at parties. I am fine.

I am better than fine, actually. I am healed, and happy, and excited about the future. And I have faith that someday, not so far away as you think, you will be, too.

First things first: Criticize the timing of the argument. This clever ploy distracts your opponent by forcing them to focus on something they can do nothing about, instead of the problem they initially complained about. The trusty standby is “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” or “Why am I just hearing about this now?” but feel free to lay it on a little thicker: “You could have brought this up before I moved all the way to Iowa with you six years ago.” If you can imbue the current time frame with an emotional significance that implies your opponent should have been especially considerate of your feelings on that day, that’s also helpful: “I can’t believe you want to talk about this on Arbor Day.” People are always choosing the absolute wrong time to bring up your flaws; any caring human being would have the decency to wait until you were in the mood to hear that you’ve fucked something up. Encourage them to remedy their infraction by building a time machine, a laborious and consuming task that will leave no time for conflict, nagging, or snide quips about your inability to shower regularly.

Feign amnesia. You can’t be guilty of what you don’t remember. Who knows whether that statement is logically true or not, but it sounds good, like something someone would put at the bottom of a movie poster depicting Jason Bourne and some explosions. When faking amnesia, it’s important not to seem incompetent or dysfunctional, as that might cast you in an unfavorable light as an unreliable historical witness. A simple, but elegant way to sidestep such a pitfall is to pretend it is completely absurd to be expected to recall a dead-baby joke you may or may not have made in front of a certain someone’s parents at the dinner table twenty-four entire hours ago. Accuse your opponent of holding grudges, keeping score, or any other activities that associate a clear factual recollection of historical events with petty spite.

Simply put: lie. That screaming call to your wife from your mistress? Wrong number. That $500 you spent on shoes? There’s obviously a decimal point missing on your credit-card statement. Lying is such an obvious antidote to reality that some people foolishly forget it even exists. It’s also perfectly legal unless you’ve been sworn in by a bailiff or are provably damaging someone’s livelihood or reputation. No one ever said anything about criminalizing your ability to lie in your own damn kitchen, which is one of the thousands of inalienable rights America’s troops continue to so bravely fight for, probably. Free yourself from the shackles of the truth; they’re only holding you back in your thundering charge toward victory. Square your shoulders, stand up tall, look your opponent in the eye, and say bravely, “I have never seen those panties before in my life.”

Escalate the drama with a meta plot twist. Oh, someone is angry at you? Dazzle and confuse your opponent by getting angry at them for being angry. If your partner is a dignified individual, your willingness to embarrass yourself with this ploy can only be advantageous, like a magical trapdoor that cuts right through the hard deck of tactical engagement. They’re hurt and horrified that you emptied the checking account? Well, you’re even more hurt and horrified that they suspected you enough to snoop through bank statements when you hadn’t ever once given them any reason not to trust you that they could confirm with 100% certainty at that particular point in time. Ensure that your wishes are respected in the future by reminding them that it makes you really upset when they criticize you and that you’ve asked them repeatedly to stop doing it. If you own any fire hoses or tasers, consider augmenting your request with aversion therapy.

INTERMEDIATE

Deflect responsibility by blaming the other person for your actions. Your partner should love you, trust you, and continually monitor you for misbehavior, correcting you immediately and boldly should an unfavorable tendency arise, instead of just letting you do what you’re doing like some kind of pussy. Remember: Anytime anyone lets you get away with anything for any length of time before starting lame arguments, that person has essentially acted as your accomplice, and everyone knows that the only thing worse than a jerk is someone who puts up with a jerk. Make sure you remind your opponent of his or her failing in this regard with comments like “You should have pulled me aside and explained to me that you don’t enjoy being humiliated and degraded at dinner parties,” or “Look, no one made you go on a police chase with me” and “Well, I don’t remember anyone knocking any guns out of my hand back at the liquor store.” For emphasis, never forget to add, “I’m not a mind-reader.”

Ask for examples/criticize your partner’s inability to forgive and forget past infractions. This is an especially clever one-two punch of strategy. The beauty of this tactic: If your opponent refuses to honor your request for past instances of this “pattern” of bad behavior they’re claiming, their accusations seem baseless and unjustified. If they do honor your request for examples, they can be painted as unreasonably bitter and resentful people who tally up your every mistake to be used against you later. This move was probably invented by Chuck Norris; it’s that triumphant. “Name one time I murdered any of your friends and buried them in the basement,” you can say adamantly, and the minute they take the bait, that’s your cue for sarcastic jokes like, “What, you’re the district attorney now? Got an entire legal brief all filled out, do you? Excuse me — I didn’t realize we were in a court of law!” [Note: Does not work in an actual court of law.]

Pretend you were just about to criticize them for something even worse. “I’m glad you brought up my lack of punctuality,” you can say, leaning forward in your chair and pulling off your glasses for emphasis, “because I’ve been meaning to talk to you about your halitosis, which smells way worse than my lack of punctuality.” If they say something like, “Can we stay on topic? I was trying to talk to you about how late you were for my mother’s funeral,” say sarcastically, “Oh, so we’re just going to talk about what I do wrong? How convenient.”

Agree enthusiastically … and very melodramatically. Nothing confuses an opponent like wholehearted agreement: “You’re right. I guess that sometimes, I do leave the little foil cap from my yogurt container on the countertop until it curdles. I guess I’m the worst spouse in the entire world. I guess maybe I should just give myself twenty hangnails or slam my face in a door a thousand times. I guess you deserve somebody better than a pathetic loser like me. I don’t even know why you’re still here. Maybe you should just leave.” Your annoyed opponent will reflexively attempt to disagree with you … which they can only accomplish by telling you that you aren’t so bad after all! Abracadabra, motherfucker.

Apologize … but for the wrong thing. Not everyone is a careful listener. Try your luck with a bait-and-switch apology, like, “I’m sorry … that I’m not perfect,” or “I’m sorry … that you’re a nitpicking whore.” Mumble the last few words if necessary. For extra style points, throw in the mind-bending “I’m sorry my apology isn’t good enough for you.”

ADVANCED

Listen. Review your internal footage and realize that you, without fail, assume you are right. Recognize the alarming uniformity of this assessment. Consider the problem at hand, which likely represents a minor cultural, philosophical, or personality difference, and suggest solutions. Form a plan of action, and thank your partner for being candid and for caring enough to work on this relationship with you. If the cultural, philosophical, or personality difference does turn out to be major, you should probably break up and find someone who agrees with you on the important things, so you can be happy in your relationship. Downsides include a lack of claim to victimhood, the painful acknowledgment of personal flaws, and limited opportunities for theatrical flair.

IF ALL ELSE FAILS

Threaten to kill yourself. It’s a bit of a non sequitur, sure, but when you think about it, suicide is the ultimate tantrum, and its advantages are legion. For starters, dead people can’t lose arguments, so your opponent is likely to feel threatened by your guaranteed (if costly) victory. Second, your threat to kill yourself will convince the other person that you care a whole lot — that this is not just a relationship that’s important to you, but a relationship worth dying for. Meanwhile, their caring for you will cause them to fight even harder for the life you are so selflessly abandoning in the name of love. It’s like a Catch 22 of caring, and logic puzzles like that can keep people conveniently and frantically occupied all night long, you sly dog. If you’re the type to fling yourself to the linoleum and sob, railroad tracks are the logical choice. For a more sophisticated poetic metaphor about being pushed over the edge, any tall structure will suffice. Staplers should only be used as a last resort.

After dinner, we curled up together under the swaying lights and sipped wine as the train horn blew and the lights of towns and farms and factories rolled by outside our second-story window. It was, in a word, perfect.

If this were a lifestyle blog, I would have accompanied the above story with a smattering of darling pictures full of polka-dot ribbons and neat handwriting, and that would be it. But I don’t want that to be it.

I want to be more than my own dollhouse.

I even think I have an obligation, as a human being, not just to try to be more, but to tell you about it here, even if that’s uncomfortable for both of us.

With the life I’ve lived, I might as well have been shot into outer space, climbing into a gleaming rocket and offering that grubby cluster of open-mouthed kids a salute before I took off. I have enjoyed beauty beyond what any of us could have imagined when most of my friends were prying switches from trees in the front yard and peeling off their leaves while the adults stood in doorways, waiting to wield the weapon on its weeping deliverer. I once swam in the pool at the top of the Tokyo Park Hyatt (better known as the Lost in Translation hotel) while the sun set around me. And then there was the gigantic Jacuzzi tub in New Zealand, the one with my breakfast plate balanced on its edge and the gorgeous view of sheep-dotted hills rising up outside its window. And that dinner in the enormous square, at night, in Spain, with all of its balconies and the hundreds of dioramas behind them—some partially shuttered, some flung wide open for all to see. The hotel in Chicago where a maid delivered freshly baked cookies in the afternoon. The first-class suite on the airplane to Los Angeles, where I had my own bed and my own little salt and pepper shakers.

These are extreme examples, of course, rare and unusual gifts or perks that I never could have afforded if I were footing the bill. But that’s the thing about cultural and intellectual privilege: people start giving you advantages that the poor don’t have access to. The dynamic of life favors you more heavily without you noticing, because it doesn’t occur to you that the doorman doesn’t offer the same expression to everyone.

Even in my ordinary life, I’ve funded plenty of my own smaller, more common indulgences, whether I paid for them with cash or time: lattes, salon visits, gym memberships, throw pillows, cupcakes. The kind of indulgences that arrive topped with whipped cream or in a pretty box. The kind that almost anyone I’m likely to associate with can and does routinely afford, even as most of us lament how broke we are. The kind we barely recognize as indulgences at all, because not everyone can afford to choose the color of their walls.

I just wanted to be happy. No matter how much money you have or what you spend it on, I’m sure you do, too. Almost all of us have assumed, correctly or otherwise, that our happiness is the point, or that our children’s happiness is the point.

My life experiences have certainly not been fruitless. I was happy. I am happy. Hell, I’m often drunk on a complex cocktail of profound gratitude, enjoyment, wonder. I’m not here to present my life or yours as meaningless. I’m not discounting our search for beauty, our ability to foster tiny joys by way of coat buttons or key hooks. At least we are joyful. Plenty of privileged people aren’t, choosing instead to exist in a state of astonishingly steady outrage, paired with an amusing but unflattering air of disbelief, as if the rest of us climbed onto the bus to utopia this morning and left without them.

So, no. None of us are monsters. Many of us have used the significance of matrimony as an excuse to spend more money on one evening of our lives than it would have cost to buy my brilliant childhood friend an entire associate’s degree at the community college. But we still aren’t monsters, not really. That’s how complicated this is.

We do make choices that we don’t recognize as choices. We do use “need” in a way that would baffle or disgust anyone still stranded in my old stomping grounds. Some of our bucket lists don’t have a single item on them that isn’t about getting something we want. Some of us don’t even realize alternative options exist, because we have, often with the best of intentions, made universes out of ourselves.

But I think we could be more. I think we could climb out of our own stories if we realized our allegiance to those narratives, our servitude to that photo of a kiss at sunset.

Listen, I get it. I once slept in an $800 hotel room in Tokyo. I understand. I just want to be more than my own life. I want to walk out of the dollhouse and make stories that aren’t about me at all. If you want to be more, too, we should talk about it. If you don’t, the rest of this series is probably not for you. I’m not looking for a fight, I’m not interested in making you feel guilty, and I’m not here to convince you of anything you don’t already know. I just want to be more.

Let’s recap: online dating made me miserable. If I logged on to slog through my messages, that only made things worse—the “Now Online!” flag on my profile would send another deluge of messages from every godforsaken corner of humanity, including some along the rather creepy lines of I KNOW YOU’RE THERE.

I didn’t feel excited about dating; I felt burdened by it. I didn’t skip to my inbox in anticipation; I dreaded opening it. I was unhappy. Things needed to change.

But when I suspended my account, I hadn’t given up. Not at all.

My personal philosophy is that, barring really unusual circumstances like a recent death in the family, my unhappiness can be blamed not on my circumstances, but on my orientation to those circumstances. When I’ve written about this before, I’ve used the metaphor of snorkeling in the ocean: if you try to stand up or dog-paddle in your fins and snorkel, the ocean beats the crap out of you while you flail around looking ridiculous. Once you’ve oriented yourself properly to the water by floating on its surface instead, suddenly you’re a part of the waves, which lift you up and down without you noticing, and everything is beautifully peaceful.

Same circumstances. Different approach. Less work. Far better experience.

A more recent, even simpler example: I recently spent an hour cursing the violent side-to-side swaying of the BART train, which caused my upper body (and thus my line of sight) to jostle about wildly from left to right and back again while my laptop screen stayed put. I was … unflatteringly nonplussed, we’ll say, as a polite euphemism for the actual level of surliness involved. On the way home, it hit me: I needed only to sit in a seat that faced the side of the car, rather than the back or front, and my laptop and line of sight would stay perfectly aligned. I hopped up to test my theory, experienced the triumph of a proven hypothesis, and then typed merrily the rest of the way home as the sway rolled right through me.

Over time, I’ve developed a confidence that one can do this sort of thing with almost one’s entire life. The best part? The happier alternative is not usually any more work, and is often much easier.

It was time to design an OKCupid approach for myself that worked.

First, I reviewed whether OKC was really the way to go. Sure, OKC is largely populated by men who, to put it very politely, could not be trusted to realistically predict their compatibility with me, but so is the world; if you’re moderately attractive and have a vagina, walk into a bar anywhere and you will find this to be true. Sure, OKC allowed these men an uncomfortable level of access to me, but you can’t squeeze my ass through my inbox, so that’s a flat-out win for OKC. OKC also allowed me to form a crude prediction of intelligence and humor even after zero interaction with the person in question, which could potentially save me a lot of time even considering the margin of error involved.

When you consider its strengths versus the dog-eat-dog, guy-hump-girl jungle of the real world, OKC might just be the best filtration system there is. It is, by design, a brilliant tool, and yet I hated it.

So what was I doing wrong?

A huge myth in dating, and one that showed up both in my e-mail inbox and in the comments section in my previous post, is that, as someone who would like to have a relationship with someone, you owe it to yourself to explore every possible avenue. Dating is not for the weak or the lazy! Forget whether you’re becoming increasingly depressed, forget whether you’re becoming increasingly exhausted: you had better give everyone a chance, or don’t you dare complain about how hard it is to find someone.

Happiness is work, okay? So you get your skinny jeans on and you get your ass in that restaurant chair and you make sparkling conversation with every last potential suitor until your tongue wears through at the base and plops out onto the tablecloth.

After all, how can I expect to find a man if I walk around ruling people out?

The prevailing wisdom is that you’re doing yourself a disservice by reducing your chances of a relationship in any way, regardless of the quality of that relationship and regardless of whether anyone on earth with half a life really has the time to date with this level of gusto.

None of those comments or e-mails considered how much time I can afford to spend on dating. None of them consider whether it’s really healthy for me to devote my brainpower to giving 1,692 men the benefit of the doubt (and most of these men honestly could not be differentiated from one another in terms of quality, so unless my commenters have a rubric for choosing “hey LOL” over “hi whats up,” 1,692 is what I would be stuck with). All of them assume that being single is something I want to avoid at any cost.

If I have to earn love by spending all of my free time by offering chances to anyone who wants one, well, that’s just the price of finding a man.

The sad thing about this demoralizing, all-consuming effort is that it doesn’t even work any better. How on earth are you going to find the right person if you’re busy and tired and preoccupied? How are you going to find Mr. Awesome if you’re continually already dating Mr. Meh?

I also think that some of those comments echo this sulky bullshit sentiment that has soaked into society to the point that even WOMEN will criticize me for refusing to talk to total creeps: Heyyy, honey, you looking fine today. What’s up, baby? Oh, what, you’re too good to talk to me? You think you’re too good for me?

Thanks for the brainwashing, patriarchy.

Thinking you’re too good for someone. That’s this damning accusation somehow, even if I don’t really understand how; I’m choosing who gets to sleep with me, not cutting in front of people at the DMV. Of course we think we’re too good for some people—hell, most people. We are our entire point of reference regarding humanity; studies have shown that almost all of us will describe ourselves as above average. We have never been anyone else, and from where we’re standing, we are better than all kinds of people. That’s human nature, for God’s sake.

The good news is that the best of us grasp that we are making this judgment, this “who is better” judgment, according to our own extreme bias, not any sort of objective truth. The best of us realize that, no matter how superior we might feel from our perspective, it isn’t really about human worth, but about compatibility and the lack thereof.

Come on. I’m a raging intellectual do-gooder who loves poetry and literature and quantum physics. I am never going to love some guy who would hoot at me on the street, and so what?

I can want whatever I want. I can demand that my date pick me up in a yacht, wearing a banana costume, singing “Peanut Butter Jelly Time.” I can insist on a vegan, pro-life Republican Unitarian Universalist. I can demand whatever I want, with just one catch: I have to be willing to die alone if I don’t get it. I have to have performed a cost-benefit analysis that tells me that being alone is not the worst thing that could happen to me—not by far. I have to figure out where that threshold is, and as long as I do that with a decent degree of accuracy, being alone is guaranteed to make me happier than entering into a relationship that does not meet these terms.

Contrary to those commenters, I don’t think it’s in my best interest to sacrifice those standards, and I don’t want you to sacrifice your standards, either. Just be honest with yourself about what you can’t live with, and if the resulting list of demands makes you look like a prissy snob, so be it. Maybe most would say you are. Who cares?

It horrifies me that my dating rule about my own body, and who has access to it, could possibly be considered unreasonable or selfish, as if it’s my duty as a single person to remain as convenient and cooperative of a human being as possible even when it comes to sexual boundaries. Can dating, this incredibly personal process where you choose someone who will wield enormous emotional clout over you and your well-being, please be the one arena where you aren’t expected to sacrifice such things in the name of political correctness?

After thinking all of this over, I came to the exact opposite conclusion of those commenters, and I realized my error.

I, in my sweet innocence, had been looking for someone to date. The counterintuitive truth? I should have been looking for people to reject.

As inspiration dawned, I sat back down at my computer and opened a fresh OKC profile. Just like that, Operation Trapdoor Spider was born.

Just a few weeks after announcing my availability to the world on OKCupid, I declared the endeavor a complete disaster and deactivated my account.

What went wrong? Let’s review!

THEY DIDN’T INTEREST ME

This isn’t really anyone’s fault; it’s just the truth. Maybe they were clearly incapable of facing the fact that they were balding, which is my admittedly shallow but ironclad dealbreaker. Maybe they listed Transformers as their favorite movie. Maybe they made what initially appeared to be hilarious jokes about their giant stuffed-animal collection … except those “jokes” turned out to just be factual information about their giant stuffed-animal collection. (This actually happened.)

Regardless of the reason, I knew right away that it wasn’t going to happen with a lot of these dudes. But what about the rest of them?

THEY FAILED TO BRING THEIR A-GAME

Wasting my time with a four-word message is bad enough, but winking at me? Really? Since when does this work, even in the real world? Men, have you ever winked at a woman in public, without making any other effort at all, and had her come running after you to proposition you?

“I couldn’t help but notice that you winked at me back there,” she said breathlessly, “and I’m hooked! You had me at squeezing one eye shut while leaving the other one conspicuously open.”

You might have the best profile in the world, but I’ll probably never see it. Winking at me or sending me four words of text is like leaving your waitress a two-cent tip: we’re both going to decide we deserved more, and we’d both be more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt if you had given us nothing at all.

THEY INSULTED ME IN HOPES OF DRAWING ME INTO AN EXCHANGE

Nice try, but no.

THEY APPEARED HATEFUL TOWARD WOMEN AS A MEANS OF COMPLIMENTING ME

“Finally, a girl with ACTUAL intelligence who isn’t a desperate skank!”

Uh … thanks?

Having slogged through the dating trenches myself, I do have some sympathy. There were certainly times when my OKCupid inbox made me feel as if I had holed myself up in my apartment and was shoving mouth-breathing zombies back with a broom through a chain-locked door while they reached through the gap in an effort to grope at my boobs.

But listen, bitter isn’t sexy, and if you want to actually find the intelligent feminist you’re looking for, coining terms like “bar mongoloid” (true story) is not going to get you there.

THEY BLAMED THE DATING CULTURE FOR THEIR MISDEEDS

When I call men out on bad behavior, they often say, “But you don’t know what it’s like out there. A lot of women DO want me to compliment their tits, on account of their desperate appetite for validation, and to text them incessantly, because a lot of women are so needy that they insist on knowing I’m always thinking of them! I’m a well-meaning victim of conditioning who is just trying to give your gender what it asked for!”

I’m confused as to why men will claim that society is forcing them to cater to women who are nothing like me while telling me I’m the only type of woman they could imagine a future with.

Don’t call me ten times a day while telling me that you wouldn’t call me ten times a day if it weren’t for all the peer pressure from the ladies. Your behavior represents you. It is who you are, and it is your responsibility. Do what the woman you would want would want. Put even more simply: be yourself.

THEY WANTED CREDIT FOR WHAT THEY HADN’T DONE

Sometimes, nice guys finish last because they mistakenly perceive being nice as an epic accomplishment when being nice is actually just a requirement for basic human decency. Quit pouting because you aren’t getting credit for not cheating on women or beating them, and then start actively being awesome. When women discuss men they’re excited about, they don’t say, “Get this: he hasn’t stabbed me in the face with an icepick—not even once!”

THEY MADE IT SEXUAL

I have zero daddy issues, I respect myself, and nothing in my ad leaned toward anything sexual; even my story about a six-thousand-dollar sex doll was family-friendly (sort of). That means that sexualizing me before you’ve met me or gotten to know me at all is just going to seem lecherous. I cannot abide by men who Take Liberties in this regard; I’m never going to see it as anything but ignorant of the fact that sex is the least of what I have to offer.

I’m not looking for a eunuch, just someone who has the good sense to keep his fantasies to himself until they don’t seem, you know, creepy as all hell.

THEY MESSAGED ME MULTIPLE TIMES BEFORE I COULD GET BACK TO THEM

I’ve already written about this, so I’ll just quote myself, if you don’t mind:

“If there is one single, crucial dating concept that single men and women everywhere need to grasp, it’s this: WAIT YOUR TURN. The failure to apply this simple rule in dating is staggeringly universal. If you are still single after years and years of sighting that spark of interest in someone’s eyes, only to wind up baffled and empty-inboxed, it’s probably because you don’t wait your turn.

“You can’t charm your way out of it. [By sending multiple messages without waiting for a reply,] you are being impatient and disrespectful. You are communicating that you want dating to happen on your schedule, that you have no impulse control, and that you do not grasp the basic tenets of give-and-take that are so key to a relationship. The privilege of setting the pace of this interaction is not yours alone, so don’t claim it as such.

“Sometimes, they aren’t going to respond, even if you do it right and just send that one, disciplined, not-too-desperate-or-infatuated e-mail. But if they didn’t answer one e-mail, are they really going to answer five? And is the annihilation of your pride worth the slim chance that they will?”

THEY DIDN’T LISTEN

I had a few first-date rules that I communicated plainly (and, after some practice, unapologetically): everyone pays for their own stuff; everyone adheres to a casual “jeans and sneaks” sort of dress code; and no one makes a move on the first date. I won’t go out with anyone who doesn’t agree to these rules: no hard feelings, but we clearly want different things.

I created these rules to eliminate some of the awkward first-date “how is this supposed to go?” uncertainty, but it didn’t take long for another enormous benefit to reveal itself: I suddenly had a very easy way to determine whether my date was capable of following simple instructions.

If you pressure me to let you pay for dinner after I’ve made it clear that I’m a girl who goes dutch, you can’t be trusted to stick to your word or respect my boundaries … and if you imply that I’m ungrateful because I refuse to accept your money, that just tells me you like to use the guilt and doubt of good people as tools for manipulation.

Those rules turned out to be an excellent bullet-dodging method. I can’t recommend such things enough.

THEY MAINTAINED ABSURD, HOLLYWOOD-STYLE EXPECTATIONS

Hollywood has sort of screwed me over with the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. You know her: she’s played by Kirsten Dunst or Natalie Portman or Emma Roberts. She’s the unique, intelligent, witty girl who is here to fix all of your problems, solve the puzzle of your previously elusive happiness, and pull you out of your broody, lonely, misunderstood shell so that you can join her on an amazing journey that redefines your life. If she has flaws, they’re harmlessly endearing, and if she has dreams or aspirations, they center around finding someone like you to offer free therapy sessions to.

The men who almost got it right, the men who were so close (but so far away), were the ones who dodged the typical mistakes only to fail miserably at recognizing that I am my own person, with my own shortcomings and ambitions and busy schedule. I hadn’t been waiting for them to find me, and I didn’t power down in their absence, staring blankly at the walls and waiting for my hero to return, the main character so necessary to breathe life into my supportive, peripheral little existence.

These men also failed to understand that any glittery personality comes at a price. They loved how shrewd and kooky and funny I was … they just wished I could get rid of all the complications and neuroses.

Oh, man. I can’t not laugh at that.

Not only is the very best humor forged in a furnace fueled by suffering and mental dysfunction, but there isn’t an interesting person alive who doesn’t have baggage.

Relationships are inconvenient as it is; a relationship with an eccentric individual will be even more so. That’s the price you pay for all of this delicious weirdness. Dating a hilarious, brainy, original woman in hopes of a straightforward, servile relationship is like bringing home a pet tiger in hopes that he will fetch your newspaper for you every morning. Good luck with that.

THEY … WAIT, THIS ONE WAS COMPLETELY MY FAULT

The last mistake I want to talk about was the biggest one in the list … and it was mine. Recognizing it, and fixing it, may just have been the best thing I did all year.

A few days after my new roller-derby league’s first practice at the rink, I moved into my new apartment, a decrepit studio roosted atop the tiny row of shops on Main Street. My mother had been right: it was exactly the sort of outdated decor I’d find endearing, complete with hideous linoleum. (Floral and geometric? How exotic!) The place had no shower and a kitchen sink that sprayed water in three different directions (none of them “downward,” sadly). But my parents had kindly applied a stunning new paint job to it, and I noted its crystal doorknobs, arched doorways, deep cast-iron tub, and built-in cabinetry with approval.

I scored this wee residence for a pittance of $500 a month, including heat and water.

At the time, I was trying to take a picture of my bike, not my apartment. That’s probably obvious.

This felt like home, for sure. It was the realm outside those walls I was less certain about.

In the movies, smaller-town life is often portrayed as charming and quaint, and it certainly can be. Take the airport, for instance. You can just … park right there, in the lot in front of it, like it’s Target. Finding your gate shouldn’t be too hard, either—there are only seven of them, lined up in a row. The most awkward part will happen once you’ve been led outside to your plane, as it can be difficult to clamber up that funny metal staircase-on-wheels while clutching your carry-on. (It helps to pretend that you are the president of the United States, or perhaps a very successful 1960s musician.)

So yes, it’s quirky. It’s endearing. But sometimes, it’s also heartbreaking.

When I was young, someone I loved, someone I associated with sweet tea and summer and perfectly buttered mashed potatoes, turned away from her stove, looked me up and down, and asked me to promise her that I would not grow up gay. I sat there, perched on one of her kitchen chairs, and I promised.

She did not ask me to promise that I wouldn’t grow up black, but I’m guessing that’s only because I was a safer bet on that one.

I think it’s probably easier to pass judgment on the Midwestern universe if you don’t associate it with lightning bugs and pie, but trust me, I’m painfully aware of its shortcomings. The only two black kids at my high school dated one another in the most foregone conclusion in prom history. A few Latino kids roamed the halls as well, always together; we referred to them collectively as the Spanish Armada. I was in my twenties before I realized that Buddhists were not in the habit of worshipping a fat golden idol, as I had been taught.

And then there was the “hell house,” the Christian version of a haunted house offering its patrons a montage of all the misdeeds that can send one to eternal damnation, including the infamous abortion scene. Let’s not forget “Heaven’s Gates and Hell’s Flames,” a popular play I attended completely unironically as a teenager, which depicts Satan yanking people into hell, including small children who had died in a car accident after choosing to go fishing with their father instead of attending church with their mother that Sunday.

If none of that impresses you, I can tell you that when a bride I know chose an ivory dress for her wedding, she was asked, with great concern, how anyone would know she was a virgin. I guess she was kind of asking for it, though, strutting around in a color the manufacturer had labeled “Candlelight” like some kind of two-penny whore.

By the time I returned last year, things had gotten better, and yet.

I froze when I heard the phrase “openly homosexual” used to imply audacity, and I excused myself entirely when someone my age dropped the n-word at a party (though I wasn’t surprised; on a previous visit home, a young man at a similar gathering had explained to me it wasn’t that he was racist—it was that Mexicans were lazy). I just quietly hoped for the best when one of my skaters would acknowledge that her boyfriend or husband, the same one who would call her ten times an hour anytime she left the house without him, felt threatened by her desire to pursue their own interests. I tried to control my temper when people asked me whether any of my skaters were gay.

“Some people ask if we’re a bunch of lesbians,” one skater told me worriedly.

“The next time someone asks you that, ask them why it would matter if you were,” I responded, once I had managed to quell my inner rage well enough to avoid alarming her with the vehemence of my reply.

The question so common, they even made a T-shirt about it. (The “Yes, Mom, roller derby made me gay” shirt is even better, but alas, it no longer appears to be sold anywhere.)

The promise to not grow up gay, the one I made before I had any idea how horrified my adulthood friends would be to hear of it, highlights the paradox of Midwestern childhood. You want that woman at the stove to be evil, to be hateful, but she isn’t. She is profoundly lovable. They are profoundly lovable. They’ll pull the beaters out of the cake batter and hand them to you to lick clean before shooing you out of the kitchen. They’ll turn on the sprinklers for you to run through, and they’ll put the chain back on your bike even if you’re just the neighbor kid passing by. When the streetlights wake up and call you home, they’ll usher you in and bandage your scuffed knees and scrub your hands soapy clean.

And then, after they’ve passed the plates and broken the bread, they’ll share their wisdoms earnestly, with the pitch-perfect believability of people who have no idea they are wrong.

I was wrong, too, it turns out. I thought I would one day be able to look back on that promise I made as a child and see it as more intolerant than anything that happens anywhere else. I hoped to escape the suspicion and hatred that so many people around me expressed anytime they encountered someone different. These aspirations, of course, conveniently ignored my own capacity for widespread disdain and my own continual compulsion to sort everyone into an Us box and a Them box. Oops.

When I left to find this utopia, the inhabitants of my small town were the nicest people I knew. That’s not so strange; I hadn’t met anyone else. But it would have given me pause, back then, to know that this past year, sixty-nine cities and eleven countries later, I have confirmed that they still are.

I think I might owe them an apology.

These women, my skaters, worked so much harder than I expected, and with an astonishing level of humility and integrity. They weren’t too insecure to accept feedback. Having become used to dealing with the sort of identity-oriented fanaticism that can cause people to defend their choice of bicycle-gear style with rabid ferocity, I couldn’t believe how easily they would accept a suggestion, and even thank me for it.

And holy smokes, they made me laugh. Even their gratitude had a sense of humor, judging from the unicorn head on a stick I was offered as a token of their appreciation.

That picture was taken at a surprise birthday party they organized for me upon realizing that I knew hardly anyone in town besides them. Not a single one of them was vegan, but my birthday cake was. When I had decided to take the coaching position, I had been adamant that I would not tolerate bigotry or discrimination in my league, but in retrospect, I had little reason to worry about it. At practice, it was not unusual to see a Mormon skater standing next to a Wiccan skater standing next to a butch woman in a COUGAR BAIT T-shirt.

The Midwestern stereotype still exists for a reason, of course, but guess what? It’s just a stereotype, and it’s not the only one out there. On average, perhaps big-city folk are less likely to judge you for being gay than their rural counterparts, but an alarming number of them will judge you for almost everything else you can imagine, including visible pantylines and meals at chain restaurants. They are more progressive, but they can also be more shallow and almost exhausting in their hatred of any fashion trend or any style of tattoo or any other gesture that could be seen as conformist or contrived or played out.

I know Midwesterners who would not be caught dead at a gay wedding or at a rap concert. I know city dwellers who would not be caught dead eating at Olive Garden or wearing a scrunchie. In either scenario, the person in question has an overblown sense of impropriety. In either scenario, a sense of prim virtue is maintained. In either scenario, someone has to be inferior.

I mean, really, “the flyover states”? I know people who will defend the rights of animals and ethnic groups and drag queens but will still use that expression in mixed company.

Before the credits rolled on my cinematic year, I didn’t learn that home is where the heart is. I didn’t find where I belonged. I didn’t tear up any plane tickets or stick a SOLD! sign in the yards of any picturesque houses or make any other dramatic declarations that the Midwest is the place to be. Much to my regret, I did not deliver a baby cow and then name it Norman and adopt it, Billy Crystal style.

But I did confirm that kindness and positivity get more done than a subscription to any particular creed or belief system, and that intolerance and bigotry are both more widespread and less uniformly present in any given group of people than a lot of us enjoy believing.

“Man, I bet you’re glad to be out of there!” is a sentiment I hear frequently now that I’ve moved to the Bay Area–a subtle, sometimes anxious request for confirmation that I don’t have a Glenn Beck poster on my bedroom ceiling. I don’t really mind, but I can’t help but laugh at the irony: if I wanted to walk around promising people that I’m just like them and always will be, I might as well have never left home.

We’re not so different after all? Make love, not war?

I guess these do kind of sound like themes from a cheesy movie. I may not be Emilio Estevez, but I don’t call it my cinematic year for nothing. And I have to warn you … it gets worse.

Right after I let my mom talk me into a variety of cheesy poses, of course. First things first.

I called it Operation Hobo: a quest to pare down my possessions to a scant 75 cubic feet of cargo, give or take the passenger seat.

I spent a year on it. I didn’t just downsize; I peeled myself like an onion, shedding previously unarticulated misconceptions about how much I needed to own to be happy. I said good-bye over and over again. I gave away the paintings on my walls, any fixture I could pry away, even the bed beneath me.

I even got a smaller toothbrush holder. Yes, really:

I threw out cards, notes, letters, and two entire garbage bags full of photographs (relax—I scanned my favorites). I did keep one card, from Kerri Anne, delivered to me at a very dark time, when my life was in a stomach-churning state of collapse:

The above is now the only framed image I own, but I hope you will agree that I chose wisely.

The joy of Operation Hobo caught me off-guard, I think. The most ordinary tea mug has a precious heft in your hands when you’ve chosen it so deliberately, when you’ve eyed a cluttered box of them on the floor of your kitchen, picked it up, and thought, this.

If you’re willing to forsake all else, you can build such refreshingly, sweetly nascent memories around what little remains. You can reconnect with what it feels like to have potential, to own more possibility than anything else, rather than accidentally transitioning into a routine of maintenance as the curator of your own maxed-out life.

I don’t mean to be condescending about people who own shelves of china and candles and … I don’t know, those decorative balls of glass that look like Christmas ornaments but are not Christmas ornaments. I don’t mean to sound as if someone’s life is pointless and suburban because they enjoy a good tealight holder and a nicely painted fruit bowl. It’s not like reducing my T-shirt count to four (yes, four) resulted in an automatic cure for cancer or anything.

All I can tell you is that I, personally, as an individual, was deeply unsatisfied with the way things were. I spent far too much of my time dusting my crap, arranging my crap, painting my crap, finding more crap I needed to go with my other crap, and suffering under the illusion that I would feel fulfilled and satisfied and happy just as soon as my life looked like something out of a Pottery Barn catalog and I were wearing the right pair of ballet flats and the most whimsical brooch.

If you have had a different experience, I will not only salute you, but I may also ask to borrow your flour sifter sometime.

I wanted everything to feel simpler. But, while a lot of wonderful discoveries came about as a result of Operation Hobo, I’m not sure simplicity was one of them.

The less you own, the harder it is to hide from everything still wrong with you. All of the dreams you have yet to realize, even now that your childhood is startlingly far behind you, are suddenly so much more starkly visible once you can’t distract yourself by petting fabric swatches or rearranging your bookshelves.

We’re always saying life is short, but honestly, if you stop staring at paint chips and shopping for throw pillows and arranging vases, if you have so little clothing (let alone accessories like scarves, necklaces, or earrings, of which I own none) that choosing an outfit is hardly an artistic endeavor, you would be surprised at how much time you have and how absolutely terrifying it can feel to have nowhere to put that energy.

You become almost the only particularly notable thing you own, and experimenting with rearranging a bookshelf into a rainbow pattern, it turns out, is far easier than experimenting with rearranging oneself. Where does one even begin?

I’m still figuring out what to do with myself now that my life has less to do with material things, and the alien, paradigm-shifting brain-meltingness of that task says a lot about our culture. It’s hard, but I’m still working on it, because I sincerely doubt that on their deathbeds, many people’s last words are, “I should have bought more stuff with sparrows on it. Oh, and that rug in the CB2 catalo—glaaaargh!”

The day I did it, the day I could finally fit everything I owned into my car, I climbed behind the wheel and laughed hysterically for about five minutes. It was hilarious and surreal and immensely satisfying to be able to carry all of myself everywhere, all at once, to steer it left and right and point it wherever I wanted it to go, and to have rid myself of more fear than I had ever known a person could keep within four walls.

And then, yes, I did drive it a very long way, all by myself.

The unfortunate truth, as you will surely discover, is that you secretly think you are better than almost everyone, and that you are so convinced of your own amazingness that you will probably be forced to die alone, wearing a smug and superior expression that will hopefully remain more or less intact despite spending the days subsequent to your expiration alone with your hungry, unscrupulous cats.

Thankfully, they have an autofeeder that will continue to dispense their meals three times a day until the batteries run out or until you are discovered by your landlord, the latter of which is extremely likely to come first.

You are no one’s fool.

The other good news is that in today’s world, you can just parlay your newfound sweeping disdain for your fellow men into some sort of feminine-empowerment riff by pretending that this simply means you have standards.

Not automatic and withering scorn for anything with a penis! Standards!

Is it possible to be humbled by the realization that you think you are better than everyone else? Only someone with my neurotic chops could be capable of feeling insecure about my arrogance. Lucky for me, I have a black belt in both paradoxical and circular thought, so throughout the dating process, I’ve managed to simultaneously become both increasingly chagrined and increasingly self-confident.

Something tells me the Dalai Lama would not be very impressed with any of this. He would also not be very impressed with this list I’m about to write.

I’m sorry, Dalai Lama. I really am. It’s been deeply demoralizing to fully grasp my own eminence.

THREE REASONS I AM BETTER THAN YOU

1. You are greedy.
I once asked a guy to coffee only to be told that he had “been hoping for something more serious.” I have never been able to get over this. I still chuckle over it fondly, shaking my head at the endearing foibles of mankind as I sit around alone in my sweatpants, covered in cat hair. Hoping! For something more serious! Listen, if I ask you out, and you are interested in me, the only decently strategic response is to accept with enthusiasm and then act as if the chai latte you’re drinking is the most transcendent mixture of syrup and hot milk to have ever warmed your gullet. Duh. But you blew it, so now I’m just going to have to drink tea alone in my underwear while watching the cats fight.

Pushiness is not sexy, and I have not been sitting around just waiting for an opportunity to be useful to someone like you. Take what you’re offered, emotionally and sexually, like a good sport, and there’s probably more where that came from. Scowl and express your disappointment that the person you like isn’t acting exactly as you desired or expected, and you seem entitled. Among other adjectives.

2. You have it backward.
Most men seem to be under the mistaken impression that I am concerned about whether they think I am awesome. I can’t really blame them for this, because some of them are operating on old data they gathered in high school, when girls were insecure messes so desperate for validation that they probably would have gone to the prom with a middle-aged gangland pimp if it meant that someone would ring their doorbell at six and tell them they were pretty.

Wake up and smell the dried corsages, boys: that was a pretty long time ago. These days, women, or at least any women you should want to date, already like themselves just fine, so they aren’t bound to fall all over themselves with excitement when you offer them some lukewarm and slightly condescending compliment, such as, “Hey, you’re kind of smart.”

Well, regardless of whether that’s true, I’m guessing we’re too smart for YOU, if that’s the best you could come up with.

See? Withering scorn, like I said. I am so sorry.

At any rate, let me enlighten you: If you are the instigator, if you are the one doing the pursuing, they aren’t worried about what you think of them. They are worried about what they think of YOU, this near-stranger who has stepped onto their radar and is now blocking their path to the vending machine. So don’t be surprised if we don’t melt into your arms the moment you flash us a dimple and ask us out as if you’re doing us a giant favor. Uh, who are you, again? And why do you merit the application of a flat-iron and the dragging out of the decent panties?

It’s incredible how often men expect me to feel excited that a guy, ANY guy, wants to have dinner with me, whether I know anything about him or not. Not only was I doing just fine without you, but you are standing between me and my Twix, and if you knew me better, you would realize the extent to which your life was in danger based on that fact alone. So the next time you offer me a compliment, try to sound sincere, not condescending. Better yet, do or say something interesting enough that I’M now the impressed one. Now that will get my attention.

Otherwise, I’ve got a hot date with a book and a Snuggie tonight, because that’s how elite humans spend their time.

3. You don’t know how to wait your turn.
If there is one single, crucial dating concept that single men and women everywhere need to grasp, it’s this: WAIT YOUR TURN. The failure to apply this simple rule in dating is staggeringly universal. If you are still single after years and years of sighting that spark of interest in someone’s eyes, only to wind up baffled and empty-inboxed, it’s probably because you don’t wait your turn.

They tried to teach you this in preschool, but you didn’t listen. Why wait for someone to text you back when you can text them forty times instead? Why e-mail once when you can e-mail four times: once to say you had a great time and to ask them out again, once to make sure they got the last one, once to apologize for the first two and promise that you aren’t really a stalker, and a fourth time begging for another chance long after the object of your affection has fled the country and joined the witness-protection program?

Some people try to be clever about it, by e-mailing and then texting and then posting on Facebook, because these are DIFFERENT MEDIUMS and that means that they really only technically contacted you once on each medium.

I hope this absurd logic cheers them in the dead of night as they struggle to drift off to sleep, cold and alone, clutching their phones in their hands in hopes of that return message that will never come–a realization they will only make after several false alarms in which they think that maybe they have an exciting and romantic e-mail but it turns out to just be something from Overstock.com.

Listen, you can’t charm your way out of it. You can’t joke your way around it. You can’t make up ridiculous excuses about how you would normally never e-mail a second time, but you just happened to find a stray button in the parking lot of the restaurant on your way to your car, and you thought it might be from her sweater.

You are being impatient and disrespectful. You are communicating that you want dating to happen on your schedule, that you have no impulse control, and that you do not grasp the basic tenets of give-and-take that are so key to a relationship.

The privilege of setting the pace of this interaction is not yours alone, so don’t claim it as such. The TWO of you set the pace, and too bad for you if you don’t find it quick enough for your liking.

Sometimes, they aren’t going to respond, even if you do it right and just send that one, disciplined, not-too-desperate-or-infatuated e-mail. But if they didn’t answer one e-mail, are they really going to answer five? And is the annihilation of your pride worth the slim chance that they will?

I certainly won’t. I’ll be too busy dancing by myself in my living room to really terrible Top 40 music while fashioning guitars out of my helpless pets. If you were wondering how the better half lives … well, now you know.

a) Like animals? I LOVE animals!

b) I’m an asshole.

***

2. Do you support yourself?

a) I like to think of myself as a professional live-with-my-mom-er. The pay sucks, but the fringe benefits include meatloaf and also never having to take any responsibility for myself ever.

b) Yes. Duh. I’m an adult.

c) I will be happy to support myself just as soon as I find a way to magically make work not suck. (This is not to say I’m not industrious–I have nine graduate degrees! So far!)

d) I do support myself, but it’s terrible. Like, we’re talking “coal mines” terrible, except more memos and less dying of black lung. My job is like being stuffed into an iron maiden that has been doused in lemon juice and then salted for maximum sting, and then having the door slammed on me again and again and again and again. The only silver lining to any of this is that it makes for absolutely fascinating dinner conversation. You’re welcome.

***

3. What are your flaws?

a) The only flaw I can think of is that I am sometimes followed around my bathroom by a man who looks like me and mimics my every behavior. He even brushes his teeth at the same time that I do. It’s really weird. Anyway, other than that, I guess I hadn’t really given my flaws much thought before.

b) My biggest flaw is that I suffer from an all-consuming fetish for crazy cat ladies.

c) My main flaw is that I am very sensitive about my flaws, okay? Are you happy now?

d) My parole officer says it doesn’t count as a flaw anymore if you’re already paid your debt to society.

***

4. I’m extremely absentminded and forgetful. Can you cope with that?

a) That incident where you forgot something is already forgotten by me in turn, on account of you being so damned brilliant. Not to mention pretty. Let’s make out.

b) Not only can I cope with that, but I am full of helpful and very earnest suggestions. For instance, did you know that you could hang your keys on a hook? Or use a day planner to schedule your daily activities? Or, I know! I will just cheerfully supervise to make sure you don’t screw up. Does your pained expression mean that you are uncomfortably turned on right now? I suppose that patronization IS sexy, now that I stop and think about it. C’mere, you.

c) I can’t answer this question because I’m too busy seething with resentment about the fact that we are twenty minutes late to dinner because you managed to lose your left shoe while traversing the seven feet between your front door and the car–even though you were wearing it at the time. I mean what the FUCK.

***

5. What are your feelings on children?

a) I should have named my twin girls Lub and Dup, because when you have kids, your heart really does walk around outside of your body. I never knew love until I had those children. Nor did I do anything else of significance that I can remember.

b) I enjoy other people’s children … sort of. In theory. When we aren’t on an airplane. Or in the grocery store. Or on vacation. Or trying to accomplish anything. Actually, if that kid over there says “Mom? Mom? Mom? Mom?” one more time and receives no answer, I will pay you fifty dollars to give me a salad-tong vasectomy right here in this restaurant.

c) I owe the world my children; it would be downright cruel to deny humanity my genetic material. What kind of lazy, selfish slacker doesn’t reproduce?

d) I rarely even think about children unless I actually trip over one when I’m sprinting toward the ice-cream truck. Bomb Pops are the best.

***

6. How would you describe your political stance?

a) Coincidentally enough, I am single in the first place because the homosexual agenda destroyed my American family in particular.

b) I’m actually very well informed in politics and I know exactly what everyone in Washington is doing wrong. I’d be happy to outline all of it for you just as soon as I’ve finished telling you how terrible my job is. You aren’t in a hurry to get home or anything, are you?

c) I wish we would nuke almost everyone else in the world and then bring back the electric chair in case there are any survivors.

d) I find it baffling that both the rights of the individual and the will of the majority are cited as the logical basis of decisionmaking in our government, which doesn’t actually make that much sense, as the two become mutually exclusive quite frequently. For the most part it hurts my head, but I generally don’t feel the need to be the boss of everyone and wouldn’t have voted in favor of Prop 8, if that’s what you’re asking.

***

7. Is it important to you that we live together/get married?

a) This conversation is already hurting my feelings.

b) Yes, desperately important and all I have ever wanted, but the fact that you are the first girl I’ve met who doesn’t want me to buy her a diamond actually fuels my infatuation with you and is, in fact, the only reason I’ve kept you around this long. Whatever you do, don’t give in, no matter how much I beg. Speaking of which … can we move in together yet? God it’s so hot when you break my heart like this.

c) Not really, no.

***

8. Are you happy?

a) No, but I can tell from your whimsical manner and joie de vivre that you could help me get there by taking me by the hand and leading me on a journey of self-discovery that will ultimately reveal the magic of the world around me, just like Natalie Portman in Garden State. Good grief, it’s about TIME that sort of thing happened in real life.

b) We all have our days, but most of the time, yes, I am.

c) Yes, but then again, I’m on a lot of drugs. No … like … a lot of drugs.

d) No … but in my defense, I am cursed. Judging from a wealth of empirical evidence, my fate is to wade through an endless stream of petty inconveniences designed specifically to obliterate any chance I might have had at experiencing joy or contentment. My existence is one continuous Nerf dart to the face. Do not get me started on papercuts.

***

9. Has life humbled you yet?

a) Of course life has humbled me. Nobody does humble like I do humble. I’m probably the humblest person you’re ever going to meet. Just the other day, I was probably more aware of my flaws and my insignificance in the scheme of things than anyone else. I make a point of winning at humble because otherwise someone might get confused and mistake me for a raging egomaniac.

b) Is this hearty burst of rueful laughter enough of an answer for you?

c) No, but that makes sense when you take into account that I am really, really special. Would my mom have spent so much time cutting all the crusts off my sandwiches if I weren’t? EXACTLY. Anyway, don’t take my word for it–the quality of the novel I’m writing will speak for itself. It’s about an underappreciated protagonist whose above-average attributes are finally recognized and validated with fame and fortune.

***

10. Hmm … you actually seem pretty awesome so far. Uh oh … are you crazy?

a) Shhhh. They can hear you … they can ALWAYS hear you.

b) I’m crazy for you, baby–like the Madonna song, if the Madonna song had been about stalking. Are you even getting these answers? I’d better resend them fourteen times just in case your comment form was on the fritz or your computer screen had been smashed in a jealous rage.

c) Yes, but as soon as I get rich, I’ll just be “eccentric.” The good news is, I can still be “charming” in the meantime.

d) No … but I’m kind of boring, it turns out. Whoops.

***
YOUR SCORE
1-3: Don’t date anyone.
4-6: Don’t date me or my friends.
7-9: Don’t date me.
10: You’re such a liar.

I don’t know that I’ve ever been as overcome with deja vu as I was when we walked down the jetbridge together, toward our plane. I don’t know how to explain the certainty of that moment, the certainty I have always felt at that moment when we receive our boarding passes and fall into step together, our luggage rolling into alignment behind us to form a rumbling procession, but I will try: it felt less like what we used to do and more like who we had always been. It didn’t feel nostalgic, but it did feel profoundly true. It felt like that little bit of home that you recognize even more readily when you are exploring somewhere else entirely.

This isn’t to say that we don’t experience the occasional culture shock. “I feel like I’m on the wrong side of the bed,” Jeff joked from his side of the room as we were falling asleep; he had always slept on my right, and we had accidentally claimed our beds backward. Likewise, when he is at my elbow, I am embarrassed to admit that I sometimes forget to pay for little things that I’m buying, like my own latte; he was always the one who carried our money.

Mostly, though, we just laugh, because if you don’t insist on getting all schmaltzy about it, it really is sort of funny, the way everything is the same and yet not at all the same, in this foreign country we find ourselves navigating.

Here is the thing I feel strange admitting in a culture hellbent on convincing everyone that divorce is some kind of cultural poison: I love having an ex-husband. It’s a shame I don’t have several more of them, really, in case the first one is too busy to go out to dinner or one of them gets hit by a bus or something, or maybe we just decide we want to play a more complex round of Monopoly than two people can allow for.

(Though, I suppose if I had several, I would have to change my plans to get a “#1 Ex-Husband” mug made for Jeff for his birthday, which would be a shame, because I think he’s going to get a kick out of it.)

Sometimes I don’t see him for months, but when I do, he always knows what sorts of restaurants I will like and which movies I’ll want to see. Awhile ago, we stood out in the cold so he could teach me to change my car headlight, and I met him at the coffee shop a few weeks ago to help him write a letter. He kept borrowing my snowboard, so eventually I just gave it to him; we’ve passed our DLP projector back and forth a few times now, depending on which of us is less busy and more in the mood to watch movies. I’ve told him he can have my car when I get around to getting another one (he still has the keys, and has been known to re-park it in the event that he sees a space closer to my door, which is nice except when it makes me feel as if I am going senile), and if/when I sell my book, some of that money (all four dollars of it) will be his, for supporting me as avidly as he did, both emotionally and financially, while I wrote most of it.

I married very well, it turns out. I am even more sure of that now that it’s over.

People tell me that what we claim to be doing is impossible–that we either did not have big enough problems from the outset or that we have not yet moved on romantically. “Oh, just wait until one of you remarries,” they say, because God forbid we all avoid getting ahead of ourselves and just enjoy some good news for once. (He has a girlfriendish who has far more claim to him than I do at this point, and I would totally go to his next wedding, if he would have me. My love life is even more complicated; frankly, Jeff is the simplest and most platonic thing in it.) There must be some reason, they contend, that we have been spared from animosity or estrangement, and obviously it is through no effort of our own. They list all the reasons that most people could not do what we have done, and they question whether our divorce was even necessary in the first place, forcing me to either explain to them in detail all of the awful things that Jeff and I have done to each other or endure the destruction of my credibility.

And you know what? I think people need to stop it, for their own sake. I think they need to stop assuming that it isn’t possible and start finding ways to make it possible, because not only is divorce not going away, but divorce is not even the problem, or at least it doesn’t necessarily have to be. I am not the only one in the history of divorce to feel that way–nor are such positive outcomes reserved for the childless. Jeff’s parents, for instance, used to move in and out of the family home every six months so that their children wouldn’t have to, and they remain friendly to this day. I grew up living up the street from duplex families who had mommies on the first floor and daddies on the second floor.

Can it always be done? Of course not; it takes two (and sometimes more than two, if new girlfriends and boyfriends and wives and husbands are involved). But I do think that, as a society, we need to learn to divorce better, because staying married is sort of like staying abstinent: the best solution is not the best solution at all if it routinely fails to happen, so perhaps we should stop acting as if life has to be so goddamned ideal all the time and start working with what we have.

Should you ever find yourself ending your marriage, I encourage you to draw solace from the manner in which various people console you. Many married people reacted to my situation with horror; what was happening to me was their worst-case scenario, romantically speaking–their monster under the bed. The smartest and coolest divorced people I know, on the other hand, were both more sympathetic and much less alarmed on my behalf. They didn’t say it, because they didn’t want to patronize me or minimize my pain, but if I had paid attention, I would have seen that, deep down, they never had any doubt that I would be fine, if I wanted to be.

Who are you going to listen to: the well-intentioned but inexperienced people who have never been through it and are nearly panicking on your behalf regarding everything miserable you will surely be required to endure, according to their imagined version of how awful divorce must be, or the people who have been there–the ones who reassure you calmly, discuss the situation without theatrics, and treat your eventual healing as a foregone conclusion, as if you are merely suffering one really epic zinger of a scraped knee?

If you have decided to listen to the latter, and you need to hear it one more time, I am ready to pass along that message, because it’s true: divorce happens, and it can’t erase you, and you will be fine, if you want to be.

This whole thing, this entire trip, has been so us. This is us, this exchange of gleeful expressions while we strap ourselves in. This is us, this passing back and forth across the aisle of headphones, powerbars, sweatshirts, and everything else we share as communal property in an unconscious habit ten years in the making. This is us, this tandem head-scratching over coins and rail passes and signs lettered in a foreign language. We stop, we lean in, we contemplate, we figure it out, and we keep going.

“You Are Here,” the maps tell us, and it’s true: we still are.