avflox's blog

Some time ago, I attended a party during which I found myself staring intently into the eyes of a man I knew. He is both physically and intellectually sexy, and he was staring at me like he wanted to devour me and pick his teeth with one of my ribs. Nothing happened between us, and a few days later during a conversation about social media, he asked why we didn't hook up that night. “I don't hook up,” I responded.

I hadn't gotten married yet when I was assigned to write about Valentine's Day for the first time. I had just gotten engaged, and was a month from getting married -- but I didn't know it, yet. “An obligation is exactly what Valentine’s Day has become to a lot of us,” I wrote. “And it’s not just an obligation to give a gift. For some of us who’re single, it’s a clear reminder that we’ve failed in our obligation to couple up.”

The dream, like that of our mothers and their mothers from time immemorial, was to fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after. Of course, we'd be loath to admit it in this day and age, but ask any soul-baring 40-year-old single heterosexual woman what she most longs for in life, and she probably won’t tell you it's a better career or a smaller waistline or a bigger apartment. Most likely, she’ll say that what she really wants is a husband (and, by extension, a child).

JULIET: Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say "Ay," and I will take thy word: yet if thou swear'st, thou mayst prove false; at lovers' perjuries then say, Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo, if thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully: or if thou think'st I am too quickly won, I'll frown and be perverse an say thee nay, so thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.

Like thousands of people around the country this month, my friend Gina re-activated her dating site profile this January. “New year, new start!” she said, excitedly, puffing on a cigarette as we cruised the PCH with the top down, the cool winter breeze blowing through our hair. “I'm doing this new thing, too, called 'sober dating.'” “Not drinking on dates?” I asked.